Shinobi: Team 7
Act II
Chapter IX
Baptism of Fire

"War is the only problem which can never truly be solved."
-Choukichi, advisor to the 3rd Daimyo of the Land of Water

The toast finished, and Sasuke turned away from Kakuzu to focus his attention on the guests surrounding him. He and the other five Genin were by far the youngest attending the party, and from the looks of it, some of the only Shinobi there as well. It was curious – he knew there must be some of Kakuzu's followers here with them, but even his sensing only picked up a handful. The fortress seemed to be running on a skeleton crew, and he couldn't even come up with any working theories as to why.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting his senses expand. The ring of chakra in his ears had become more pronounced over the weeks of training, but still required concentration to use effectively. He slowed his breathing, and suddenly the muddled, indistinct noises became clearer, a symphony of tunes and melodies that he could take apart and dissect at will.

There was Naruto's chakra, powerful, deep, almost overwhelming, like the slow but constant beat of an oversized drum. It wasn't an unpleasant noise, strong and booming, but it was somewhat distracting, and so Sasuke pushed it aside. Sakura's chakra was much higher pitched, a rapid medley of disconnected notes. Shino's was a low, steady buzz of horns, while Kiba was more drums, wild and energetic. Hinata's chakra was almost painfully high, but also slow and sweet and somewhat sad.

All of them were still somewhat fuzzy though, difficult to make out around the edges. That changed when he shifted his attention to the Jonin, whose chakra was so clear that it cut through the air like a sword. Kakashi's chakra was almost still, a curious silence that just as loud as any other kind of noise. It seemed to hum, its steady rhythm broken momentarily by brief and violent surges of strings. Asuma's was a low, dangerous whistle that carried rage and the promise of violence with it.

As for Kakuzu…well, Sasuke could no more make sense of the Warlord's chakra than he could when he first heard it in the man's study. Every Shinobi he had encountered so far had possessed and relatively simple chakra – a single note, or a brief, easy melody. But Kakuzu's chakra was a symphony in and of itself. Horns and percussion swelled in great crescendos, crashing down to reveal strings and whistles far more complex than anything Sasuke had ever heard before. It rolled over him, not quite as overwhelming as Naruto's chakra but far more awe-inspiring. He couldn't make heads or tails of it, and so as it left the room he let it fade from his consciousness.

Hinata came up behind him. He knew it was her partially because of her chakra, but also because of the way her feet shuffled hesitantly against the stone floor. It was not the way a Shinobi usually moved, but then again Hyuga Hinata had never been a "usual" Shinobi. The disgraced heiress of the main branch, branded with the infamous caged bird seal in favor of her younger, more talented sister Hanabi. Sasuke couldn't even imagine. His family had never really been there, but they had been there. They had stood by him, even when their support had rung somewhat hollow. Hinata hadn't even had that luxury.

"Kakashi and Asuma are being called into Kakuzu's study," Hinata said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Sakura wants us all to stick close, avoid getting separated."

Sasuke nodded, his jaw clenching almost unconsciously. He shifted his leg, and the cool metal of his hidden kunai touched his skin. It calmed him. He was ready.

This was not how he had imagined his first mission going. In all likelihood, they were just overreacting, but that logical thought did little to slow his racing heart. He was half convinced that everyone in the room could hear it pounding against his chest. Had Shisui felt like this, the first time he had been in danger? Had Itachi?

He glanced up at the piece of Kakuzu's collection hung on the wall in front of him and was surprised to see Hinata still standing at his side. Of course – they needed to stick together. Sasuke did a quick one over of the room and saw Sakura speaking quietly with Kiba, flanked by Naruto and a seemingly distracted Shino. He turned his attention back to the antique.

It was an old metal bow, painted black and worn from use. A quiver full of arrows hung beside it, and both were masterfully crafted. Sasuke grunted to himself. He had never been a fan of bows, but he could recognize a valuable weapon when he saw it.

"My mother has a bow just like that one," Hinata said, so quietly that at first Sasuke wasn't entirely sure she had actually said it. "My father gave it to her when she had me."

Sasuke felt the almost overwhelming urge to make a snide comment about how her father probably wished he had saved the good gift for Hanabi's birth. He managed to resist it. And Naruto said he was an asshole.

"Lot of stuff," he settled on, barely moving his lips. He had never been a fan of small talk, but for now the chatter distracted from the itching in his palms.

"Asuma told us that Kakuzu was a bit…eccentric," Hinata replied. Sasuke waited for her to follow up on the sentence but she never did, instead drifting back into silence. Sasuke just barely suppressed an eye twitch. On any other day, her silence would be a welcome surprise, a chance to get away from the seemingly constant chatter that followed Naruto and even Sakura around. The one time he actually wanted someone to talk to, he got the quiet one. Infuriating.

