Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Naruto, and Naruto does not own this. Wish I did own Naruto though... Sighs
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Chapter 2 – Tears
-Meanwhile, back in the village or what was left of it,-
"Hinata! Hinata! Breathe! Are you alright? Hinata!"
"Hinata-sama!!"
"Hinata-san!"
Who is that? Why are they calling my name? What is going on? Why can't I open my eyes? Hinata could only wonder as she felt like falling asleep. The pale lavender haired girl was compelled to let darkness take hold of her as she drifted in and out of sleep.
"Move it! Let me help her! Sakura! What's her status right now?" a powerful voice that brooked no argument sounded loudly beside Hinata. Tsunade walked towards the group that was surrounding Hinata and kneeled beside the unconscious body.
"Her body suffered no outer injuries during that attack but it seems like her injuries were all internal instead. Three of her ribs have been fractured and one of them has pierced her lung. Internal bleeding is expected as well. Her stomach seems to have been slightly injured by the ribs but the extent of the damage done to her seems to be unknown yet." a voice that could only been Sakura replied.
"Damn! Alright, we have no time now to move her. Sakura, begin using healing chakra here and here. I will cover the rest. Be careful to control your chakra. This is going to be very tough on her and us. One mistake and it could doom her. Let's begin!" Tsunade started to gather all her chakra and focused it onto her palms. She started directing it towards Hinata's ribs as she tried to use her chakra control to carefully remove the rib that pierced Hinata's lung.
Sakura followed suit as she healed Hinata with the best of her abilities. Sweat poured from both ladies as they were expending large amount of chakra and at the same time controlling it to ensure that nothing would go wrong with Hinata. As they worked carefully, worry could be seen on the crowd gathering around the unconscious kunoichi. Kiba was pacing around with Akamaru; Neji was standing there just staring at Hinata prone body. Tenten and Lee both walked up towards Neji and patted him on the shoulders to comfort him, giving him moral support. Fear and frustration could be seen on everyone's faces as they have to deal with the pain of maybe losing one of the Rookie 12 if things were to look for the worst.
This feeling… So soothing… Ahh… Hinata was drifting in about in darkness in her mind. She felt a sharp stinging sensation coming from her body before being enveloped in a bath of glowing green light. She felt warmth trickling over her as the pain started to ease away. Slowly she felt energy returning to her once more. What happened to me? I remember Pein blowing up the village… He was going to kill Tsunade-sama but was suddenly interrupted by Naruto-kun… NARUTO-KUN!! Hinata suddenly remembered everything. Her watching Naruto fight Pein alone. Him being held down by Pein. Her coming to his rescue only to be shoved away to the side by Pein. The blackout that came after.
Slowly, Hinata pushed herself to open her eyes to see the situation. She was greeted with a vision of white and black spots that danced in her view. Hinata blinked a few times before her vision gradually returned, to see Tsunade staring at her eyes with relief. "She's awak…" Tsunade said before she was interrupted by a loud explosion.
BOOM!!
What happened? What was that explosion? Naruto-kun please be safe… Hinata thought before she drifted off to darkness again.
Tsunade was relieved to see Hinata open her eyes after spending a lot of chakra trying to heal her severe injuries. She is fine!! Thank Kami for that! She still needs to be hospitalized still though… Tsunade opened her mouth to tell the Rookie 9 that Hinata has awaken but suddenly was rudely interrupted by a loud explosion which shook the very grounds they were on.
"What was that!!?" Tsunade exclaimed before looking down to see Hinata has once again lost consciousness. She needs to get to the hospital and rest her injuries. If the hospital is still left standing that is… Tsunade darkly thought. Gently resting Hinata as comfortable as she could on the hard barren ground, Tsunade stood up to survey the surroundings around her.
