Walking the Line Between Life and Death
Chapter 10
Last Chapter Summary: With his training mostly done Naruto headed off to rescue Hinata from the beast that captured her. During his fight, Hinata sacrificed her life to save Naruto from harm which caused him to draw upon a power hidden within him.
I don't own Naruto or anything that could possibly make me any money.
'thoughts' "speaking" 'demonic' – I don't do flashbacks
Naruto looked to Entai and then turned his back on him as he approached his lifeless love. "Please, don't be too late." He told himself as he pressed one hand to her forehead and the other to her chest. "Ancient Arts: Resistive Healing" he saw the jutsu activate and some of the wounds seemed to heal, but something else was still actively killing her. Turning Hinata's body on her side he slapped her squarely on the back, with a little added chakra, forcing out the blood in her throat and lungs. "Come on work please," he pleaded as he placed his hands on her again "Ancient Arts: Resistive Healing" he called out again. This time her chest jumped upwards taking in air as she started choking and coughing. Gently patting her on the back, her coughing spell ended as she was now steadily breathing in and out on her own. "Thank God," standing up he turned towards the Minotaur. Naruto felt his electricity like chakra flare around him as he approached his opponent. "You are going to die here. I don't know how long my body can hold this power, but it will surely be long enough to destroy you."
Even though the whole thing, from the death of Hinata till now, was merely a minute, Entai was irritated and got impatient and charged at the blonde with axe blazing. Naruto easily sidestepped the axe as it came crashing down to the ground. With out missing a beat, a swirling sphere crashed into what was left of the axe "Rasengan!" the battle axe shattered sending shards of the blade in every direction leaving only a smiling face and a pissed beast. "Let's see what you really got you freak… Kitsune Kikku" Entai easily saw the kick coming like Naruto planed. Like before the Minotaur cockily tilted his head to block the kick with his mighty horn, but this time around his horn was the weaker link as it shattered causing Entai to step back in pain.
"You don't stand a chance against me now" declared Naruto with confidence. 'shit this hurts using this power, it feels like I'm being torn apart' ignoring his pain he charged in to battle and began exchanging blows in taijutsu. Surprisingly the large beast was quite nimble as he dodged the hits with apparent ease until Entai backed up and charged an attack. "Dark Matter Blast" he called out. Opening his mouth wide Entai hurled the dark evil ball towards his enemy. "Ancient Arts: Space Division" the dark matter ball split in two around the blonde's defense sending the halves in different directions. They continued hurling attacks and counters at each other (didn't want to think up more attacks so you can use your imagination) until they both ended up thoroughly beaten and worn.
'Damn when they said Kyuubi's chakra was infinite, they weren't kidding. All those jutsus and I'm not in the slightest out of chakra, but it hurts worse than hell itself.' Naruto wasn't winded, but was slowing down due to just the pain. The two opponents sized each other up and simultaneously knew the fight had to end now with the final attack.
"You will die now kid, it has been a real interesting fight…" With his arms raised above his head, pointed towards the sky, Entai called forth his greatest attack "Darkness of the End!" A great ball of pure darkness started to form in his out stretched arms absorbing even the light itself.
"Oh hell," was Naruto's voiced reaction as he ran in front of Hinata's unconscious form to be sure his attack wouldn't hurt her. Holding his hand outwards a swirling ball formed as Naruto's face contorted in concentration 'I can't use bushins, they'll get torn apart trying to hold this chakra, so I must do this myself.' Sweat poured off his brow as he focused on his attack. Seeing the darkness ball finish its growth he knew it was nearing the end so he made the final push to finish his attack. "You're finished." Naruto announced barely finishing his attack just as Entai's was thrown. "Strength of all the Elements: Rasengan" Naruto pushed the ball of chakra completely through the darkness attack shredding it with little effort. Not even slowing down he thrust the ball directly into the chest cavity of Entai. The Rasengan kept its form as he let go and stepped away from his enemy.
"This is your end Entai-teme… enjoy hell… Boom!" covering Hinata with his body, not a moment too soon, the Rasengan lost stability and exploded shredding apart the entrails of the dark Minotaur. Naruto lifted himself off of Hinata and inspected her for injuries and heart rate. After verifying that she was as well as he could discern, he held her hand and molded chakra into a crystallized ring around her finger. He admired his work of the blue and red ring intermixing and shimmering into a light purple and back again. He lightly kissed her lips and stood up next to her. Still holding back screams of pain from the transformation he tried to shutdown the flow of chakra, but found it wasn't happening. The chakra kept coming and regenerating itself, there was no end.