"My mother says all great Shinobi are somewhat strange," he said. Power and insanity seemed to be directly linked in the Shinobi world, that much was certain.

"I think great Shinobi often see themselves above the rest of the world," Hinata said. "They have so much power. They've killed so many. It must be difficult to tether oneself to everything after that. They drift away, little by little."

Sasuke frowned at that, trying to remember his brother when he had been younger, before the power, before the killing. Had he ever been a normal person? Or was Hinata wrong, and it was the power that grew from the eccentricity, not the other way around?

He was pulled from his thoughts by a shift in the crowd – nothing sudden, but hardly subtle. He glanced around, and saw that Kiya and a number of earth clones were herding the partygoers out of the room.

While her clones took care of the civilians, her real body approached Sasuke and Hinata, calm and confident. "There's been a security breach," she said, her voice flat. "Bandits. We need everyone to relocate to the panic rooms located in the basement."

"We're trained Shinobi," Sakura said from behind him. Sasuke opened his ears to the sound of chakra again, and realized that she, Naruto, Shino, and Kiba had formed a loose semi-circle behind himself and Hinata. Over the dim murmur of the crowd, he heard the swelling of a symphony – Kakuzu going to war.

Kakashi had been right. This was a set-up, and they had been too late to spot the trap.

"Knife!" Hinata squeaked, and now Sasuke saw it, gleaming in the dim light, clutched in Kiya's hand. She stabbed it towards the Hyuga girl, and faster than Sasuke could make a rational decision he stepped between them, ready to counter the blow, or take it if that wasn't an option.

The knife stopped two and a half inches from the flesh of his arm, Kiya's face contorting painfully. She clutched at her chest, confused, terrified, and suddenly Shino appeared in Sasuke's peripheral vision, leaping into the air, roundhouse kicking Kiya's head to the ground so hard that her skull split on impact, spraying crimson blood all across the pristine floors.

For a moment, nobody moved. Kiya's chakra faded into silence, and the dim echoes produced by her earth clones followed suit.

"Shino," Sakura finally said, her surprise evident in her voice. "What…"

"I agreed with Kakashi's assessment of events," Shino said, wiping blood off his glasses with one of the long pieces of cloth wrapped around his fingers. "Kiya was a threat that could well have killed us. So I took steps to neutralize her early by slipping bugs into the rolls she was eating at the party. Once inside her, my bugs were able to subtly attack her heart, waiting for my order to strike the killing blow."

Silence.

"She was hungry, and tired, or she would have noticed," Shino continued, apparently interpreting the silence as a request for more explanation. "As it was, I only barely succeeded."

"Right," Sakura said when he had finished talking, clapping her hands together. "Okay. We need to…we need to find Kakashi and Asuma. Regroup with them. I don't know-"

"I can't see them," Hinata said. Sasuke looked over to see the veins around her eyes bulging with increased chakra flow as she stared curiously off into space. "I think they're in his study, but whatever the rock is, it's too dense for my Byakugan to see through. I can see their chakra though. They're fighting."

"Kakashi's chakra…sounds weird," Sasuke said, backing up Hinata's claim. "But Kakuzu's is still too overwhelming. We need to get to them."

Everyone nodded and began shedding the formal clothing they'd been required to wear for the party. They were now mostly dressed in underclothes, but luckily they had anticipated having to change and all wore something modest enough underneath. Sakura produced a weapons pouch from somewhere within her kimono, popping it open to reveal it was full of scrolls rather than the regular kunai and shuriken. Hinata grabbed the bow that she had been admiring earlier, pulling the string back experimentally and slinging the quiver of arrows over her shoulder.

"You can use that?" Sasuke asked as they started moving.

Hinata nodded. "Since I was a child," she said. "I'm no sharpshooter, but I'm…passable."

Sasuke grunted. Hopefully the "passable" was a display of modesty rather than an accurate evaluation of her abilities – he had a feeling "passable" wasn't going to be good enough to get them through the rest of this mission.

They burst out into the courtyard, intending to cross that and then wall-walk up the tower that held Kakuzu's study. Sasuke could still hear the chakra of the battle that raged above them, and then the surprisingly mundane sound of windows shattering. He looked up to see glass falling like sharp, violent rain from the top of the tower.

Sasuke grabbed Hinata's arm with one hand and the back of Naruto's jacket with another, throwing them both away before they could catch an unlucky shard to the neck. Hinata pivoted gracefully, letting her body roll with the sudden motion, whereas Naruto sort of flopped around, but both of them managed to avoid being injured. The others had been lucky enough to stand out of the way of the glass.

"We need to get up there," Sakura said. "Go!"

They moved, Sasuke pumping chakra into his feet, causing the air around them to ripple and distort as his still immature chakra moved through it. He made a flying leap for the wall, and halfway there realized something he had noticed over the clash of chakras battling it out atop the tower.