The scene was basically put: Barren. What was once known as Konoha main area could only be said as a rumor if people were to glance at the scene around the Godaime Hokage. Houses that once stood proudly under the Hokage Mountain are now dust and ashes. The Hokage tower was reduced to a pile of rubble and for a 10-mile radius around it was just barren ground. Nothing had survived Pein last attack Shinra Tensei. Konoha was now officially known as a barren wasteland. Such an irony to be known as the Hidden Leaf village when now there isn't even a single leaf to be seen. It is going to take a long time to build Konoha from scratch again; Even then, the funds needed would be massive. Guess from being one of the Five Great Shinobi Nations we have dropped from that list now.
Even so, Tsunade was glad that she had saved most of the villagers and shinobis in her village. She had already anticipated Pein's arrival thanks to the Jiraya last warning and evacuated the villagers to Sunagakure village. Her release of the seal on her forehead allowed her to cast her Sōzō Saisei (Creation Rebirth) Jutsu to protect and heal the remaining shinobis via her slug, Katsuya, before Pein could kill them all. As such, casting the jutsu caused Tsunade to weaken further, but she pushed herself to continue on healing the injured.
Tsunade saw both Sakura and Ino, her apprentices, running about the scene, rushing to heal those injured whilst Shizune her assistant was also helping out with the more serious injuries. Shikamaru, Shino and Tenten were carrying the injured people towards the medic shinobis and laying them on the ground carefully. Kiba was with Akamaru sniffing at the rubble, searching for trapped shinobis. Neji was using his Byakugan as well to help Kiba. When a shinobi was found, Chouji would use his BuBun Baika no Jutsu (Partial Multi-size Technique) to lift up the rubble and extract the trapped shinobi. Lee would use his taijutsu to destroy the rubble to help out. Tsunade swelled with pride as she regarded the Rookies. The will of fire lives in them. They are the pride of Konoha.
But for now, all of the shinobis stopped in the midst of what they were doing as they looked to the forest outside Konoha and stared with looks of surprise and shock on their faces due to the explosion that occurred.
Tsunade followed suit and looked at where the sound of the explosion occurred. She saw whips of red and blue chakra swirling around above the trees. The whips were dancing around with no pattern whatsoever, striking around them. Where they stuck, trees could be seen flying or being sliced in half. As the whips grew more dangerous and violent, they twirled around; forming what seems to be a tornado chakra. Slowly, the colors merged to show a new color tornado: Purple. Even so, Tsunade could feel the killer intent from the red chakra leaking out from the purple chakra now present. However it seemed to be less diffused than before. She knew who was there. Words laced with hope and fear came trembling out her lips. "Naruto… Please be alright…" The tornado, as if hearing the words being whispered from Tsunade, slowly calmed down and subsided back down into the forest. The killer intent that was in the air faded away, erasing all traces of the incident that just happened. Only the new clearing in the forest and neatly sliced tree stumps showed the terrible aftermath.
Not wanting to the same fate to befall on Naruto like her precious brother, Nawaki, and her lover, Dan, Tsunade quickly took a deep breath and called loudly.
"ANBU!! To me!"
In a blink of an eye, her personal guard of ANBU gathered around her, kneeling with their heads bowed down. "Hai! Hokage-sama! Your orders, Hokage-sama?" the one with the bear mask questioned.
"I want you to take a few guys and head towards the explosion and scout out the place! Do not interfere with anything that goes on there unless necessary! The rest of you! Search around the compound and find any survivors and bring them here! Two of you set up a field hospital as fast as you can here! One of you guys head over to Sunagakure and get our villagers back! Rebuilding of Konoha has to begin soon. MOVE!" Tsunade ordered the ANBU.
"HAI!" the ANBU guards replied before they Shunshin-ed away, scattering in different directions.
Tsunade looked at the scene where the explosion was again. Naruto, please be alright. I can't bear losing you like I lost the others again. Please Kami-sama! Let Naruto return to Konoha safely! Tsunade prayed for Naruto's safety before turning around to help the medic ninjas.
