Akatsuki

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.


Naruto's shadow clones were bored. They were assigned to operate the teleportation seal in Neozu, a city in the Northeast of the empire had nothing to do. In the city one of the two smaller ninja academies of the Empire was located. The clones were trying to pass the time by playing cards, but playing against yourself for a longer time is really predictable and boring. Suddenly the ground shook lightly and then they heard the sound of a giant explosion. The card game forgotten the clones leapt up on the nearest building. Far away they could see a rising cloud of dust over the eastern gate. Then they heard the sounds of several smaller explosions. One of the clones looked at his 'brothers'.

"I'll do it!"

And with that he performed the handsign to end his own existence.


In a giant chamber located in the palace in the capital of the Empire Naruto was listening to a discussion between the members of his council. Tenten, Shino and Fu had encountered a squad of shinobi with curse marks that protected a group of slave traders in lightning country. The debate about how to deal with the surely responsible Orochimaru was very heated as there there hadn't been any sign of him for a long time. Almost the whole council was present, Inoichi and Chouza had even brought Ino and Choji with them to prepare them for their future responsibilities as clan heads. Only Hinata was missing. She was inspecting the ninja academy in the capital. Suddenly a small seal on one of the walls began to glow red.

The room fell silent as they saw Naruto's now very serious expression and Shikamaru asked him:

"Naruto, what kind of seal is that?"

"I put a few experimental seals on that wall. They should only activate when one of the protective seals around our cities is destroyed. That one is for Neozu."

"Do you think someone might have accidently damaged it?"

Naruto thought about this. The seals had some self protective abilities and to destroy them a lot of force was needed. So for that to happen by accident was quite unlikely. Then the memories of a dispelled shadow clone flooded his brain.

"The city is under attack!"

This sparked loud murmurs and discussions in the room.

"Silence! Shikaku you deal with organising our forces here and send them to Neozu as soon as possible. Ino, Shika, Cho, Hive, Queen and Dragon you are with me. We go there now!"

It was not often that Naruto or Hinata used their authority in such an absolute way. Usually they discussed every decision with the council or at least their advisors. But when they gave orders like this everyone complied without question.

Naruto left the council chambers quickly, the three clan heirs and three ANBU right behind him. The Empire's ANBU uniforms were completely black and their faces were covered by simple black cloth masks instead of animal ones like the Konoha ones. To enable allies to distinguish between them, they had the kanji for their code names printed in dark red letters over their hearts. The easily as female to identify Dragon had a large katana strapped to her back, Hive wore sunglasses that could be seen through the eye slits of his mask and Queen had two large knives strapped to her belt.

The Uzumaki led his group through a long corridor and down a wide flight of stairs into the basement. He stopped in front of two large iron doors. Naruto drew a kunai, slashed his palm to draw blood and put his bloodstained hand on a seal edged into the door. The seal on the door glowed for a moment and then the large iron doors opened by themselves and revealed a teleportation seal. They had put up these security measures to not endanger the palace in case someone else figured out how to use these seals. Naruto created a few clones to help teleport reinforcements to their destination, then he and the rest of the group entered the seal and with a few hand signs Naruto activated the seal.


A few kilometers away Hinata was inspecting the Empire's main ninja academy where the final tests of the genin exams were being held. She couldn't help but feel proud. She was certain that the level of training they had managed to provide and the strong focus on practical skills would give their students a good basis to survive whatever awaited them in active duty. In the same time as the Leaf Shinobi learned only three basic jutsu, the Empire's shinobi were expected to master three additional techniques of their choosing. Every student who showed some talent in the art was taught in basic healing jutsu to increase the survival chances among the teams. Of course this meant that compared to the Leaf some theoretical aspects hadn't made it into the students' lessons, but Hinata had agreed with Naruto that those had been things they either learned during their training anyway or would never need.

The young Empress watched a fight between two of the top students of the academy. One of them was a member of the Yamanaka clan who had shown hardly any talent with his clans mind based jutsu, but showed an exceptional prowess in taijutsu and earth based techniques. His opponent was a Samurai from one of the clans that didn't outright reject any changes in their fighting style. The sword was still his primary weapon, but he had learned to use one handed hand signs for some basic techniques and ninja tools as secondary weapons. The two used real, only slightly blunted weapons, but of course they weren't supposed to kill each other. Shizune and her two apprentices stood at the sidelines to help immediately if one of them got injured.

The two fighters had started the fight both dressed up in fresh clothes but looking a bit tired and with several bandages around their arms and legs and bruises on their faces. They and the rest of the graduates had spent one month in the wilderness, having to survive, dealing with things like team changes and performing tasks set by their proctors. All of this under the lead of Chief Proctor Anko Mitarashi. She was far too scary and sadistic to use her as a regular teacher, but Hinata knew she was perfect to make sure their students were ready to become Genin.

The Yamanaka finished a few hand signs and spikes emerged from the earth and pierced the samurai's legs. The samurai turned into one of the logs that had been placed in the fighting ring for replacement jutsu. The Yamanaka spun around and managed to block the incoming sword slash with a kunai, then he immediately tried to put distance between him and the deadly weapon again by hurling several shuriken towards his opponent. The blond shinobi forced the samurai to block and dodge the throwing weapons and immediately prepared his next move.

