"You're not Sasuke!" Naruto cried in astonishment.
The man in the ground smiled in amusement, as his short black hair framed his pale face and dark eyes.
"Very good Naruto. I am not Sasuke." He said wryly.
Hinata watched from the other side of the wall, as Naruto shook his head in frustration and grabbed the man by the throat.
"If you're not Sasuke, then who are you, and why have you gone after my friends and me?" He growled, pulling on strange man's black top.
"I thought I'd already told you that Naruto." The man laughed. "I needed you to restore my strength and my home."
"I don't understand."
Hinata surveyed the dark room, as Naruto interrogated the man. Her eyes went wide in interest as she found eight tiny viles of glowing chakra, each a different color. Carefully, she examined the small basement the two were in and realized where they were.
So that's why he chose to hide in the police station, it holds the ony laboratory in the compound within its walls.
"You still don't have any idea who I am, do you boy?" The man lauged at the young man pinning him to the ground.
"Doesn't Konoha teach you anything in the academy, or is everyone as dense as you?" He said condescendingly as he looked up into Naruto's irritated face.
"I can tell by your expression that you are unaware of the danger you are really in, along with the young woman who is slyly waiting outside the door."
Hinata shivered at his words and wrapped her arms around her waist, while her right hand unknowingly sought out the tiny heart resting on her chest.
"I don't think you understand the situation you're in!" Naruto snarled. "You're the one who is in a precarious position at the moment, so don't make idle threats to me or to Hinata."
"Hinata." The man repeated with interest. "So the girl has a name, a very fitting one at that. I've never seen anyone else who could subdue the demon single handedly. I must say, she has most definitely piqued my interest, as well as yours I see. Does this mean you have finally given up on the pink haired girl?"
A pained expression crossed Naruto's hard face. "I see. Well, I guess true love never dies, but I can't help but wonder if she knows that?"
Hinata's heart pounded deep within her chest and she swallowed the lump in her throat, as a foreign feeling erupted inside her at Naruto's reaction to the pink haired girl and she looked down at her necklace.
"You don't know what you're talking about." Naruto spat at the man, his hand closing tighter around his neck. "Hinata's given me a safe place to go home to, something you wouldn't understand." A small red flash appeared in his deep blue eyes.
The man gave a satisfied smile, as Hinata watched the glowing red chakra in the pit of Naruto's stomach begin to boil.
"Naruto." She whispered in fear.
"Haven't you been listening to me boy, you're the one who doesn't understand me. You've never known the joy of having a home, of building a home, only to have that home ripped out from underneath you. Perhaps I can help you understand me more, by taking away the one person who matters most to you." Suddenly, the man disappeared and the Naruto clones fell to the ground with a hard clatter.
"I told you not to underestimate me boy." The man flickered rapidly throughout the room, destroying each shadow clone, one after the other, until only one Naruto remained. In an instant, he traveled across the dark space and pushed Naruto up against the wall, his hands around his neck.
"You are out of your league boy."
Naruto struggled wildly against the wall, as Hinata waited impatiently for his signal. Her forefingers twirling nervously around one another.
"W-who a-are y-you?" Naruto breathed out, as the man choked him harder.
"I am the man who helped found this village, the one who ran the Uchiha clan, the one who was feared and wronged by the very village I helped create and clan I had lead for so long. I was feared for my power and seen as an outcast. In retaliation, I released the famed Fox Demon on the village, and years later, I wiped out the very clan that deserted me all those years ago. My name is Madara Uchiha."
Naruto's eyes widened in horror.
"I-I thought Madara Uchiha was dead. Besides, you would be like eighty years old if you were him, and you hardly look a day over thirty."
"You really are dense boy. I can live forever. You see, when I took my brother's eyes, after I had lost my eyesight, one of the side effects was immortality."
"Then why did you need me? You told me that you needed me because you were weak."
"Oh, trust me I was. Just ask your friend outside. She was able to see the toll the years have taken on my body. You see Naruto, I may be immortal, but my body doesn't maintain it's strength, so as the years wear on, I become weaker and weaker. My powers fade more and more, that is why, I needed you. I needed the chakra of the Kyuubi to replenish the strength I have lost. And now, I'm going to take the Kyuubi from you, so he will serve as my pet and I his master once more."
Naruto's legs scrambled against the wall. "H-how are you going to do that."
"The only way it can be done, I'm going to kill you." He hissed.
Hinata put her hand on the door handle, ready to attack when he gave the signal.
"B-but why do you need the Kyuubi now?" Naruto asked frantic.
"Because, I need more of his chakra to help rebuild the clan I lost, the clan I mutilated so long ago. I see that I was wrong now. That it wasn't them that should have been punished for their misguided acts. It was me, I'm the one to blame, and now I need the the chakra of all the tailed beasts to bring them back. With the nine-tails by side once again, I'll only need to gather the chakra from one more."