Chakra to his right. He tried to turn but his leap had left him relatively immobile, and something slammed into his side and knocked him several dozen feet across the courtyard. He tumbled head over heels twice before remembering to dig his feet into the grass beneath him, bringing him to an abrupt stop.

Men and women – scratch that, boys and girls in Kakuzu's dark armor had swarmed the Konohagakure Shinobi. Their chakra was weak, and they looked barely older than Sasuke himself – some might even have been younger. The skeleton crew then. Kakuzu must've relocated his more experienced forces before the party. But where? And why?

There were questions, a lot of them, but they'd have to wait until his life was out of immediate danger. Sasuke dashed into the middle of the fray, grabbing the wrist of one of Kakuzu's forces and twisting it until the boy fell to the ground. A swift knee to the face rendered him unconscious, and Sasuke barely had time to plot his next move before he was assaulted from two sides at once.

He dodged a swing of a katana, stepped inside the wielder's guard, and broke his nose with a swift headbutt. Hardly the most elegant blow, but years of sparring with Naruto had drilled into Sasuke's head the value of doing the crude, unexpected thing. Just the thought of it sent Sasuke's own nose into a bout of sympathy pain. Naruto wasn't as dense as most people thought, but his head really was rock hard.

The boy dropped his katana as he wheeled backwards, and Sasuke deftly caught the weapon out of the air, spinning it around and blocking a spiked chain that was desperate to make his brain's acquaintance. A hard pull brought the chain-wielding girl into range of his new weapon, and so Sasuke skewered her through the heart.

She died instantly, or at least he thought she did. A small, quiet part of him realized the enormity of what he had just done. He was a killer now. For the first time in his life his blade had tasted the soul of another human being. When he returned home, to his clan, he would be only one step away from true manhood.

He swallowed. And then something hit the back of his head, and sparks exploded across his vision. The boy he had stolen the katana from was back, his hands bloody from his nose and swinging wildly at Sasuke's face. Sasuke fell to the ground and kicked out at the boy's shin, dropping them both to the hard earth. His arms snaked into position around the boy's elbow, and his right hand grabbed his left wrist. There was a moment of pained struggle, and then the boy's elbow broke. He screamed, and Sasuke took advantage of his pain and confusion to bash a nearby rock into his head.

A second kill.

He pushed himself to his feet, breathing heavily. Around him, the battle seemed to be coming to a close – Kakuzu's people had had the surprise and the numbers, but their training evidently simply wasn't up to par. Sakura sunk a shuriken into a girl's neck from twenty paces as she tried to run, and Naruto knocked his opponent out cold with a messy but serviceable right hook to the jaw. Hinata stood atop two bodies with arrows buried in their hearts and eyes, which Sasuke took as a reassurance that her earlier quote about her abilities had been simple modesty. Kiba and Akamaru finished ripping into their foe, while Shino's collapsed to the dirt, bleeding from his eyes and ears.

They stood there, the Genin, for a few moments, saying nothing. Sasuke recognized the looks in their eyes – all except Naruto had the same quiet bleakness that he imagined was visible on his own face.

"The chakra…" Hinata said after a moment. "It's faded."

Sasuke cursed and strained his ears, but heard nothing. The fight must've finished while they were busy with Kakuzu's underlings.

"Ka-Whoever won is suppressing their chakra," he said, a spike of cold panic flashing through him as he realized he had almost said "Kakuzu".

Shino took an experimental sniff at the air. "They're not up there," he said, his expression twisting into one of confusion. "I can smell blood but no bodies. And…watch out!" He twisted to the left, bringing his fists up at two figures that were emerging from the shadows as he spoke.

The Genin into motion, drawing weapons, readying themselves – and were greeted not by more of Kakuzu's men but instead by two Shinobi, a few years older than themselves, both wearing Konohagakure headbands. A large wolf, head level with Sasuke's shoulders, padded silently alongside one.

"Kiba?" One of the Shinobi asked, a tall girl with wild, sandy-brown hair and the distinctive Inuzuka tattoos on her cheek. The wolf nuzzled against her hand, which was soaked in blood.

"Suzume!" Kiba shouted. "The hell? You smell like this place."

"I've been here a while," Suzume said. She closed the distance between the two groups in a flash and pulled Kiba into a bear hug, literally lifting the smaller boy off the ground. "I've started to smell like it. We had no idea you'd be here!"

"Shimura Taro and Inuzuka Suzume," the other Shinobi, a boy with tan skin and smoky goggles, said. "Teams c204b and s204e, respectively. We're transfers - Chunin on temporary loan to Kakuzu. He sent us on a scouting mission this morning, presumably to keep us away from you."

"And to set us up for a double cross, that fucking bastard," Suzume said. "We killed the people trying to kill us and booked it back here. Where are your Jonin?"