The Yamanaka created ten clones, which immediately attacked his opponent. Hinata could see they were just illusions even without her Byakugan and she could easily distinguish the clones from the original, but that was something the young samurai still had to learn. He coated his sword with chakra and began a deadly dance. One clone after another dispersed after being hit with the blue glowing blade until only one of the blond shinobis remained. Without hesitation the samurai slashed right through his enemy. If there had been any danger the proctors would have stopped the fight before that happened. Instead the Yamanaka vanished in smoke and in his stead appeared a log that had been cleanly cut in half. The real Yamanaka had sneaked up on the samurai meanwhile and held a kunai to his neck. The fight was over.

Hinata kept a straight face while she clapped like many of the other observers to signify she was pleased with the performance of the students. She couldn't afford to show just how amazed she was about their fight, as they had shown more prowess than anyone in her class when they graduated, but she needed them to know that there was still a lot of room for improvement.

Suddenly a single soldier entered the room, seemingly a bit out of breath. He quickly announced for everyone to hear.

"All able bodied soldiers are to report to their superior immediately! Neozu is under attack and we are mobilizing."

The officers, who had been inspecting the academy together with Hinata excused themselves and left immediately. A few of the academy teachers, who were acting as reserves made sure their students were taken care of and then left as well.

Hinata approached the man who had brought the news.

"Do you know where I can find my husband?"

When the soldier recognised her, he bowed.

"The Emperor has travelled to Neozu himself to deal with this threat, my Empress."

"Thank you."

Hinata quickly left the Academy, deactivated her gravity seal and made her way towards the city's teleportation seal with inhuman speed.


When Naruto and the rest of his small group of ninja arrived in the teleportation seal of Neozu they found themselves in the middle of a large group of frightened civilians who were waiting to be teleported away to safety. Naruto pushed several people away to get to the edge of the seal to one of his clones.

"Wait a second for all of us to leave the circle and then get them out of... "

Booom

A large explosion destroyed half of the seal and killed dozens of the gathered civilians. A small animal made of clay had found the pack of unarmed citizens and considered them a worthy target.

A slap to his face courtesy of Shikamaru brought Naruto back to consciousness. He had been closest to the explosion and got knocked out by it for a short while. His companions had carried him into a nearby building to give him time to recover and plan their next steps. Naruto noticed that he was covered in blood, but after checking himself he realized that it was not his own. He shuddered slightly as he wondered how many of his citizens had been killed by that single bomb. Naruto saw that Ino had her eyes closed and a concentrated expression on her face. He knew she was trying to connect her mind to some of the citizens to gather information about what was happening. They waited until she finally opened her eyes and when she did she looked pale and fearful.

"It - It's horrible." Ino's voice was barely above a whisper and she shuddered slightly. "They are killing everyone they see and are hunting down the Academy students."

Choji put a hand on Ino's shoulder, while Shikamaru was less gentle.

"Pull yourself together Ino."

"R-Right! There are only nine enemies, all of them highly skilled ninja. Six of them have eyes like you, Naruto, but they all look differently. There is a woman with blue hair and wings of paper. And then there are Deidara and Sasori. You should know the reports from when they tried to abduct Gaara. I know where each of them is at the moment."

Shikamaru tried to convince Naruto to not take too many risks.

"Naruto, we should stay together and take them down one by one."

They heard another explosion and screams of agony from outside. Somewhere a child was crying.

"No! We split up and draw their attention on us. We need to protect the townsfolk."


Back in the capital Hinata had reached the teleportation seal. Two platoons of ninja were already in position to be teleported. The Empress stepped into the circle and addressed one of the Naruto clones operating it.

"Send us there now!"

The clone nodded and performed the necessary hand signs. Nothing happened.

"Damn! Someone must have destroyed the seal at the destination."

Hinata couldn't help but feel worried. It would take several hours for the first reinforcements to reach the city by conventional methods. She quickly entered her mindscape and woke the sleeping fox.

"Kurama-san, I need your help."

Moments later a yellow flash travelled through the lands of the Empire at an enormous speed.


Tenten waited in a small dark alley for her approaching opponent. The sounds of explosions came closer and closer. Finally she saw the silhouette of her enemy reflected in the window she had been observing. That meant her target had fallen right into her trap. With a few hand signs she activated the paper bombs she had placed beforehand. The explosion showered dust and debris everywhere and Tenten sprinted forth from her hiding place, going through several hand signs on the way. She broke through a cloud of dust and spotted her target only a few meters away. The brunette kunoichi finished her hand signs and blew a cone of fire that quickly engulfed and consumed the blue haired woman as if she was only made of paper.

Cursing Tenten swung around and barely managed to quickly unseal and throw ten kunai to stop the paper bombs her real opponent had thrown at her. For a moment both women gauged each other. Then Tenten smirked behind her ANBU mask.

"You are pretty good. What is your name?"

"Konan."

"Nice to meet you, Konan. My name is Dragon."


Ino, Choji and Shikamaru were still moving towards their opponent.

"Shouldn't we have split up more evenly, Shikamaru?"

Ino was a bit confused that they were going against one enemy with a full team, while Tenten was going alone.

"Keeping well cooperating teams together was important when considering who goes against who and our respective battle prowess of course. Currently we are lacking quite far behind our ANBU Captain in that regard."

"Still, we should try to finish our target quickly and help the others."

Shikamaru sighed.

"It's a drag but I fear we might not be able to do that. To be honest, I think we are the ones with the lowest success chances of all groups."

"What? Why?"

"Sasori is known to use potent poisons. We have to be very careful and not get cut even once."

"Shouldn't Fu have taken him on then? She has some resistance to poisons since she is a jinchuuriki."

"No, she needs to take care of Deidara. Thanks to her lightning jutsu she has the best chances to stop his earth based exploding clay."

