AN: OK finally here is chapter 11. My senpai and I finally sat down and she worked on her ghost hunt chapter and I worked on this chapter until we both had finished so here it is. Find any mistakes let me know. If anything doesn't make sense let me know and yeah obviously Naruto does not belong to me it belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. If you don't know that by now you're kinda a moron.
Tsunade looked at the corpse that had been presented to her. Several toads had managed to bring the body of the Pein that Jiraiya had managed to kill. The Godaime had been busy analyzing the said body for a good chunk of time now and what she was finding was both confusing and disturbing. She had now spent countless hours alone in one of the operation rooms with the body and she was becoming rather frustrated.
This body was no normal human body. Although the body itself was indeed a single person, Tsunade had been able to discover that there were actually two distinct chakra residues left in the body. In other words, there were two separate entities residing within the same physical body. Two distinct beings but mixed. Whether or not they had continued to have two distinct minds was a different question.
The Godaime slumped down in a chair near the table where the corpse lay. How had Pein done it? She knew of only one other person that was able to transfer souls into other bodies but that method was more of a replacement than an addition method. Like Orochimaru's technique, this was obviously a forbidden jutsu. How had Pein managed to fuse two beings into the same body and keep both of them intact?
Why had he done it? Unless… Could abilities and be transferred along with the soul? If so that could be an explanation as to why Pein is so powerful? Each body being a fusion of two different people with different chakra types and jutsus?
Tsunade rubbed her forehead. This was getting far too complicated and it was all simply speculation on her part at any rate. Yet, this could explain how Pein could be the Yondaime.
Tsunade spoke aloud to herself, "It's possible that Minato is Pein and no longer himself."
The creation of Pein may be the fusion of two minds into one with neither retaining memory of ever being separate. How sad she thought.
Tsunade stood up and walked toward the plain white door. She stuck her head out and spoke to one of the passing assistants and told them to move the body to its storage room. That was enough of working on that today. She already had enough to think about.
--
Gaara dodged quickly to the left as Kisame's Samehada came down on the ground next to him. Although visibly exhausted, this Akatsuki was still putting up a bigger fight than Gaara had planned on.
Temari and Kankuro simply watched as their brother fought. They knew that it was best if they did not interfere with this battle. This was a battle for Gaara's pride. It was his first time battling an actual opponent since the Shukaku had been removed from him and as such was a real test of his current abilities. But as it was, few of Gaara's attacks had actually hit because of the absorption powers that the Samehada possessed. The Samehada was able to immobilize any sand that Gaara attacked Kisame with since it was able to absorb the chakra that was infused within the sand thus making it into useless sand once again.
Temari thought of how she could aid her brother without stealing Gaara's victory from him. She had absolute confidence that Gaara could defeat this opponent but they needed to catch up to Naruto and time was already not on their side.
Temari gripped her fan and prepared to attack. She swung in an arc and sent a gust of razor sharp wind directly toward Kisame. Kisame saw the attack coming and raised his sword to block. Gaara saw instantly the opening his sister had given him and attacked. He forced a massive quantity of sand onto Kisame's body, constricting him and causing him to drop his sword. Kisame gasped as sand worked its way completely up his body crushing his bones. This was the end. He could feel it. He didn't have his sword, there was no way out of this for him. He closed his eyes and thought of how this must be punishment for everything he had done as one of the seven swordsmen. His only regret was that he would not be able to see Itachi's goal be realized.
"Sand Coffin," Gaara said as he crushed the life out of Kisame's body. The redhead slowly released his grip on the motionless body and pulled his sand back into his gourd. Temari rushed over to her brother.
"Gaara! Are you ok?" she said as she grasped onto his shoulder.
"I'm fine. Thank you Temari," he said as he smiled lightly. As little as he actually thanked her, Temari was always watching out for him and working to protect him even though in his mind it was not completely necessary.
"We should get moving you guys," Kankuro said.
The three sand ninjas continued moving through the forest toward where they were assuming Naruto's group was headed.
--
The world was swirling around Karin. Everything had transformed into a dark gossamer fog that threatened to envelop her in complete darkness. What was this? She turned around looking frantically about her for signs of life. What had happened to everyone? Where was she?
'What was up with Sasuke's eyes?' she wondered.
Realization struck. That was the infamous mangekyou sharingan that Sasuke had told her that his brother had possessed. But how had he managed to obtain it? A form started to approach her through the fog. She stood and watched. Suddenly Sasuke emerged from the tendrils of the dark fog.
"Sasuke! What is all this?! How did you get that sharingan?! Why are you doing this?" She yelled at him.
He just stared at her coldly. The iciness of his stare made it impossible to move or speak. He slowly drew his katana from his back and in one quick motion thrust it through her chest.
He pulled the weapon out of her body agonizingly slowly and allowed her body to slump to the ground.
Karin sat clutching at the wound and staring at the blood that was pouring out of her body and onto her hands. How could this have happened?
Sasuke looked at her. "I no longer have a use for you," he said without the slightest indication of emotion in his voice.
The illusion slowly faded back to reality and Karin stared at where the wound had been. She wasn't bleeding anymore. She looked over at Jugo who was lying face down on the ground, dead. She looked up and was met by Sasuke, whose eyes had faded back to their ebony black.