"They engaged Kakuzu and…we don't know. Disappeared," Sakura said. "You're the highest ranking Shinobi here, so I guess…this is your mission now."

"Right," Taro replied, nodding once. "Then we need to find them. They're our best chance of getting out of here alive. Where were they last?"

"The tower," Sakura responded, pointing. "But our sensors don't indicate anything up there anymore. And-"

Hinata gasped suddenly and loudly, her hand going toward her mouth. "I see them," she said, and the veins around her eyes seemed to bulge even more as her Byakugan focused. Her eyes were somehow focused and unfocused simultaneously, staring straight ahead and yet not really seeing anything. "He's…he's moving towards some sort of bunker to the south. I'm sorry, I'm a bit…" she stumbled.

"It's okay," Sakura said, steadying her and putting a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder. "Can you see Kakashi or Asuma?"

"I can," Hinata replied. Her eyes darted back and forth – the motion gave Sasuke mental whiplash. It was nauseating, to see her eyes move without really moving. "He's got them. They're…unconscious. Kakashi's heart is still beating. And…and so is Asuma's."

Sasuke saw Sakura shudder with relief, and couldn't help but agree somewhat. Without the Jonin…well, Sasuke didn't particularly want to think about what would happen to them if the Jonin had died.

"He's injured," Hinata continued. "Limping. He's…Oh!" Her eyes went wide with panic. "He vanished. In…into the bunker. It's…it's too dense, the rock…"

"Can you lead us to them?" Sakura asked, even as Taro opened his mouth to presumably say the same thing. Hinata nodded. "Then we need to go."

They burst into a run, Hinata leading them though elaborate gardens until they reached a small bunker made out of a darker, heavier rock than the rest of the fortress. Taro approached the door, running his fingers along it experimentally, and then pushed his hand slowly into the rock, as if it were wet sand. His arm fiddled back and forth, and he stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth. "Give me a minute…"

"We might not have a minute," Suzume said, sniffing the air warily. "People moving in from the west. Good number of them." With the warning, Sasuke could pinpoint their chakra – stronger than the boys and girls they had fought earlier, but weaker than Suzume and Taro. "Maybe I can lead them off."

"Not by yourself," Taro said, and suddenly there was a dull click. The door swung open, and Taro pulled his arm free of the stone. "I'm coming too."

"Is that tactically wise?" Sakura asked. "You're our only Chunin."

"I'm not exactly a front line combatant. I won't make a difference in a straight up fight against Kakuzu," Taro said. "And Suzume needs to stay out here to hold off these reinforcements. You six are capable. And sometimes, a leader needs to be able to put his trust in his subordinates." He smiled grimly at Sakura. "I guess this is your mission again, if it ever wasn't."

Sakura's face reddened a bit, but she nodded.

"Akamaru, go with Suzume," Kiba said, giving his dog a scratch behind the ears. "She's gonna need ya more than I will." Suzume nodded quiet thanks as Akamaru bounded over to her.

"See you on the other side," Taro said.

The six of them poured into the bunker, closing and locking the heavy door behind them. They were greeted with yet another door.

"The rock is still too dense," Hinata said quietly. "But…there are seals. On that door."

"Seals?" Sakura asked, approaching the door carefully. She peered at the featureless stone for a moment and then pressed her hand against it, concentrating. Black lines began to grow out from her hand, as if a small army of invisible brushes were painting an elaborate portrait on the rock. The resulting seal was far more complex than anything Sasuke had ever seen before, in person or even books.

"Hm," Sakura said, tilting her head quizzically. "I…I think…"

"Can we break it down?" Kiba asked, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to another. "Just smash through it?"

"If we want to die," Sakura said. "There's enough stored chakra in here to level a mountain. Hold on, I think I have something for this." She popped open her weapons pouch and began searching through the scrolls. "Been working on it for months now…one use only…gonna need a lot of help…even more luck." She eventually pulled one free, a small one wrapped in black paper. Unrolling it revealed a long string of baffling seals only Sakura would understand. "This goes…here," she said, stringing the scroll across the door. "And this…here. Naruto, can you put this part there?" She asked. Naruto, back in his "school state" of confused compliance, assisted her without comment.

"This will circumvent some of the safeguards built into body of the seal," Sakura explained as she set it up. "Basically taking advantage of the way the seal communicates what kind of chakra it's receiving. But we still need a piece of genetic material to serve as a base for the whole process and-"

"Sakura?" Naruto asked with a pained look. "I love you and all, but, uh, maybe we could skip past the explanation and hurry it up?"

A beat. Sakura exhaled and nodded her head. "Right. You're right. I'm just nervous, and I babble when I'm nervous, it's a habit, I've been trying to break it forever so-"

Naruto placed a hand on her shoulder. She shut up.

"We need some of Kakuzu's blood," she said after a moment of work. "It has to be Kakuzu's blood, or else the whole thing goes boom. And we uh, die."