Ino nodded. She realised she should have expected that Shikamaru had put more thought into quickly assigning them to their targets than he had let on.


In another part of the city Fu was desperately trying to get Deidara down from his flying clay bird with long ranged jutsu, while Shino watched his girlfriend from a distance. He hated fighting this way, but it was the logical thing to do. Fu was able to take a lot more punishment than him, thanks to her being a Jinchuuriki. This was proven when a clay animal attacked the insect clone Shino had sent to fight by Fu's side. The resulting explosion ripped the clone apart and Shino knew that the results wouldn't have been much different if that had been he himself.

The Aburame tried to plan his next steps. He had three different kinds of insects, but only one of them had the ability to fly.

These insects could drain the chakra of their victim and their wings could take them quite a distance. But they were slow flyers and catching Deidara with them was difficult. Shino had them currently hovering in one spot, trying to foresee Deidara's movements to catch him.

The insects of his main swarm couldn't fly, but they could drain much more chakra than their flying counterparts and Shino could use them for his techniques like the insect clones.

In addition to that he had a small colony of slightly bigger and stronger flesh eating bugs.

Shino created another insect clone, but instead of sending it to attack directly, he ordered it to hide in the ruins of a destroyed house close to Fu.

Fu on the other hand attacked Deidara's flying clay bird with another lightning jutsu. Deidara managed to dodge the attack and didn't notice that she had driven him right into the waiting insects of Shino. The bugs attached themselves to the clay bird and began drawing out its chakra.

One minute later the flying construct's strong beats of his wings suddenly slowed down and it tumbled towards the ground. Deidara jumped from the back of his creation and managed to cushion his fall enough with a bit of chakra in his legs so that he didn't break anything.

Immediately Fu attacked him, but unfortunately for her she passed over a clay mine Deidara had planted beforehand and only the layer of demonic chakra around her caused Fu to just get catapulted away by the blast and not get severely hurt.

Then Deidara saw the insects that were drawing the remaining chakra of his destroyed bird and he quickly detonated it. Since there was hardly any chakra left in the clay the explosion was more of a 'Poof' than a 'Bang', but it was enough to kill many of Shino's allies.

Turning around again Deidara spotted the insect clone Shino had created earlier and put on a malicious grin.

"Found you!"

The next explosion destroyed the whole building complex the clone had been hiding by. Shino remained unhurt, but he certainly didn't like how this fight was going.


Naruto and his six paths faced his six orange haired enemies with Rinnegan eyes. The young Emperor had already deactivated his gravity seal, he knew that he couldn't afford to hold anything back against an enemy like this. At the same time some of his shadow clones were creating a new teleportation seal in another part of the city.

"Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze I assume? We have heard quite a bit about you."

"I can't say the same about you. Who are you?"

"I am Pain. Leader of the Akatsuki. Hand over the Jinchuuriki under your protection and we will leave. If you don't we will turn your Empire into a wasteland."

"Jinchuuriki are not some kind of thing you can trade away. They are people! And you will face justice for what you did to this city and its citizens!"

"You are from Konoha and Konoha shinobi killed my family and destroyed my hometown because of their justice. This is my justice, it is no use to try to tell me what is right or wrong."

"Fine, then I'll just have to stop you. But why are there only six of you? Is the real one hiding somewhere? Are you too afraid to face me yourself?"

Pain didn't answer. He attacked.

A giant dog and a rhinoceros with piercings of chakra metal and Rinnegan eyes appeared and charged towards the group of Narutos. The blond shinobi had seen that the only woman among his enemies had summoned them and that made her his first designated target. He wanted to stop the giant animals from doing more damage to the city. Naruto created a giant fire elemental that stopped both animals with his hands. The rhinoceros was almost immediately consumed by the flames, but the dog's wounds closed quickly and he grew additional heads, becoming more powerful in the process. Still, Naruto was certain that his elementals were overall more powerful than these summons, but used up more chakra in exchange.

Naruto and his paths stormed past the fighting giants and towards the group of orange haired ninja. The path he had talked with before extended his his hand and suddenly Naruto was drawn towards him, the waiting arms of another path.

'The leader is the Deva Path, no surprises there.'

Instead of attacking the path he was sailing towards, Naruto catapulted another path away to create an opening and then teleported himself to safety. His Human Path dove right into the opening he had created and shoved a Rasengan into the opponent's Animal Path. Naruto's Human Path was destroyed as well as he had come right between his enemies, but Naruto considered this a good trade. The giant dog vanished in smoke and Naruto still had all of his battle oriented paths at his disposal. Then Naruto received the memories of his destroyed path and now he knew what it had felt.

'These are real bodies, but they are cold.'

Naruto's facial expression became grossed out.

"You are using corpses!"


Tenten watched how her opponent produced dripping wet paper sheets, obviously expecting more fire based attacks. The ANBU Captain smiled, her nickname Dragon had once again thrown someone off. She took two medium sized scrolls from her gear and opened them. She unrolled them and threw weapon after weapon at her opponent.

"Rising Twin Dragons!"

Tenten had thrown about half of her weapons, which were either dodged or blocked by stacks of paper when her enemy suddenly sent such a great wave of papers her way that Tenten couldn't throw weapons fast enough.

'Shit!'

Tenten was in no position to dodge so she switched to plan B. She cancelled her technique, the weapons she had unsealed so far would have to suffice, then she created strands of chakra, which connected to numerous of her weapons scattered around the battlefield. With a quick yank she pulled the weapons into the wanted direction and they sliced the incoming storm of papers into little bits.