She could see her reflection in his eyes. Her face was pale and completely drained of color. Then she felt just as in the illusion, she felt cold steel impale her and then the feeling of hot blood falling out of her body as the sword was pulled away.
The last thing she saw, as her world faded to black, were the confused looks of the unfamiliar faces around her and the blonde boy clinging onto Sasuke with a concerned look.
"Sasuke! What the hell!? Why did you just kill them like that?" Naruto yelled into Sasuke's face.
"I didn't want them getting in the way. They were the enemy. They would only have created problems for us and we would have ended up fighting them anyway," Sasuke said apathetically.
Everyone else remained silent. They had all noticed that something was not right. Sasuke's former teammates hadn't even put up a fight. Moreover they had simply collapsed onto the ground being under apparent mental torment until Sasuke had killed them.
Kakashi stared at Sasuke. It was unmistakable to him. Sasuke had the mangekyo sharingan. That damn technique that he himself had been subjected to in the past by Itachi. How had he managed to achieve it though?
Kakashi walked over to Sasuke and pushed Naruto out of the raven-haired boy's face.
"Leave him alone Naruto. I think that Sasuke-kun will explain his logic for this situation when he's ready to," Kakashi said as he looked at his stoic former student.
Naruto relaxed and stared at Sasuke angstily. Something was wrong, even he could tell that much. But what was wrong he didn't know. He was afraid to try prying him for information for fear of pissing him off but as someone important to him, didn't Sasuke have an obligation to tell him?
Kakashi watched as Sasuke began moving back to the treetops along with everyone else. Now was not the time to confront Sasuke. But when would the time be? They were about to engage in an epic battle. Sasuke could be hiding something important from them. What if he was planning on turning on them? He would have to discuss this with Yamato on the way.
--
Zetsu phased his body partially through the trunk of a nearby tree as he watched the Konoha shinobi pass by him. He continued to follow the ninjas through the treetops. It was not difficult to keep himself hidden considering that he was a master of masking himself as well as his chakra.
He had witnessed the entire event that had occurred with the former Team Hebi and was considerable intrigued by the occurrence.
He abandoned his following of the Konoha group and quickly used his teleportation jutsu to make his way back to the canyon lands where Pein was. He phased through the rock wall near the rinnegan possessor within moments of departing from the forests.
"How far away are they Zetsu?" Pein questioned. He was getting anxious as he waited. The wait before a battle was unbearable for him. Besides, this battle would be the final one before he unleashed his plan against Madara. If all went well he would have that man out of his way soon.
"They are only a couple of hours away at best. They should be arriving within range shortly."
"Good," Pein said shortly as walked away from Zetsu, his cloak waving gently in the breeze.
--
The forest was beginning to thin and the ground was shifting to a composition of sand instead of rich forest soil. Naruto could feel the kyuubi becoming anxious inside of him. This was it. They were getting closer to their enemy and he felt it. Things were about to go to hell and he knew it. Naruto looked at Sasuke as they jumped down from the tree canopy to the rocky terrain below. Sasuke's look was blank and expressionless. Why was Sasuke acting so distant right now? Naruto had thought that they had finally closed the gap between them but at this moment he felt further away from him than ever before.
Kakashi and Yamato stopped up ahead. They had been discussing Kakashi's suspicions quietly on the journey but now that they felt that it was time to pause before getting too far into this unfamiliar terrain.
Kakashi held his hand out signaling everyone else to stop as well.
"Ok everyone I just want to make sure that everyone has a clear idea of our plan," Kakashi stated.
Shikamaru raised his hand into the air and spoke.
"What plan exactly would that be Kakashi-sensei? We haven't really discussed a plan. We've just been following a trail."
Everyone looked at the silver-haired jounin who looked rather annoyed.
"I was about to get to that," he said plainly.
"I want everyone to stay with their teams. You've all trained in your current teams so you know how to work with each other best. But I'd like to change things just slightly. Team Kurenai, Team Gai and Shikamaru's squad will all remain the same. Sakura you're the only one trained in medical ninjutsu so I want you and Sai to stick together and hang back. If you get injured there won't be anyone to patch the rest of us up is something goes wrong. Yamato and I will work together as a team since we have in the past. Naruto and Sasuke, I want you two to work together."
Everyone nodded understandingly and began moving forward. Kakashi signaled to Sasuke that he wanted to talk to him. Sasuke approached his former sensei reluctantly.
"Sasuke, I assume you know about Naruto's link with the Kyuubi. You must be able to sense it with that sharingan of yours."
Sasuke startled just slightly at the mention of his sharingan. How had he expected Kakashi to not notice the cause of the behavior of his previous teammates?
Kakashi raised his visible eye slightly at this response.
"I want you to watch for any changes in Naruto. If you perceive that he's going to lose control, I want you to alert Yamato and I at once so that we can suppress it. He becomes a danger for himself and everyone around him when he enters that state. I know you of all people don't want to see him get hurt. Can you do that Sasuke-kun?"
"Yes sensei," Sasuke replied solemnly. Of course he didn't want to see Naruto get hurt.
"Good. Now let's move."
"I won't let him get hurt. I will protect him, even if it costs me my life," Sasuke muttered quietly to himself as he followed to catch up with the group.
AN: So what did you think? What will happen? Will Sasuke really be able to protect his lover? Anyway thanks again to my senpai and beta reader Saramoon! Now excuse me while I go Caramelldanse!