"There's some here," Kiba said, wiping his fingers through a smear of blood on the wall.

"You're sure?" Sakura asked. "One hundred percent positive? It isn't Kakashi's or Asuma's?"

Kiba sniffed his hand cautiously. "One hundred percent Kakuzu," he said.

"Right then. Wipe it here." Sakura pointed out a large, spiral area on her seal. "And then…we just…" she placed her hand on top of the blood, closing her eyes and steadying her breathing. "Say a quick prayer…"

"Holy shit," Naruto whispered in Sasuke's ear. "We're gonna die, aren't we?"

Sasuke chose not to respond. He had faith in Sakura, but he also had faith in the universe doing its damndest to fuck him over. Death by door explosion wouldn't exactly win him any legends in the pages of history.

The door slid open. It was incredibly anticlimactic, but on the upside, also incredibly lacking in explosive death.

"I did it!" Sakura squealed, clenching her hands into two victorious fists. "I am a God of seals."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Sasuke murmured quietly, peering past where the door had stood just a few moments ago. A long, dark stairway led down into the earth – if he extended his sensing he could dimly hear Kakuzu's chakra drifting weakly through the air.

"Yeah, God is a little excessive," Naruto said, taking the lead as the six of them moved down the stairs. "Maybe a demi-god, but full Godhood requires a bit more than opening a door, I'd think."

"You guys are ruining my fun," Sakura whispered at them. "I don't get these moments often, let me have this one."

Hinata held up a hand, tips of her middle finger and thumb touching, her other three fingers extended straight up – the Shinobi hand signal for quiet. Team a209d immediately shut their mouths.

"I can see him," Hinata said, her voice barely above a whisper. "He's…he's got them a-alive. Inside two g-giant seal circles. And he's in another one. I can't…it's difficult to explain."

"You don't have to," Sakura said, her voice equally quiet. "Cast a genjutsu on me. Show me the sealing setup. I can interpret it for us."

"Oh! Yes!" Hinata said, her Byakugan fading. "That's very clever." She pressed her hands together in a few, semi-certain hand seals, then poked Sakura's forehead with her finger. The touch helped establish a connection between the two that the genjutsu would use to transfer images from Hinata's mind into Sakura's. Other forms of connection, such as eye contact or even noise, could've created a similar connection, but touching was the easiest and created the strongest bond.

Sakura sat in silence for a minute or two, mouthing words to herself that Sasuke couldn't quite make out. After what seemed like an eternity her eyes snapped open.

"He's drawing their chakra out of their bodies," she said, wringing her hands together. "Like, all of it. I think he's pushing it into his own body somehow, like, integrating it, but that doesn't make sense."

"No," Sasuke whispered, realization dawning on him far too late to make a real difference. "It makes perfect sense. His chakra was strange before. Different melodies, like it was made up of-"

"Lots of different chakras," Hinata finished, realization spreading across her own face. "He takes the chakras of people he defeats and combines them with his own. It's why he's so strong."

Sakura frowned. "He must be weak," she said, more to herself than anyone else. "He must need a transfusion right now, or he would've waited to start it. Because it makes him weak – if what Hinata showed me is right, he's pumped himself full of alchemical drugs. He's already injured, and now's he's woozy."

"So we can take him?" Naruto asked. "He's weak, so we can take him?"

"I don't think we really have a choice," Sakura said, biting her lip. "If we let him keep going, he'll kill Kakashi and Asuma and maybe be back at full strength. I think if we're ever going to win, we're going to have to hit him now."

"Even in his weakened state, Kakuzu will not be an easily defeated adversary," Shino said.

"I know," Sakura said. "I've got a plan."

Plans Are Words And Ink. History Remembers Only Actions And Blood.

Hinata fired the first shot.

Naruto watched as she took aim through the wall that separated them from Kakuzu, her breathing steady, her white eyes locked on her target with laser focus. Her right hand drew back the bowstring, and as she inhaled she stepped quickly left, exposing herself to Kakuzu and letting fly.

Kakuzu, of course, caught the arrow. He would hardly have been alive this long if six Genin could get within twenty feet of him without him noticing.

And Sakura, of course, had anticipated this. Which was why the crux of the first attack lay not in the arrow Hinata had fired, but in the exploding tag attached to said arrow.

Naruto charged forward as the tag exploded, feet digging into the rock of the floor, arms pumping, a defiant roar on his lips. He threw himself at Kakuzu, who had just barely managed to get clear from the explosion, and his shoulder hit the Warlord's knees, sending the larger man toppling to the ground. Naruto rolled to his feet and sprang away as Kiba shot in behind him, reaching out and slapping a custom, Sakura-made seal onto Kakuzu's wrist. He slapped the wall behind the Warlord at the same time, leaving a smaller but similar seal embedded there.