What she used were the chakra strings originally developed by the Suna puppet masters. She would have liked to be able to say they had given the technique to her or that she had managed to redevelop it on her own, but that would have been far from the truth. She had stolen it one night from the Suna ninja library, but luckily nobody knew that, not even Naruto or Hinata.

Tenten continued to fight by attaching her chakra strings to the weapons all across the battlefield and stopping incoming attacks with them or using them to attack herself.


Naruto groaned inwardly as he watched Pain from a distance. He had put some distance between himself and the Akatsuki leader believing he was the only one who could easily replace his paths. But while Naruto had created a few shadow clones and turned them into paths with chakra metal one of the Pains had summoned a hideous head from the earth from which the previously destroyed paths emerged unharmed.

'And back to square one.'

That wasn't entirely true of course. Now he knew the abilities of his enemies' paths and which one he had to take down first to prevent Pain from 'reviving' them.


Shikamaru managed to get a hold on the bulky puppet with his shadow bind jutsu to allow Choji to get close without having to worry about the metallic tail. The Akimichi expanded his right arm into gigantic proportions and smashed the puppet apart.

Ino cheered over the mental link she had established between them.

'Nice work guys!'

'It is not over yet, Ino.'

Out of the remains of the puppet stepped a pink haired kid with a blank expression on his face. Shikamaru was quite worried as they had basically no idea about what he could do from this point.

Their enemy unsealed a single puppet,

"That looks like the Third Kazekage. Be careful, there are rumors of Suna puppet masters who could turn a dead person into a puppet and even use their abilities. The Third Kazekage was known for his Iron Sand techniques."

Choji nodded and suddenly had to catch a collapsing Ino. She had seen an opening to perform the Mind Body Switch on Sasori. But nothing happened and a few moments later Ino came back to."

"It doesn't work. I know I hit him, but he felt more like an inanimate object than a living being. I couldn't connect my mind to his."

"Look at him. He seems to be more like a puppet than a human himself. That must be why your technique doesn't work, Ino."

"Troublesome."


Naruto and his two remaining paths faced the two remaining paths of his enemy. He watched as the Preta Path performed some kind of barrier technique and the Deva Path he had identified as the 'leader' gathered chakra.

"Shinra Tensei!"

'Oh no!'

Naruto and his paths stormed forward. Naruto used his gravitational powers to try and get rid of the Preta Path. But the barrier flared up and absorbed the blast. His paths were just as unsuccessful and a shimmering, expanding sphere formed around the enemy Deva path. Naruto knew that this technique had the potential to destroy the whole city and he couldn't let that happen. He accessed the powers of his destroyed Barrier Path himself and surrounded the sphere with a basic barrier. Then he put more chakra into the technique and when he felt a resistance in the possible input, he just forced even more chakra in.

The effect was immediate. The barrier had seemed close to collapsing before, but now it was more defined than ever and Pain's sphere was unable to break it. The two techniques continued to clash until finally Pain's attack stopped. Naruto hadn't known about the exact side effects overloading his techniques brought with them. His whole body hurt and he felt extremely weak. Naruto sank to his knees, coughing up blood. Even worse was that he realized that all of his Paths and shadow clones had dispelled during all of this and the clones assigned to create a new teleportation seal had not been able to finish their work. Naruto tried to move, but the technique had taken too much of a toll on his body and the two remaining Paths of Pain came closer.

Inwardly Naruto cursed. He knew that the original was in just as much pain as he was. But the Akatsuki's paths made from corpses were sturdier than his shadow clones and could still fight.

They pushed him to the ground and the Deva Path used chakra metal rods to pin down his arms and legs. Naruto gritted his teeth as the rods painfully pierced his flesh.

"Why are you doing this? Why did you want to destroy this city. Why are you killing innocents?"

"They are just unfortunate sacrifices we have to make in order to achieve peace."

"Achieve peace? How can you say you want to achieve peace? Can't you see that you brought war to a peaceful city?"

"This is how this world of ninja work works. There will always be fighting in this world, which gives birth to pain, which gives birth to hate and war. I will bring this world to its knees and by that bring peace."

"You are insane! You just bring more pain and hate. How can you dream to achieve peace by that?"

"I thought you would know how. Didn't you achieve peace for your country through war? Didn't you stop the hate by cutting down your enemies and letting those live who fell in line?"

Naruto laughed. It was probably a bad idea to laugh at the man who held him at his mercy, but Naruto didn't care.

"You are wrong! Do you honestly believe I could have brought peace to this land with fire and sword alone? Everyone would have turned against me and even if I had managed to defeat all my enemies there would have been rebellions and unrest everywhere. This way there would never have been true peace."

Naruto left a small pause and he noticed that the orange haired man was listening intently. So he continued.

"I achieved peace through diplomacy and forging pacts. I achieved peace by forgiving my enemies, not seeking revenge for my fallen comrades and friends and turning my former opponents into my allies. I didn't achieve peace by killing my enemies, but through my many friends and allies."

Naruto knew that he was stretching the truth a bit. He couldn't exactly call himself a pacifist, but he had only used violence when there was no other way. And then there was the fact that some of the allies he had gained turned against him later or were more trouble than they were worth. But those were details and for the most part he spoke the truth.

Pain was about to respond when he suddenly whirled around and brought up a hand just in time to stop Hinata, who had been charging towards him covered in Kyuubi chakra. The Deva Path's powers catapulted her away at an enormous speed. Naruto cringed slightly as he witnessed Hinata being tossed through the nearest building's wall and out of view. But loud crashing noises indicated that the one wall alone hadn't been enough to stop her.