But Kami could only smile sadly as the scene unfolded below her. Fate was cruel to the blonde shinobi. Tears appeared on Kami's face, falling downwards. Rain started falling in Konoha as Kami cried above.
-Konoha Forest-
The Bear ANBU and another ANBU wearing a cat mask were running across the forest towards the scene. Both were expending large amounts of chakra to reach the scene quickly as they heard the seriousness in the tone of Hokage before leaving.
"What do you think happened there?" Cat asked. "Wonder if it's that Naruto boy. He is always at where the action is."
"We cannot anyhow assume. But I believe you are right. Furthermore I think Naruto was heading this way after his transformation to Kyuubi. For now, let's just get there as soon as possible to see for ourselves what happened." Bear replied.
Soon they reach the clearing at the forest. It was a sight that could only bring a shiver to both ANBU ninjas as they looked on in horror at the scene. What could be counted as two dead bodies was surrounded by torned trees and destroyed rocks. Mutilated hands, legs and other body parts were strewn about like the trees that were viciously uprooted and torned. Blood was sprayed about in a gruesome fashion as they dripped from the leaves of the fallen trees or was spilled from the dismembered body parts.
"Oh Kami! What is this? Who caused this to happen? Oh God! This is so brutal!" Cat looked on in disgust as she walked towards the clearing, taking deep breaths to prevent herself from hurling all her insides on the ground.
Bear calmly walked past the body parts, trying to gather his thoughts as he tried to picture whoever did this and who was killed.
Both ANBUs slowly walked through the place, searching for any possible clues as to whoever did this or if there were any survivors if remotely possible around.
"Bear! Come! I think I found something. I think someone from Konoha was involved in this tragedy." Cat slowly stood up, holding a piece of cloth in her hand. Bear walked over to Cat to see what she has found. Cat opened her fist to reveal a badly scratched hitai-ge. It was undeniably from Konoha due to the unmistakable swirl of the Konoha design although it was badly scratched and pieces of the blue headband were partly ragged. The dull blue headband was saturated with red liquid with the excess dripping onto the ground.
"No mistake. It's definitely a Konoha shinobi who dropped this. Seems like he or she suffered severe injuries. I wonder who was here. You don't think that those body parts were this shinobi do you? After all, Naruto was supposedly heading this area to confront Pein. And we can only find the remains of what seems to be two sets of bodies…" Bear asked Cat.
"I have no idea. But I have a bad feeling that you might be right. Anyway, we have to report this to Godaime. She needs to hear this as fast as possible." Cat replied tersely before running towards Konoha with Bear on her tail.
- Back in Konoha-
Tsunade watched as her group of ANBU left the scene to perform the duties after she issued the orders. Dog and Snake ANBU were already setting up the field hospital as she walked towards the group of injured shinobis that required medical attention. Kakashi was one of the main shinobis that needed medical assistance fast. Sakura was already starting to apply healing chakra to check out his diagnostics with grim seriousness etched on her face. Shizune was rushing to treat Chouji's father, Choza Akimichi. The medical field hospital was almost filled to the brim but more injured shinobis were pouring in as Shino and Shikamaru brought in more injured.
As Tsunade was moving towards the tentage where Kakashi was, three shinobis rushed towards her calling for her.
"Godaime! We have news to report to you!" Shikaku Nara reported as both his team members Kō Hyuuga and Inoichi Yamanaka stood beside him.
"Godaime! We were heading towards the place where Pein was suspected to be when we were intercepted by Uzumaki Naruto. He told us to head back to the village whilst he went on ahead to confront Pein alone. We wanted to go with him but he demanded us to stay back. Shikaku then told us to listen to Naruto and head back towards you. It was on the way back when we heard Naruto scream and then the explosion. We then decided it was best that we head back towards you as fast as possible to report." Inoichi added in.