Kakuzu jumped to his feet, arm coming up with the full intention of knocking a retreating Kiba into next week, but before his punch could shatter the space/time barrier Sakura activated the two seals with a single hand sign. Kakuzu grunted as the two seals were pulled to each other not unlike magnets, his wrist slamming against the wall and sticking fast.

"Now!" The Haruno shouted, and Hinata appeared in front of Kakuzu in a burst of speed, her face determined, her fingers seeking the vulnerable spots that lay beneath Kakuzu's skin. Even injured, drugged up, and one handed, Kakuzu managed to dodge the majority of the attacks, but one managed to slip by him, severely hampering chakra flow to his left arm.

It slowed him down, but only momentarily. He broke free of the seal which had bound him to the wall and lashed out, grabbing Hinata by throat and slamming her brutally against a wall. He pulled back, preparing to open her skull against the stone, but a swarm of Kikaichu bugs blocked his vision, forcing him to drop the Hyuga and form a quick string of hand seals.

But then Sasuke was there, pressing the attack, and so was Naruto, from a different angle, both of them throwing quick, desperate punches and kicks in an attempt to keep Kakuzu off balance. It wasn't easy – most of their blows simply bounced off the mountain of a man – but by working in tandem and focusing on pushing him back and forth rather than actually hurting him, they were able to occupy him while Hinata put an arrow in his shoulder.

Kakuzu roared in pain and pulled the arrow free, stabbing it into Naruto's stomach. The blonde stumbled backwards while Sasuke worked frantically to take Kakuzu's attention, but wouldn't have succeeded if it weren't for a timely intervention by Shino and Kiba, both of whom forced Kakuzu back with a hail of shuriken. Sasuke fell back with Sakura, who pressed a familiar looking scroll bound with a red string into the Uchiha boy's hand.

"Good luck," Naruto heard her say, as he scrambled back into fighting position. She placed a quick kiss on his cheek too, which Naruto thought was excessive, but what the hell, they were probably all going to die here anyway.

Sage, he was getting more and more morbid the longer this mission went on. The gallows humor helped to distract him from the thought of his fear overwhelming him like it had in their match against Team s209f all those years ago. The more Naruto thought of his impending death, the less he had to think about the Fox leaking out of its cage.

Although he had to wonder – if he had to do it to stop Kakuzu, would he?

He didn't know. More precisely, he didn't want to know. That was a question for a more desperate time, and that was saying something, considering that the situation was about as desperate as it could get.

Naruto was snapped back to reality by the sight of Sasuke wrapping Sakura's scroll around his arm, tightening his grip on the handle of his katana, and charging the warlord with a hoarse yell. Shino and Kiba stepped aside, keeping Kakuzu distracted with bugs and sharp objects, and Sasuke shot past them, leaping high into the air.

He brought his katana down hard, sinking it deep into the skin between Kakuzu's shoulder and his neck, which looked like it had taken a massive beating already. Kakuzu grunted in pain, twisting his head to face Sasuke, but the Uchiha had already pressed his scroll-covered forearm against the Warlord's cheek and spiked his chakra.

There was a burst of heat and light, and suddenly Naruto remembered where he had seen that red string bound scroll before. Sakura had used it during a spar with Sasuke, absorbing his Grand Fireball Technique and storing it for later use. Kind of ironic how Sasuke had ended up using it again – but then again maybe it wasn't really that ironic. The exact definition of irony had always kind of eluded Naruto's comprehension.

The smoke from the attack began to clear as Naruto helped Sakura to her feet, both of them watching the center of the cloud warily. The other four Genin moved into position beside them, preparing to finish off a no doubt dying (if not already dead) Kakuzu.

When the smoke had cleared sufficiently however, Naruto realized that they had severely underestimated the enemy they were fighting.

Kakuzu stood where the attack had hit him, hands clenched together, perfectly still. The myriad cuts and bruises they had inflicted looked miniscule on his massive frame, and even a large patch of fresh scar tissue above his heart seemed to be of no immediate concern to the Warlord. His head, which should've been a burned, bloody chunk of flesh, was completely unharmed.

Earth Release: Immortal Diamond Body Technique!

"Oh shit," Kiba muttered, and then Kakuzu vanished.

He reappeared inches from Naruto's face, grabbing the blonde Genin by his throat and throwing him straight into the ceiling. Naruto's back hit stone and his breath was forced out of him – he gulped down more in a blind panic as he fell hard back to earth.

Of all the Genin, only Sasuke could hope to react in time – he managed to string together some seals and exhale a medium sized fireball from his mouth that Kakuzu simply walked through, punching the Uchiha so hard that his head hit the ground before he could catch himself. Sasuke lay still.

"Sasuke!" Sakura shouted, vaulting over Naruto's still recovering frame and doing her best to sink a kunai into Kakuzu's eye. The Warlord swatted her down with contemptuous ease, and then grabbed her ankle as she was flying away and slammed her viciously against the wall. Sakura lay still.