For a few seconds after the noises had stopped nothing happened. Then Hinata came rushing out of the very hole in the wall she created. The Deva Path raised his hand and activated his technique. 'Hinata' burst into smoke. Then the original appeared from behind another building and stormed towards Pain's Preta Path. The Path raised his hands and quickly absorbed her Kyuubi cloak when she was close enough. But the yellow chakra had concealed she was carrying a kunai and using her momentum she buried it in the path's skull. The path collapsed and Hinata managed to reactivate her chakra cloak just before the Deva Path sent her flying through the next building. The path turned towards the still incapacitated Naruto.

"Let me teach you about pain."

And with that the he followed after Hinata.


Tenten realized she had to do something new or there was a high chance she was going to lose this fight. Her enemy had systematically destroyed almost all her weapons and she was quickly running out of scrolls to unseal more. She grabbed for the sword on her back, drew it and got into her Kenjutsu stance. The sword was a beautiful katana with a red hilt and the blade was made out of two differently colored metals, the darker one forming complex seals.

"You should have realised by now that you can't beat me with a sword."

"This is an Uzumaki family sword, given to me by the Emperor himself. You would do well not to underestimate it."

Tenten charged. She poured chakra into the blade to sharpen it and it began to glow blue. This of course a Samurai technique to increase the effectiveness of their katanas. As a weapon enthusiast learning these techniques had been one of the first things to do for her after arriving in the western regions. And then Naruto had given her this magnificent blade. The difference to the weapons the common Samurai used in the West was gigantic.

Tenten sliced through waves of incoming papers all while charging towards the blue haired woman, her body flowing from one stance into the next. She felt as if the blade had become a part of her body and whispered tips and warnings to her. She saw that her enemy prepared a far greater attack than before and that her water soaked paper sheets were used up. Tenten broke into a small smile as she continued to storm forward. Konan unleashed a gigantic wave of papers, but the ANBU Captain simply molded her chakra before sending it into the blade and suddenly a torrent of flames burst forth from her weapon obliterating the thousands of papers flung her way. All without having to use hand signs. Konan was completely unprepared for not even slowing her enemy down and she hesitated a moment too long. When Tenten reached her, she was decapitated with one quick slash of the brunette's sword.

The ANBU Captain watched the blood on her blade and Konan's head fall to the ground, a surprised expression on her face. The Akatsuki's body collapsed next and blood pooled from the stump that was her neck. Tenten checked for genjutsu. There wasn't any. Konan was dead.


Shino was desperately trying to find a logical way out of their current situation and failed. The last explosion had incapacitated Fu and now a big centipede made of clay had snaked around her body and constricted her movement. She was barely conscious and in no position to free herself.

Shino on the other hand had lost almost all of his insects. The only trump card he had left were a few of his flesh eating bugs that he had managed to sneak on Deidara's clothing and had made their way under the blonde's cloak unnoticed. But unless they found an open wound or something similar they were not that dangerous.

"Hey you other ANBU guy come out and let me show you some real art. This will be a blast!"

Shino appeared from his hiding place. For now he was only trying to stall for time while he was thinking of a way to save Fu.

The self proclaimed artist smiled at Shino maliciously while the Aburame slowly stepped closer to the Akatsuki and his captive. But then the smile suddenly left Deidara's face and it was replaced with confusion. He ripped his clothes off as fast as possible. At the same time Shino smelled a pheromone his insects gave off when they were excited. They had obviously found something. Deidara threw off his shirt and revealed an additional mouth right over his heart. It was sewn shut but Shino's insects had cut some of the strings and wriggled through the opening.

The Akatsuki screamed in pain as the insects invaded his body and clutched at his chest to stop them. But it was too late for that. He felt that the insects were already very close to his heart so he stopped trying to get rid of them. I nstead he looked up to Shino.

"Well played."

Shino saw that Deidara was about to detonate the centipede constricting Fu. He ordered his insects to stop and since his pain subsided Deidara stopped as well.

"Let her go and I will call my allies back."

The blond villain took a look at the Aburame's ANBU uniform.

"Well 'Hive' unfortunately for you I know that you ANBU are too professional to do that. Let us just watch my last piece of art together instead. Katsu!"

And with a flick of his finger Deidara detonated the last bomb in his life. Shino's world seemed to stop as he watched helplessly as the clay animal constricting his girlfriend exploded.


It was a few minutes after Pain had gone after Hinata and Naruto was worried because he could do nothing but listen to sounds of fighting between his wife and her enemy. Suddenly the very person he was worried for stood right in front of Naruto. The 'Hinata' looked down on him with a pained but calculating expression.

"Naruto are you..."

'Hinata' stopped mid sentence. It was a stupid thing to ask him if he was alright considering he was pinned to the ground with metal rods through his limbs.

Naruto smiled weakly anyway.

"I am better now. You are a shadow clone, aren't you?"

The Hinata nodded.

"Naruto, I will draw out the pole constricting your hands. You have to create a shadow clone immediately after that. Your wounds will bleed heavily and we will need your Healing Path to deal with that."

Her husband agreed and 'Hinata' got on her knees and grabbed the metal pole that pinned down his hands. But then she froze and bit her lip, getting second thoughts about her plan. Naruto smiled at her reassuringly.

"Don't worry 'Nata, everything will work out. I promise."