"It was troublesome but I believed that we could trust that boy, which is why I asked our team to head back. Now it seems like things have become much more troublesome. The Kyuubi's chakra could be felt when we were on the way back but everything has become silent now." Shikaku answered before Tsunade could reprimand him for following Naruto's request.
Tsunade sighed, knowing fully that she couldn't blame Shikaku for making such a rash decision in letting Naruto go alone. Naruto always evoke the compassion in everyone he meets. It just makes people want to cheer him on. Plus Shikaku is quite the genius so I guess that his decision couldn't be considered rash given the circumstances. Oh Naruto…
"Right. Well then, since you guys are back, I guess that you won't mind helping out the injured do you? Shikaku, I think you and Inoichi head towards Choza tent. He is badly injured and Shizune is currently treating him. We need you to try and provide Shizune as much chakra as possible. All the medics are running low on chakra and we need you to try gathering people to help provide chakra to them. Kō, Hinata is out of danger already but she is currently resting. You can see her but try not to disturb her. After that I want you to help out with the recovery of the buried shinobis. Neji can tell you where to help out."
"Hai." All three replied before leaving, Shikaku and Inoichi rushing towards Choza with worry on their faces. The three were replaced with the arrival of two ANBU, one of which held a bloody hitai-ge in her hand.
"Hokage-sama! We have returned!" Bear said.
"Report! What happened there? What is that in your hand Cat?" Tsunade demanded, fear in her heart. Please let it not be what I think it is. Please! Tsunade tried hard to not think the worst that could happen.
"We determined that there was a large explosion that took place there. Somehow the whips of chakra we believed came from Uzumaki Naruto as there was one Konoha headband found. The place was stained with blood that was all over the place. Apparently the chakra whips are very sharp as there were two bodies found there that were mutilated. We cannot confirm for sure but I believe that this is how the incident goes. Naruto must have confronted Pein in action and during the fight, somehow Naruto lost control of Kyuubi or either Pein used his Rinnegan to unleash Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto must have tried to subdue the Kyuubi's chakra hence the blue whips appearing. It was when Pein must have been killed by the chakra whips and Naruto as well, resulting in the death of Kyuubi and the explosion." Bear deduced, using logic in his reasoning. Cat then stepped up to pass Tsunade the Konoha hitai-ge that was Naruto's.
Tsunade was shocked at the explanation. NO! This cannot be happening! No! I refuse to believe this! Trembling, her hand slowly reached out to retrieve the headband and looked at it. Taking a deep breath, Tsunade looked on calmly at the ANBUs in front of her will she was trembling on the inside. "Can we identify that one of the bodies belonged to Naruto?" Tsunade questioned, hoping for a sign of hope that he was still surviving.
"Hokage-sama, I am sorry to say that there is no way that we can identify that either of the bodies belonged to Pein or Naruto. The bodies were so mutilated that we couldn't piece a complete body together. However, we did find the tattered remains of an orange-black jacket. Which is why I came to a conclusion that our Konoha shinobi: Uzumaki Naruto has died in the battle which an Akatsuki member." Bear replied.
At that answer, Tsunade broke down and cried. She wept openly as she felt the loss of another loved one once again. Both ANBU looked away sadly as they left to help the others. WHY! NARUTO! WHY! You have yet to become Hokage! I… I loved you! You were like a younger brother to me! And now… You have to die on me!! WHY!! Tsunade cried as she kneeled down and held her head with both her hands. It was a very disheartening sight to behold: The Hokage of Konoha, breaking down and crying like a destroyed person. Everyone at the field hospital stopped whatever they were doing and looked at the Godaime in shock. Never before have they ever seen Godaime breaking down and crying that fierce before. The Rookie 9, concerned about Hokage and knew that she had received some news regarding Naruto, stopped whatever they were doing and walked towards her. Shizune concerned about Tsunade's behavior also started forward.
As Shizune and the Rookie 9 approached Tsunade, they saw that she clutched a hitai-ge in her hands. Shizune knelt beside Tsunade and began to pat her back and console her.
