Itachi and Kisame left the house they had been in during the meeting. It was in the center of a small abandoned town, and most of the homes where in shambles from looters and not being maintained in months.
Kisame started forward as he spoke. "I didn't expect Pain to compelty abaondon the Tailed Beasts just like that. Now we have to go to your home village. It's going to be hard to cover all this distance in a single day… We're in the heart of Earth country…"
Itachi's voice was its usual monotone. "You won't have to travel that far."
Kisame gave his partner an inquisitive look. By the time he saw the mangekyou, it was already too late. While his mind experienced an eternity of suffering, his body dropped in a mere instant. He was dead before he hit the ground.
The Uchiha walked over to his former partner, reached down, and shut his still open eyes. "For what it's worth. I enjoyed having you as a partner, but the time has come to protect what is dear to me."
He wiped the blood from his eye, bowed to the dead nin before him, and then propelled himself at great speed in the direction of Konoha.
The darkness was not just a sense of seeing nothing. It was more than that. It was a tangible substance. Almost real enough to touch. It could be smelled. It could be heard. It could be tasted. This void was something Naruto had never experienced before.
From this void, a familiar voice reached his mind. "The time is coming. The path is correcting itself. All that was, shall be once again."
The words snapped Naruto out of his dazed state, and he shouted angrily back to the void. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Your preparations were all in vain. I have set things on a path to make this world as it should have been."
Naruto stuck out at the void. "That's bullshit! I told you I am going to change this world!"
The void laughed. "And you have thrown away your oprotunity by incapacitating yourself, and now I have capitalized on it."
Naruto was angry and confused. "Capitalized on it?"
Images began to flood Naruto's mind. He could see the people of his village. He saw the Hokage, Sakura, Ten Ten, Lee, and others. Then the view shifted away from the village. There he saw something that made his heart race. Three figures where gathered nearby with dark cloaks with red clouds on them. Still more images came to him, revealing several more cloaked figures headed for the group that had already gathered.
Naruto's voice could hardly express his panic. "W-what is this? What is this?! JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"
The void began to fade, but not before leaving Naruto with one final message. "You are not the only one who can alter this world."
Yugito was working furiously to try and keep down the fever that had sudden broken out on Naruto. She ignored the welt on her left arm from when Naruto had lashed out in his sleep.
She dipped her cloth in cool water again, and placed it on Naurto's head. "What's going on with you right now?"
The sun was well on its path to disappearing for the day, and Tsunade was minding a mountain of paperwork when a black crow landed on her open window. She looked into its eyes and saw a sharingan. A moment later, she collapsed to the ground.
Shizune rushed over and tried to lift the hokage, however, she had already regained consciousness.
"Lady Tsunade! What happened?"
She stood up, and brushed Shizune away. "I don't have time to explain everything! We are about to be under a full scale attack from the Akatsuki, and we need to evacuate all civilians right now!" She began to rush out the door.
Shizune ran after her. "Where are you going?! What do you mean we are about to be under attack!?"
"I'm going to prepare every single ninja we have to fight. Itachi himself confirmed that the akatsuki intend to destroy us tomorrow."
Shuzune wanted to ask more questions, but Tsunade had already rushed out the door to the building and jumped away. She was left in a state of shock. "… Tomorrow… that's not enough time…" She then headed off to prepare a full scale evacuation of the villagers.
Tsunade was in a world of her own as she rushed through the village. She had already found Kakashi and Guy in the middle of a compition, and had set them about gathering every jonin in the village. Tsunade's mind was working at maximum trying to think. "What can we do?! We have no way of contacting Naruto, Jiraya is out of the village, and we don't have all of our best ninja here right now! Asuma is gone with chogi and ino in Suna to help Shikamaru… two squads of our best hyuuga are out on a high profile tracking mission… Shikaku, Choza, and Inochi are on a diplomatic mission to Iwa… Dammit! We need to contact Suna for help… but they won't make it in time! What can we do?!"
The sun continued to disappear as the village became more active then ever. By midnight most of the civilians had been taken deep into the hokage monument, and they were in a panic. They were not allowed to take any personal items, or even food. Children were scared and hungry. Parents were angry and confused, and the situation was difficult for shizune and her followers to handle.
Down in the village bellow, things where far worse. Every single ninja capable of fighting was assembled to fight… only around a fourth of villages nin were even there. Since Naruto's power had been revealed, and how much he had already changed things, Tsunade had grown bold, and sent more ninja on missions then ever before, to further increase the prosperity of the village. Now it was coming back to haunt them more then ever. Becoming a ninja meant that they were each prepared to give their life to protect Konoha, but that didn't mean they were not scared, especially the new genin.
Sakura bent down to comfort a girl who was nearly having a breakdown. She put her hand down firmly on the girl's shoulder. "Hey! What are you so worried about?"
The blonde girl did her best to hold back her tears. "We can't win like this!"
"What do you mean? Of course we will win."
"Then why did the hokage look so pale? She was worried sick, and we hardly have any ninja in the village!"
Sakura smiled at the girl. "It's the hokage's job to worry about things. Don't let it get to you. We will be more than enough for anything that our enemies can throw at us! We are ninjas after all!"
The girl sniffled a little, but straightened her headband. "You mean it? We can win?"
"Of course!" Even as she kept up her smile and affirmed the girl, Sakura was terrified… Naruto had told her exactly what the Akatsuki was capable of. She had no idea if they could win against monsters like them, let alone even hold them off long enough for help to arrive.
She could hardly keep from breaking down as she hid her trembling hands behind her back. Naruto… Sasuke… where are you guys when we need you?
The night came to an end as the light of dawn began to crawl its way across the land. Nine figures with red clouds on their cloaks gathered a few miles from the walls of konoha. Zetsu, deidara, hidan, itachi, kakuzu, konan, pain, sasori, and a man in an orange swirl mask. Two other snake like figures joined the ranks of Akatsuki.
Deidara turned to pain. "What the hell are they doing here?" He pointed at Orochimaru and Kabuto.
Pain ignored him, and instead focused on Itachi. "Where is Kisame? We are to begin the attack as soon as possible. Why is he missing."
Itachi already knew that Pain knew the answer. He walked out in front of the group, and got between them and konoha
Pain held out his palm. "So you have chosen." He was about to strike when a hand reached out and stopped him.
The man in the swirl mask used his free hand to remove his mask. I will take care of this myself." A single sharingan returned the itachi's stare. "The rest of you begin the attack immediately."
The others rushed forward. Itachi did not dare take his eyes of the enemy before him. This will have to suffice. I must hold at least him here… please make it eveyone…. Please make it… Naruto.
A single crow landed in front of Garra and Fu. Its sharingan started deep into Garra's eyes.
Shikamaru and Temari were in a flurry assembling as many ninja as the village could spare to aid konoha. They were almost ready to leave.
Jiraya recovered from the shock of what he had just seen after looking into the crows eyes. He formed a seal and fukasaku appeared before him. "We are out of time. Please tell me he is ready."
Fukasaku smiled.