Hinata smiled back at him. Then she got serious again and with a quick yank she pulled out the metal rod. Naruto winced shortly, but immediately got to work. On the third try he managed to focus his chakra well enough to create a single clone despite the chakra metal still in his body, his awkward position and his injured hands. 'Hinata' immediately went and retrieved a bit of the chakra metal one of Naruto's paths had left and pushed it into the clones neck. Naruto activated his Rinnegan and managed to turn the clone into the much needed path.

Several minutes later the young Emperor was freed from all the metal rods. They had turned him around and he was now lying with his back on the ground and his head in 'Hinata's' lap. The Healing Path had managed to stop the bleeding from all of Naruto's wounds, but it would still take him a long time to heal the wounds themselves. During all of this they had heard the sounds of fighting from where Hinata was, but Naruto couldn't help and the shadow clone wanted to be there to protect him.

Suddenly tere was a loud rumbling noise from just outside the city. Trees, rocks, some houses from the city's outskirts and giant chunks of earth were ripped from the ground and pressed into a sphere that was floating in the sky. And in the middle of the flying rubble Naruto spotted a yellow glowing figure, Hinata, who was desperately trying to escape the force pulling her upwards.

"Well this isn't good."

'Hinata' lifted his head from her lap and quickly gave him a kiss on his cheek. Then she put him down on the ground and got up. The usually confident and strong Naruto turned his head and looked at her with pleading eyes.

"Please save her."

'Hinata' knew that tone in his voice. It was the same as when she met him before his fight against Neji. She knew that only she had seen this vulnerable side of his and she would be damned if she was the reason he got hurt.

"Naruto I came here to make sure you are safe. But I can't die either. I promised myself that our family will not be torn apart and I don't go back on my word."

'Hinata' coated herself in the yellow glowing Kyuubi chakra she had received when she was created and sped off to rescue the original.

She stormed through a breach in the city walls and saw her enemy before her. He was still concentrating on the giant ball of earth and stone in the air and the clone performed a quick genjutsu to hide her presence while she got closer. Just before 'Hinata' reached Pain he spun around and managed to mostly dodge her palm strike directed at his chest. She only grazed his shoulder, but managed to pump enough demonic chakra through the point of contact to destroy his chakra pathways there and render his arm useless.

Pain extended his other arm and flung 'Hinata' away with his powers, while behind him the floating sphere cracked apart and started falling towards the ground because he didn't continue using his technique. The clone used her Kyuubi chakra to create spikes that dug into the ground and brought her to a halt after a hundred meters. 'Hinata' immediately charged again and Pain used earth jutsu to try and stop her. But thanks to the demonic chakra that didn't work. After she had simply broken through the third wall of earth she regained sight of her target.

Pain raised his working arm, produced an iron rod and flung it full speed towards 'Hinata'. The rod was too fast to dodge, but just before it pierced her and made her vanish in smoke, she smiled. She had achieved what she wanted.

Only now Pain realized that the clone had managed to completely distract him from the original. When he turned around Hinata was already upon him. Only his Shinra Tensei would have been fast enough to stop her, but there was a small timing window during which he couldn't use this power and Hinata knew that thanks to Naruto. The following palmstrike to his stomach flooded his chakra system with unrefined harmful demonic chakra. It destroyed the path's chakra coils and internal organs. For a short while the orange haired man remained standing as if he could continue the fight. Then he fell over.


Shikamaru looked around. It was over. They were defeated. With his last bit of chakra he held most of the seemingly endless amount of puppets in place. But that was quickly running out.

Choji lay on the ground in pain, poison preventing him from moving an inch. He had fought valiantly. The Akimichi had managed to release his clan's butterfly cakra wings without using a food pill. He destroyed the puppet of the Third Kazekage and many others. But going into close combat made him vulnerable and he got slashed with a blade and poisoned.

Ino had fought well, too. Even though her mind based techniques didn't work on Sasori, she had done everything she could. She had kept their minds linked during all of the fight, allowing them to discuss strategies without alerting Sasori. Right now she managed to keep the small amount of still mobile puppets away from her teammates with paper bombs and her limited taijutsu skills.

The one whose performance Shikamaru wasn't happy with was his own. He had neglected his ninja training and spent a lot of time micro managing the Empire. He swore to himself he would train more if they somehow managed to survive.

The Nara collapsed to his knees , his last bit of remaining chakra spent. The no longer restrained puppets moved towards the defeated team like a flood. Shikamaru hoped their deaths would be swift.

Suddenly the puppets stopped and the tip of a blade appeared out of the round canister in Sasori's chest. Behind him stood Tenten with her katana buried in his back.

"Hey guys! Miss me?"

"Dragon! Thank god!"

The missing nin tried to take at least some of his enemies with him using his remaining strength that was fading quickly. He moved his puppets forward and now they were only a few steps away from the defeated Ino-Shika-Cho trio. Tenten twisted her blade around, further destroying the contents of the canister. The puppet master collapsed and his puppets stopped only centimetres away from the clan heirs.


Naruto had his Healing Path still heal himself. His wounds were hardly visible anymore, but his arms and legs still hurt like hell. He had managed to create a few shadow clones and he just waited for them to finally finish the teleportation seal to bring reinforcements and medical aid into the city.

"Naruto! I am so glad you are alright."

Naruto smiled as Hinata came running towards him and captured him in a hug. The young Emperor winced when his wife accidently applied pressure to his wounds and she immediately let go of him and apologised. He gave her a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Then his expression became serious again.