"I see." Naruto let out a low growl. "Your clan wasn't at fault for what you were, just like I shouldn't blame myself for the loss of my friend." Hinata could see the familiar fiery orange chakra erupt within him, effortlessly taking over his body and mind.
No! He can't handle that.
Instantly, Hinata ran through the open door, hitting Madara from the side as she ran to protect Naruto.
"You little bitch." Madara cried as he pulled himself off the ground and up to his full height.
Hinata watched as his sinister chakra gathered at his, as she desperately concentrated on his stomach.
"All I want to do is rebuild my clan and live in peace, can't you just leave me alone." Hinata bit her lips in confusion, as she strategically placed herself between him and Naruto.
"Your price is too high, you want to rebuild your clan at the expense of another's life." She cried.
"Only one, compared with hundreds and thousands. It is a small price to pay for a home, for my own place in the world once more, the clan's guranteed protection of the fox demon."
Hinata shook her head. "No, I won't let you do it. I won't let you kill Naruto."
"So be it." He said darkly. "I'll just have to kill you too, it'll be such a waste, I wanted to study you a little more."
Loud footsteps came running down the stairs, as Shikamaru, Shino and Lady Tsunade ran through the door.
"Stop right there." Lady Tsunade commanded the sinister man.
Without hesitation, Madara lifted his hand and stabbed Hinata in the heart with a kunai and flickered himself behind Naruto, cutting the young man's throat with the same kuanai he had killed Hinata with. Expectantly, he hovered over the boys body, waiting for something to happen.
"Seize him!" Tsunade yelled as Shino ordered a swarm of bugs to encase the unfamiliar mand and Shikamaru ensnared his legs with his shadow clone jutsu.
Madara stared down at the two bodies on the ground, his red eyes blazing, as his sharingan saw through the facade.
"I see." He laughed maniacally as his limbs began moving toward his captors on there on own and his eyes were blinded by the bugs. "I see. That is why I couldn't control the Kyuubi."
Suddenly, he disappeared, causing Shikamaru to stumble from the absent weight.
"There he is!" Tsunade pointed to the far counter of the laboratory. Shino gathered his bugs into a tight fist and sent them hurling at Madara, as he quickly gathered the viles in his hands.
The giant, flying fist, came crashing down, leaving nothing but chaos and debris behind it. When the dust finally settled, all they could find was the damaged remains of the Uchiha laboratory.
"He got away, how cumbersome." Shikamaru complained as he examined the mess.
"I guess we should gather up Naruto and Hinata' s bodies and..."
"There gone." Shino replied emotionlessly. "They've disappeared, just like Madara."
"They what?" Shikamaru cried incredulously. "This is definitely troublesome. They were bodies, how do they get up and walk away?"
Tsunade walked sullenly over to the place the two young shinobi had been last. A small tear running down her cheek.
"Perhaps it's better this way." She said trying to push back the feelings trying to escape through her eyes. "The counsel wanted me to bring Naruto to them for judgment. They believed he was the one who killed Kiba. They don't care whether it was an accident or not, they have decided he is too dangerous to allow free. Life in a cell would never have been a good one for Naruto. He wouldn't have been able to take, he would have shriveled into a shell of himself and withered away."
Shikamaru walked over to Tsunade and rested his hand on her shoulder in a comforting manner.
"It's too bad we didn't at least get the viles." Shikamaru mused, trying to take his mind away from the pain of losing two of his comrades.
Shino nodded agreement as he surveyed the two people in the room with him.
"You guys can on ahead, I'll finish up in here." Tsunade gave Shino a consenting nod, as Shikamaru lead her from the room.
Shino stood in the middle of dark wreckage until he could no longer hear the distant footsteps of the Hokage and his fellow shinobi. Then he lifted his hand into the air, calling the tiny bug hiding in the corner back to him.
"We have work to do." He whispered to the small insect, as hundreds more appeared, analyzing and clearing the mess left in the forgotten room.
When his bugs had finished gathering evidence and collecting data, Shino made his way into the darkness of the night. His eyes catching the three shadows flying over the tops of buildings in the moonlight.
Goodbye my friends, he thought, as six bugs trailed after them. I'll join you soon, but first I must make my way home, for it cannot travel with me, unlike yours.
Shino slowly made his way through the empty streets of the Uchiha compound. The emptiness echoing the death of his friend, as he admired the strength Hinata and Naruto had provided one another. He only hoped his relationship could mimick the balance Naruto and Hinata had found.
As Shino came to the end of the path, he stopped and looked up at the night sky. There he could see her face and a slight smile crossed his face. She had been there when he needed her most and he had no worries that she would be there when he returned again.
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A/N: Alright, I haven't decided if this is the final chapter, or if there is another one coming, if there another one, that will be the last chapter to this story. Please review.