A team of Anbu, along with Kakashi and Jiraiya, landed in the clearing and saw the mangled body of a Minotaur with a blonde ninja radiating insane amounts of chakra standing by an unconscious dark hired girl.
"Naruto? Are you ok?" asked Jiraiya fishing to see if he was still in control or if the demon got loose.
"Define ok. I'm still in control if that is what you mean." Naruto replied. When the white haired sannin heard this he sighed in relief.
"That is good to hear; you can stand down now."
"I can't" came the pained reply that just irritated Kakashi.
"Naruto, you have already disobeyed my order earlier, you will comply with this one or we are required to attack."
"Damn it Kakashi, Jiraiya; it isn't that I won't, it's I CAN'T!" Jiraiya was taken aback by the use of his actual name and stared at his student realizing this was serious.
"What do you mean?" asked Kakashi
"I can't stop it; when ever I try to stop the chakra flow it somehow diverts and keeps feeding my system anyways. I'm getting chakra overload and it's tearing me apart inside, the pain is unbearable. I need you guys to take care of Hinata, she has already died on me once, if she goes again I'll haunt you for eternity." Naruto turned to leave after his explanation.
"Wait where are you going?" asked Jiraiya
"I need to get somewhere safe. I have to release an infinite amount of chakra and I think it might hurt really bad… Hopefully I will return, but I can't guarantee it." An intense light flashed and he was gone.
"Can you believe his power… it is unbelievable," remarked one of the Anbu. Suddenly Tsunade appeared just as the horizon grew red. A loud rumbling was heard in the distance. The rumble grew louder and louder until it was almost deafening. An intense wind picked up as branches and leaves were torn from the trees. Jiraiya rushed forward and grabbed Hinata protecting her from the damaging debris that was whipping around them. The wind and rumbling finally died down and all the present ninja revived from the intense wind trying to get their bearings again.
"Jiraiya, get off that girl!" screamed Tsunade as she readied a punch for his perverted antics.
"Sorry… just… protecting… hurt… help" Jiraiya fell to the ground with branches and debris sticking out of his back from protecting his charge. Tsunade quickly ran to him and pulled out the intruding objects and healed his wounds. After he was mostly healed she moved to Hinata and healed what injuries she had as well.
"Alright someone talk. What is going on here?" ordered the blonde Hokage looking at each ninja for an answer.
"Naruto defeated the intruder but was unable to control his chakra without injury and had to release all of it to keep from being shredded; most likely that was the cause for that shockwave." Answered the silver haired Jonin
"That could be really bad then, but did he tell you anything about Hinata? She had internal bleeding but no injuries.
"Before Naruto left, he said she had died once and threatened Jiraiya's life if anything happened to her again." Tsunade felt a huge headache heading her way. Why did all her headaches pertain to the blonde genin?
"I see, let's go and see if he is still alive." Tsunade left one Anbu member with Hinata and took the rest with her, including Jiraiya since he was able to walk again. The group leapt up onto the closest tree for a vantage point so they could search for his location. What they found was something a mostly blind person could track. Trees were flattened in a five mile radius around the epicenter where there was only a crater with no sign of the blue eyed blonde.
"Kakashi, take the Anbu squad and continue the search for Naruto. I'll return with Hinata to Konoha, since she could use a stay in the hospital." Tsunade, with Jiraiya, took Hinata to the hospital and then proceeded to form a specialized team of trackers to find and locate their missing shinobi.
3 days later
The Konoha hospital was its usual quiet with the occasional voices drifting into the hallways from visitors. Although the hospital rooms normally had a lifeless and sterile feel to them, one was quite the contrary. This small room contained many flowers of all different varieties surrounding the area where the small frame of a girl was laying, still not yet awake from her ordeal. Her dark midnight blue hair cascaded down the hospital pillow accentuating her pale skin. Her eye lids just started to flutter as she opened them revealing her silvery lavender pupil-less eyes.
"Am I dead? Where am I?" she asked with a quiet shaky voice. She turned her head to see a group kunoichi come running to her bedside.