"There, there Tsunade-sama, it's ok. All of us are worried about you breaking down and crying. If there is anything you can tell us please let us know. Its better sharing your burden with someone else than carrying it all on yourself. We all want to help you. Let us know what went wrong Tsunade-sama." Shizune ignored calling Tsunade by her Hokage status as it was an emotional matter and being political was very wrong.
Calming down a little, Tsunade wipe of the tears on her face and looked up at Shizune and the others with tears forming in her eyes. "It's Naruto," Her voice rather hoarse from crying, "He's gone. Like Jiraya. The fight with Pein must have killed him. Body parts and his hitai-ge was all that was left from the scene. There were no survivors." With that said, tears starting flowing once again, but Tsunade held herself back from crying loudly.
"No… No way… That baka couldn't… He couldn't… We were all waiting for him… He… I… I…" Sakura took a step back, shock all over her face. She couldn't believe the fact that her team-mate was gone. Naruto. The number one, hot-headed, hyperactive shinobi was dead. The blonde hair kid that never broke a single promise and always fought to make himself known. The one that saved Konoha and its inhabitants from further extermination. The team-mate that always pestered her for dates when young and finally matured into a fine young man was dead? "How… How… How could this be? No… I can't accept this… I… I…" Sakura took another step back before turning around and started running away, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
The rest of the Rookie 9 were in shock as well. They all knew that Naruto was the one that saved Konoha from Pein. They knew that he single handedly defeated all of them. They knew that he was the Kyuubi's container. They knew that he always brought joy and laughter with his pranks in Konoha. Each of them knew his dream of being Hokage. Each of them was individually recognized for who they were by him, thus forming a strong bond of friendship with him. To hear the news that he was dead was as hard an emotional blow they could ever take.
Kiba looked away as tears started falling from his eyes. He lost a dearest friend that would help play pranks on others together. Akamaru whined softly as he nudged his master's face as if to console him as well.
Neji looked down in sadness as the guy who showed Neji that there was no such thing as fate, did not live to see another day. The loudmouth even promised Neji to remove the cage-seal when he made Hokage. That day, Neji lost the person who set him free from the chains called fate.
Shikamaru found himself falling on his back as the news shook him. He lost a friend that would skip classes with him when they were young and cloud-gaze with him. He found himself placing a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it up with trembling hands, like he did when Asuma-sensei died.
Chouji could feel his tears pouring as he lost a friend that could rival him in food-eating. A friend that stuck with him from young and defended him when others made fun of him about his weight.
Lee could not believe what he heard. The guy that showed fierce determination in his eyes as he strived to be better was lost forever. The guy that motivated Lee into working hard that made Lee into what he is today, a taijutsu master, was gone.
Shino held his head down showed the sadness he felt for Naruto. Although Shino never showed any emotion, the fact that Naruto had died showed how important he was to Shino. He never once shy-ed away from Shino even after hearing Shino was a bug-user. He took Shino for what he is: a person.
Tenten cried as she lost the friend that although annoyed her to the ends of earth, also encouraged her when she was feeling down about her strength in comparison to her team. The friend that also helped improve relations in her Group by melting Neji's heart.
Ino lost a friend that listened to her troubles whenever he visited her shop to buy flowers for Sakura. The friend that showed her that there is nothing that cannot be achieved if one works hard for it. It made Ino stronger and become a medic-nin.
That day, Konoha lost a Will of Fire. A Will of Fire that has burned greater than any others in it time before. The Rookie 12 lost a dearest friend that day. Team 7 lost one more member, leaving Sakura alone. Gaara lost the person that saved his life. Wave Country lost the hero that gave them courage to stand up on their own feet. Tsunade lost a brother she never had that day. That day, Konoha and everyone else lost: Naruto.
A/N: Well that concludes chapter 2. Hehz.. How was it?? Some R & R would be good pls. Sighz. Inspiration is sooo hard to come by..