"Hinata, do you think you have enough chakra left to look for the original and capture or kill him? I don't think he can be too far away or his paths couldn't have used so much chakra so easily. We can't allow him to recuperate, create new paths and attack again."

She nodded determined.

"I will find him, Naruto."

He noticed a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

"Hinata can you try to capture him alive, please? I don't think he is all that bad, he just goes about things the wrong way."

The former Hyuuga would have liked to rip the man apart for what he had done to the townsfolk and her husband, but to her Naruto's opinion was more important than her own wish for revenge.

"I'll try."

She gave Naruto a quick kiss, shrouded herself in Kyuubi chakra again, activated her Byakugan and sped off to look for their hidden enemy.


Shizune and her apprentices were among the first reinforcements being teleported to Neozu through the new teleportation seal. They found Shino while he was desperately trying to stop the flow of blood from a bloody stump where a leg should have been. The rest of the leg was lying a hundred meters away between a pile of rubble. Fu was in a terrible state so that Shizune hadn't been sure that it was her at first. Shino had taken off his own and Fu's ANBU masks as they had gotten in the way of his first aid attempts and this showed how desperate the Aburame had become. Shizune would have to have a word with her students to keep their identities a secret afterwards. The medics immediately got to work and Shino watched in silence as they tried to save his girlfriend. After half an hour Shizune finally let out a relieved sigh.

"Will she be alright?"

Shizune was slightly startled to suddenly hear him speak.

"She is stable for now, which is a miracle considering her injuries, but jinchuuriki are tough. She will live. I am not so sure if we can save her leg though."

He nodded and continued to watch in silence for a while, while holding Fu's hand.

Then Shino suddenly gave his unconscious girlfriend a kiss on the hand he was holding, stood up and walked away. Shizune looked after him questioningly.

"Where are you going Shino?"

"There is something I have to do."


In a small, dark cave Nagato hung limply in his chakra metal frame. Konan had hidden his real body here after they had found the cave right next to the border to the Empire. He was exhausted after having fought a Rinnegan user and the host of the Kyuubi. The Akatsuki leader had realized that Konan should have come a long time ago to help him and now it had become painfully clear to him that she simply would not come anymore. Nagato wondered what he could do once he had regained his strength. His paths were out of his reach and he could not move his legs, not even leave the frame. He wondered whether he would simply slowly die because he couldn't sustain himself. He felt being found by his enemies might result in an easier death than that.

But then he heard footsteps coming closer in the relative darkness of the cave. First a black Akatsuki robe with the regular red clouds came into view, but instead of a face the man had an orange mask with a single eyehole.

"Hello Nagato-sempai."

Nagato watched the man he knew as Tobi carefully. There was something about him he definitely didn't like.

"I can't allow you to die here Nagato-sempai. I still need your help for something important."

Tobi had stepped close to Nagato and to his surprise he could see a Sharingan eye behind the mysterious man's mask. Before Nagato could do anything Tobi's eye became active and a swirling force drew Nagato into another dimension.


Deidara awoke from being dragged by his collar over a slightly muddy forest floor. He wondered how he was still alive. The last thing he remembered was passing out after his enemie's insects had started eating him from the inside. Somehow he couldn't move his arms or legs, but he managed to angle his head in a way to find out that the one dragging him was the male ANBU he had fought. He wondered if he had at least managed to take down the girl.

"So is your partner dead?"

"No, I left Queen with our medical corps, she will be fine."

Shino wasn't in the mood to tell Deidara about how bad her injuries were or that she might lose one leg.

"Too bad, it was such a beautiful explosion."

If Deidara had been able to look through Shino's usual cold and stoic behaviour, he might have not dared to speak that sentence. On the inside the Aburame harbored a raging fury, screaming for revenge.

They had reached a small clearing and Shino sat Deidara down against a tree.

"What is going to happen now, Hive?"

"I will leave you here."

"Wait! What is the catch?"

"My insects have cut the tendons in your arms and legs. You won't be able to move. I will return in one week."

"You will return in one week? Do you want me to slowly die of thirst and hunger?"

"No, I have lost most of my insects during our fight. They need a place with lots of food and protection to breed a new swarm. Like your body."

Deidara paled for a moment, but he quickly managed to hide his fear.

"You just want me to die a painful death, don't you?"

The Aburame adjusted his glasses. "Yes."

"So this is about revenge? I thought you ANBU guys were stone cold professionals. Hey come back here!"

But Shino just walked away and Deidara felt how the insects, which were already inside of him began to stir. As he walked away Shino heard Deidara begin to scream in agony. One week later he returned and collected his new familiars. Shino didn't bother with with burying the bones, the only thing left of Deidara.


Several days after the Akatsuki attack

The Imperial Council was discussing the damage and the the Akatsuki attack had caused. They were looking for ways how to detect attacks earlier and how to better respond quicker to incoming threats.

During the fighting almost two thousand citizens of Neozu were killed, only a small part of its overall population, but still a painful blow against the empire. Even worse was that Akatsuki had targeted the local Ninja Academy and its teachers and students. It would take quite some time to train new teachers and students until the academy was back at its former level. The extensive damage to many of the city's buildings and the expenses necessary to support the injured and homeless citizens were the least of their problems as the Empire had established a healthy economy that could bear these costs. The worst thing was of course the fact that the original Pain hadn't been caught. All of his paths had been cremated, but he could easily create new ones. Naruto and Hinata were glad that at least all of their friends had made it through this ordeal alive.