"Thank god Hinata… You're awake," Sakura stated with a sigh of relief.
"Yeah, you wouldn't believe how worried we were for you," commented Tenten. Ino, being her usual intruding self, decided to ask the question they all wanted to know.
"So, Hinata, where did you get that beautiful thing on your finger? It won't come off your hand and it's so unique."
"Huh?" Hinata looked at her hand and stared deeply into the weird object. The blue and red colors were actively fighting for dominance of the object as they swirled about occasionally turning light purple and then switching sides.
"Hinata… hey" snapping her out of her staring daze, Ino continued her talking. "We were mesmerized by it as well it just never stays the same. So where did you get it?"
"I don't know, I jumped in front of an axe slash to save Naruto-kun. Then he um…" Hinata blushed as she started to remember the conversation. "I said yes, but then I think I died." Hinata started to break down a bit remembering her senses as her life faded. "There was so much blood, it was coming from every where, and everything was red… The last think I could remember was the feeling of drowning in my own blood… it was horrible… how am I even alive? Where's Naruto-kun?" Hinata was now hysterically crying and thrashing about trying to find her love, while the three kunoichi restrained her and tried to calm her. Sakura and Ino were holding her to the bed while Tenten was trying her best to soothe her enough so she would calm down.
"Just calm down Hinata, you can't get answers while you're thrashing around like that just calm down." Hinata finally gave in and went limp in the bed no longer trying to resist. "That's good. Now what did you say yes to? You were blushing but never told us."
"Well um… I think this ring is an engagement ring… that is what I said yes to; but how am I alive… and where's Naruto?" the kunoichis were too caught up dreading the last two questions to squeal in delight for the first part.
"We don't have the answers to either of those, you were mostly healed by the time Tsunade-sama got to you, and we haven't found Naruto yet after killing that beast and that huge explosion." Explained the pink haired kunoichi
"What explosion?" Hinata asked with concern all over her face.
"An explosion caused by Naruto trying to release enough chakra to keep his body from shredding under the stress." Everyone turned to where the voice came from to see the busty Hokage walking towards them. "Naruto had way too much chakra coursing through him and he couldn't stop it, it just kept growing. He ran to a safe distance to release the chakra away from people hopefully restoring the chakra balance. The release left almost 80 square miles of destroyed trees and a massive crater where he was supposed to be standing when it happened." Tsunade came to the bedside and held Hinata's hand as tears formed in the usually collected eyes of the Hokage. "I'm sorry Hinata; we've searched for three days now and have found no trace of him. I have listed him as an unconfirmed death. I was just trying to be optimistic, but even I can't deny that he most likely gone." Hinata was crying, the others joined her as well just from seeing the grief on the Hyuuga's face.
"Tsunade-sama," Ino voiced, "how powerful was he?"
"From what I saw there was probably no limit to his power… when I last saw him, or more accurately felt his chakra, the chakra he was radiating was probably twice that of what this entire village could generate with all of the ninjas collectively. The worst was the chakra he released in the explosion was greater than we felt while fighting the Kyuubi. That is why we don't think he survived."
"You're wrong," simply stated the sniffling patient. "What happens to anything formed of chakra when the creator dies?"
"That's easy Hinata," piped up Sakura in her know it all voice, "anything created of chakra disappears when the person that created it dies."
"Exactly, that is why he is still alive… my ring is made of his chakra, I can feel it. I think that is why he gave me this ring, so I could have peace of mind that he was still alive, especially for if he had to leave on a mission."
"But there are two colors in the ring, no one has two chakras," Ino commented with Tenten agreeing.
"Wrong," the other three females said together with Tsunade continuing "Naruto has two chakra sources; how, I can't tell you, but just accept it. Hinata, as long as that ring exists, I'll continue sending search parties to look for him, but don't expect the council to approve it. I can only get by with nothing more than a few ninja assigned to it, so the council doesn't have to approve. "
"Thank you Tsunade-sama," replied Hinata with a genuine smile. Tsunade returned the smile and then left the room leaving the tired Hyuuga to fall backwards onto the bed and fall asleep immediately. 'Please come home soon Naruto, you surely are loved here,' thought Tsunade and she disappeared into the halls of the Hospital.
...Later