Hinata and Shino attacked in synchronicity much like Naruto and Sasuke had before, but Kakuzu was having none of it. He blocked Shino's assault and grabbed the boy in a headlock, spinning him around to absorb Hinata's Gentle Fist blows. The Hyuga recoiled as she realized she had just incapacitated her own teammate, and Kakuzu used the opening to grab her wrists and squeeze until something snapped. She crumpled, and both her and Shino lay still.

Naruto struggled to his feet. Beside him, Kiba put up his fists and took a deep breath. Kakuzu turned towards them.

Release the Fox.

He couldn't.

They're all going to die.

They'd die if he did. The Fox didn't have friends. It didn't understand mercy.

But it can save you.

Naruto didn't want to die. The thought of ceasing to exist terrified him in a way few things did. He didn't want to go to sleep and never wake up again – he didn't want to see what awaited him on the other side, if anything did at all. In fact, the only thing he didn't want to do more than die was be alone.

You can't do this.

Fuck that. He was Kiji Naruto. He was an unkillable lord of destruction. He felt his chakra stir within himself and focused on it, breaking it apart and gathering the yin essence within it. His chakra control was still shoddy, but it had increased by leaps and bounds since Mizuki had started work on it, two years ago. He felt his yin energy flood through him, provoking his physical yang energy to respond in kind. His healing, which had always been quick, shifted into high gear, relieving some of the aches and pains that had been bothering him since the initial scuffle in the courtyard.

"Naruto," Kiba said, as Kakuzu drew closer. "I think this is the part where we talk about how it was an honor serving with each other."

"Yeah," Naruto said, feeling a grin spread over his face. "Hey, can you do something for me real quick? Can you hit Kakuzu in the stomach really, really hard?"

Kiba turned to stare at him. "Why?"

"Cause I need you to do that if I'm gonna kill him," Naruto said, cracking his knuckles. "He's getting closer. If you want to be a little bitch about it, then I guess-"

He never got the chance to finish that sentence. Kiba shot forward, his speed fueled by desperation and adrenaline, ducked under Kakuzu's swing, and buried his shoulder in the Warlord's stomach. Naruto's hands, which had been running through seals as quickly as they were able, finished just as Kakuzu's breath was knocked from his lungs.

Wait for it.

Kakuzu kicked out, sending Kiba flying. His shoulder hit the wall at an awkward angle and broke with a sickening snap. Kiba lay still.

Wait for it.

Kakuzu straightened, struggling to draw breath.

Wait for it.

Finally the Warlord managed it, greedily sucking in air. It was a long breath, a powerful breath, a breath befitting a man of Kakuzu's size and stature. And as he drew it, Naruto released his technique.

Fire Release: Ash Pile Burning Technique!

Ash spilled from his mouth, through the air between him and Kakuzu, and into the Warlord's lungs. He gagged, choking, pressing his hands together as the cloud of red-hot ash engulfed him, and Naruto closed his eyes.

He pictured his chakra spiraling in his stomach. He pictured the yin and yang energies combining to form the energy that gave him his strength, and then he pictured that energy flowing through his body, imbuing his limbs with power. He pictured that chakra forming a razor thin thread between him and the cloud in front of him, ready to be exploited, ready to be activated.

He spiked his chakra. And for the first time in his life, the cloud exploded in a rush of scorching air.

The force of the explosion picked Naruto up and threw him backwards, even as the sonic boom practically deafened him. He landed hard on his side and rolled, managing to bring himself into a sitting position to watch the aftermath of the carnage. The smoke began to clear just as the ringing in his ears subsided.

Kakuzu stood, doubled over, hands clenched together. Perfectly unharmed.

Earth Release: Immortal Diamond Body Technique!

He stood like that for a long time. And then, finally, his body toppled. It hit the stone of the floor and dented it, his body apparently denser and tougher than the rock that made up the bunker. The fall separated his hands, the technique was released, and his mouth opened, vomiting his liquidized, half boiled insides all over his floor.

The sight caused Naruto to lose his stomach completely. A strange sort of kinship, with the first man he had ever killed.

In Time It Will Fade, But They Will Remember

Half a world away, a man sat in meditation and thought.

He sat cross-legged, on the floor of an empty room. In front of him was a large window, overlooking the city – overlooking his city. Amegakure, the Village Hidden in the Rain, was enjoying its daily mid-afternoon shower. The lights refracted in the falling water, giving the busy streets an eerie beauty only those native to the place could truly appreciate.

His thoughts were interrupted by a door opening behind him. He turned to see a girl, her hands full of official looking documents, standing by the door, waiting for his invitation to intrude on his private time further.

"Konan," he said with a small smile. "You're already in. You might as well finish the job."