In a puff of smoke two giant toads suddenly appeared in the council chamber of the imperial palace. Several of the council members drew weapons and got into a combat ready stance. The orange toad looked around as if searching for something.

"Gamakichi, Gamatatsu is that you?"

The toads looked into the direction of the voice and smiled. Both of them hadn't recognized Naruto at first because of how much older and more mature he looked.

"Naruto! It has been a while."

Naruto looked around at the council members, who still stared warily at his old friends.

"Uh guys can you give us a minute in private please?"

Shikamaru and the other council members reluctantly left the room. Only Hinata stayed by Naruto's side.

"Anyway you are looking well, Naruto."

"You two are looking good, too, guys."

"And who is that pretty lady?"

Hinata smiled at the compliment and bowed shortly to the toad.

"I am Hinata Uzumaki-Namikaze. Naruto's wife. It is good to meet you Gamakichi-san, Gamatatsu-san. Naruto has told me a lot about you both."

"Nice to meet ya, too, Hinata-san. Good to see someone is taking care of Naruto."

"Hey guys, I need to show you something awesome."

"Is it candy?"

Naruto smiled because of his old friend's antics.

"No it is not candy, Gamatatsu. But I promise I'll get you some of the Empire's yummiest candy later."

The door opened and in came a path of Naruto, with Hitomi riding on his shoulders and a clone of Hinata, carrying Minato.

The eyes of the dark haired girl widened and a big smile showed on her face. After Naruto's path had let her down she immediately made her way to Gamatatsu.

"Froggie!"

She carefully touched the huge toad's skin.

Gamatatsu smiled at her.

"Human tadpoles!"

The Hinata clone had put down Minato as well, but contrary to his sisters reaction the boy hid behind the legs of his mother, intimidated by the giant toads.

When Hitomi saw this, she waddled towards him, grabbed his hand and lead him towards Gamatatsu. The toad himself extended his giant tongue, picked up both children and put them on his back. Minato was a bit scared at first, but the giggling and overall happy behaviour of his sister soon calmed him down.

While Gamatatsu continued to play with the toddlers under Hinata's watchful eyes, Gamakichi indicated to Naruto that he wanted to have a word in private.

"So what's up, Gamakichi?"

The toads expression darkened as he explained.

"Jiraiya has changed a lot since our last meeting, Naruto."

"Yeah he is under the influence of that bastard Danzo unfortunately. I asked my friend Temari's summon to inform you, too. I hope you got that message."

"Oh don't worry, the weasels brought us your letter. We noticed quite a change in his behaviour ourselves, too. But still, he was the Toad Sage. Before this every single Toad Sage stayed in this position until their death."

"What do you mean? Isn't he the the Toad Sage anymore?"

"No, he was stripped of his title by Gamabunta, Ma and Pa with the approvement of the Great Toad Sage."

This worried Naruto, whatever had caused the toads to act this way must have been big.

"Why the break in tradition?"

"He ordered one of my cousins to use oil and a fire jutsu to burn down a village where a group of enemy shinobi was hiding. But he didn't tell him that there were still men, women and children in that village. It must have been a terrible sight. Over fifty innocent civilians died in the fire."

Naruto shuddered and couldn't help but feel depressed about being incapable of helping his old sensei.

"I wish I could help Ero-Sennin, but I just don't know how to get to him or if we could even break Danzo's influence over him."

"Naruto, there is a very good reason why Gamatatsu and I have come to see you. Now that Jiraiya has lost his title we need someone new to take his position."

"Huh?"

"The elders want you to learn the sage arts and become the new Toad Sage. No matter for how little time, you were still the old man's disciple."


Three years later

Hanabi was once again called before the Hyuuga clan's elder council. She had changed from her ANBU uniform into the normal Hyuuga attire. Once again everyone in the room had their eyes on her and once again Hanabi's composure was perfect. After she had greeted her father and the elders Hiashi spoke up.

"These are hard times for Konoha. Our enemies have managed to sway our old allies and we stand alone. It is time to show that we are still the greatest ninja village and that our new generation is stronger than that of any of our enemies."

Hiashi left a small dramatic pause and looked at the determined faces of all the Hyuuga elders.

"Hanabi, the Hyuuga respect strength and honor above all else and you have surpassed me in every respect. You will be inaugurated as the Hyuuga clan head in one week. I know you will make us proud."

Hanabi barely managed not to smirk. She knew exactly why her clan did this right now. The Sarutobi clan was preparing to name Konohamaru clan head in two weeks as a sign of strength and a good future. Her clan attempted to copy this idea and make it look as if they had it first.

Instead she bowed. "Thank you for your trust father, ..." She bowed towards the Hyuuga elders "honorable elders."

Hanabi wondered to herself how she managed to remain so calm even in this situation, but screwing up now was not an option. Finally her goal was so close.

'Neesan ...'

A/N:

Thanks a lot to firemageallanna for the ANBU code names and to starbeam79 for the city name. And thanks to everyone else who submitted suggestions, of course. I used Dragon for Tenten's code name, because I wanted something a bit more intimidating for my ANBU Captain.

Some of the stuff I wrote is quite dark, which is why I changed the rating to M for safety reasons. I hope nobody minds.

It feels kind of odd having Hinata not talk to Naruto with the kun suffix. I hope I got my facts correct thinking that between married couples suffixes are dropped as a sign of familiarity. Since Hinata tends to use them correctly I went with that.

I am really interested in what you think about the way I depicted the fights. I switched often between the different ongoing battles and left big parts of them to your imagination. I wonder if this might have been a bit too confusing.