I do not own Naruto. I didn't earn money to write this story. Masashi Kishimoto created Naruto.

Warning for some gross descriptions, I suggest not reading while you are eating, or if you have a weak stomach.

Chapter 21: Monsters

She moaned and dragged her heavy body. Her bundle wailed and screeched in her arms. Yui joined the horde of once living villagers…

…Naruto panted as he dashed through the streets. He slowed when he heard an explosion ringing his ears.

He created more bushin to help. His boundless chakra was a boon at times. He looked around with a firm serious expression, "You guys go look for any trouble and help out where you can. I'm going to find granny."

"Right!" They chorused and all of them took off.

Naruto headed toward the tower. To his dismay it looked wrecked. Still he jumped up on a roof of one of the few buildings that had not been decimated yet. He looked around through the wreckage and fires he could hardly see anything. He growled in frustration and headed off…

…Sasuke hissed. His hand landed on something sharp. He knew he was climbing something some sort of wreckage, but Kaede was still urging him to follow her. Sasuke trusted the cat. He already owed her his life. He leaned against something that felt like jagged rock. He felt his palm with his other hand. It was clear of major debris, so what he had cut it on had stayed put. He pulled up his shirt sleeve to protect his wound. Sasuke continued to climb. Something shifted below him. There was a creaking sound before a loud crack. The surface he was climbing up was sliding. The Cat growled and pawed at him. Sasuke began to climb with more ferver. For every few feet he gained it felt like he slipped back a foot or two. Sasuke's muscles strained and screamed at him. He had no chakra to assist him. Still he climbed until finally the wall he was climbing ended. His hand landed on something flat and hard. He pulled himself up his feet slipping on the shifting rubble…

…Naruto's eyes were wide with the horror of it. Tsunade's house was gone. The tower was gone. Nothing but rubble and a deep pit. Suddenly there was an angry scream. A head of raven black hair poked up over the rim of the sink hole where Tsunade's house used to be. Naruto squinted in the distance.

"Fuck!" Naruto screamed and ran to the panting and heaving body.

Sasuke flopped face first on the concrete foundation, It was not exactly level or stable looking to Naruto. In fact it was moving. Naruto ran toward the boy. The chunk of concrete cracked as the land supporting it caved in. He jumped onto the concrete and grabbed Sasuke's arm. Hoisting Sasuke to his feet he charged his legs and arms with chakra. When he jumped it seemed the last straw and the pit widened ten feet further. He jumped to the next nearest chunk of concrete cursing as it began to give way. Three more close calls and Naruto had leap frogged his way to stable land.

"N-Naruto?" Sasuke's arm was draped over the boy's shoulder. He reached up with his uninjured hand and felt the boy's chest. His hand slid torturously slow up to the boy's neck and then his chin. Sasuke could not help himself he was so glad Naruto was alive and safe. he leaned in and kissed Naruto on the lips.

"MEOW!" Kaede yowled loudly and batted at Naruto's ankle. Naruto looked over his shoulder just a bit dazed.

"Oh Shit," He burst out, "Sasuke I need you to get on my back."

"What? What is it?" Sasuke tensed and didn't move.

"Fuck! Just get on. NOW!" Naruto ordered. Sasuke obeyed Naruto guided his handsto his shoulders and crouched. The Uchiha wrapped his arms around Naruto's neck and his legs hugged Naruto's hips. Naruto turned slowly.

"My, my," A deep voice hissed. A pale face smirked at the two boys and the cat.

"Orochimaru?" Sasuke growled.

"Not exactly," His voice was so smug, so commanding. Dripping with distain.

"No, Sasuke we need to get out of here," Naruto said. He Jumped away from the thing.

"Ah, ah, ah," The Orochimaru thing tisked, "Give me what's mine, boy." The once sannin prowled. His body stretched and flexed his neck much like one of his serpentine summons. Orochimaru seemed to have abandoned his human form for a more dragon like appearance. The thing grinned at Naruto, and chuckled, "I could take you both. You are very pretty. I wonder why such looks were shunned? Perhaps it was the package in your stomach." Orochimaru teased Naruto. Then his impossibly long arm snatched at Naruto's ankle. Naruto barely slipped by him. He carried Sasuke. The cat followed, not even garnering Orochimaru's interest in the least…

"There's been a breach in the line! Quickly!" Iruka's head perked up when he heard one of his comrades screaming. He slashed through the neck of a lumbering beast and took the thing's head off its shoulder. Then he ran toward the academy seeing that some of the creatures were beating on the doors. Iruka slashed through the undead rabbles carving a path to the vulnerable students and civilians that were barricaded, essentially trapped inside the building. He managed to disable two then another jumped on his back and sunk his teeth into the chuunin's vulnerable neck. Iruka screamed and slashed at the thing. Then the weight was lifted. He fell clutching his neck. Would he become one of them now? He hoped not. He'd perform seppuku (1) first. He felt hands on his arms and he was dragged to his feet. He looked from one side to another.

"Kakashi?" Iruka frowned, "Is Naruto safe? Where is he? What about Sakura?"

Kakashi didn't answer right away first he neutralized the immediate threat. He sent chidori out into the crowd of rotten hungry monsters. This helped the fighting nins push back the rest. Then he began triage on Iruka's wound. He refused to think about the brunette becoming a monster. There was still hope. There had to be. He finally told Iruka, "Naruto was fine last time I saw him. He can take care of himself, you know this. Sakura…I'm afraid she has come down with the illness. Tsunade said she fainted during an operation. For now she is alive." Iruka's tension dissipated a bit. He dusted himself off.

"Are you here to help?" The man asked. Kakashi nodded.

"Ah," Someone else spoke up, "I'm here too Iruka." Sai waved politely he then unleashed some ink monsters who quickly went after some of the zombies that seemed to have regrouped. The shambling husks just seemed to keep coming. There had to be an end to all of this, but when would it come. Would it end before the entire village was consumed in death and disease?

(1) "Seppuku is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture), or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed for other reasons that had brought shame to them. The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consists of plunging a short blade, traditionally a tantō, into the abdomen and moving the blade from left to right in a slicing motion." This quote was taken directly from Wikipedia.

(Long time coming I know. Sorry it is so short too, but I did my best. Anyway thanks for reading!)