Konan was short, for twenty-nine, and slender, though her frame was obscured by the heavy black cloak she wore. Her hair was dark blue and hung to her chin, while her pale, delicate face was accentuated by several dark piercings.

"I didn't mean to disturb you," she said, coming closer to him. He stood, towering over her in a kind of lanky way.

"Don't worry," he said, holding up a hand. "I know you wouldn't have if it weren't important. My meditation isn't so important that it can't be interrupted by crisis."

Konan chuckled slightly at that. "Not crisis, but…many different things. First and foremost, this." She held out her arm, pulling the cloak back to reveal a twisting, elaborate seal that ran up it. Several spirals were worked into the design, and they almost seemed to pulse like tiny, beating hearts – all except for one, which was cracked and blackened.

"Kakuzu," he said after a moment of thought. "Unfortunate. And curious."

"Do you think it was Kakashi?" Konan asked. "Nagato, do you think we underestimated his abilities?"

Nagato shrugged. "I doubt it," he said, and turned towards the window. His eyes, deep violet and ringed like ripples in a pool, reflected back at him. He cast those eyes over the world, making connections, seeing things that could never have been seen by a mortal man. "I can see his death now. But I can't see the instrument." He smiled. "I love a good mystery."

He turned back to Konan. "I'll get on it. Your other news?"

"Better, thankfully," Konan said. "Ah, the Six Paths are returning. I suspect you'll wish to meet with…Yahiko." She looked down, avoiding his eyes.

"And what about you?" Nagato asked, reaching out and cupping her cheek. "Are you going to meet with him?"

"I don't-"

"I hate seeing you like this," Nagato said. "It's been years. I know you both miss each other. You shouldn't punish yourselves like this. It isn't fair."

"What is?" Konan asked, a little sadly. "I just…I can't, Nagato. He can't either. If I showed up…I don't even know if he'd be happy to see me."

Nagato shook his head. "Of course he would. He loves you."

"I love him too."

"I know." Nagato sighed. "Eventually, it will be alright. I promise you. I'll find her, and then maybe you two can work things out. Things can be like they used to."

"Eventually," Konan agreed, though her eyes told Nagato all he needed to know. It hurt, somewhere deep, for his oldest friend not to believe in him. But after thirteen years of failure, Nagato wasn't sure he even believed in himself anymore.

"I'll meet him alone then," he said, doing his best to keep his voice light. "It will be good to see him, after so many months. Is that all?"

"One more thing," Konan said, checking her papers. "Hidan was spotted by a watchtower a day ago. He should be arriving anytime now. He was accompanied by someone…a woman."

Nagato frowned. "I told him specifically not to return for several months yet," he said. "He disobeys me, and furthermore, meets someone he doesn't immediately kill?"

And then he saw it. Simple, bright as day. The pieces were there – Hidan was not a particularly complicated creature.

He actually laughed. "Well. Prepare his bed then. And prepare a room for our new guest. Perhaps Kakuzu's old quarters, now that he won't be needing them."

"Could I ask whom for?" Konan asked.

"An aunt, of a sorts," Nagato said with a smile. "We only met her briefly, but she is very close to the heart of a man very close to our hearts."

Konan sighed good-naturedly. "You're being cryptic again," she said. "I'll have the room set up immediately, and inform you when everyone's arrived."

"I love you," Nagato said called out as she left. She simply shook her head and smiled.

Nagato turned back to the window. "Kuro," he said to nobody in particular. "Shiro. I told you not to enter this room when I'm meditating."

Nobody in particular – two of them, to be precise, materialized out of the walls to his right and left. Shiro, her entire body covered in black robes, bowed respectfully. "You let Konan come in here all the time," she said. "Besides, somebody needs to keep an eye on you."

"And it's like we're not even here," Kuro said. His attire matched his sister's in every way except color, his snow white to her coal black. "All the privacy of solitude, with none of the dangers."

"You've heard about Kakuzu, then," Nagato said, choosing not to engage in their banter. The Zetsu twins could amusing occasionally, but he had other things on his mind at the moment.

"Nasty bit of business," Shiro said.

"He wasn't a good guy, but he was a good guy," Kuro said.

Nagato rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I need you to find him," he said. "Recover anything you can from his fortress. You're allowed to take ten men with you, to aid in carrying it back."

"Shit, what would we do with ten? We'll take five," Shiro said.

"I apologize for my sister's rude mouth," Kuro said. "But yeah, we'll take five."

"Five it is then," Nagato said. "Now go." And just like that, they vanished.

Nagato laughed and shook his head very slightly. As annoying as their vanishing act could be, it really was kind of cool. He looked out over the streets of Amegakure, and for a moment, he was content.

"The Chunin Exams are soon," he murmured to himself, touching the glass of the window and tracing the path of one of the myriad raindrops. "We live in interesting times."

-End of Act II-