*~~*
Shikamaru flinched as yet another kunai whizzed by his face. He wasn't trained to fight in an open melee like this. If anything, this was the worst possible fight for him. His eyes darted wildly around, looking for a single other person he knew. Every part of him was screaming in agony.
He'd been too close to the stage. Close enough to get thrown by the blast, though far enough away to escape the fire. The girl he'd been dancing with hadn't been as lucky as he was. She'd taken a blow hard to both her shoulder and her forehead. She was draped across his back now, blood dripping from her forehead and down his shirt as he tried to get them both to relative safety.
Another kunai flew by, nicking his cheek. He hissed and looked over. His mouth fell open in surprise. Whoever had thrown that kunai was dead, a kunai deep in his own throat. Hinata stood over the dead ninja, reaching down to pull it out. She stood up and caught Shikamaru's eyes, then ran over to him.
Up close, it was even more difficult for him to believe.
Her hair had come completely undone, and she had clearly pulled it back into a hasty knot with bloody hands, because dried blood stuck to her hair. The remnants of her once beautiful yukata were torn and stained with blood, and she had blood nearly up to her elbows and her knees.
It couldn't be Hinata.
But it was.
Her eyes looked at the girl over his shoulder with the same concern he'd always come to associate with Hinata, and the surrealness of the moment ended as he realized they just didn't have time to worry about Hinata's apparent change right now. Instead, he looked at Hinata with relief and asked her the only question he could wrap his mind around.
"What should we do?" He shifted the injured girl on his back, and the blood flowing from her forehead started running down his arm. He winced.
Hinata looked at him with worry and then looked around at the battle. "Take the girl and go to the field about half a mile that way." She pointed down an alley, and Shikamaru tried to memorize it, tell it apart from the dozen other alleys that were identical in the dark.
"Then what?" he asked, shifting the injured girl yet again.
"Find the place where we left our masks, and wait."
"Wait? On what?" He looked at her in disbelief. But instead of answering, she threw a kunai past his face and dodged around him, already off to fight another enemy.
Shikamaru huffed and settled his injured patient better on his back before turning back towards the alley Hinata had pointed out.
This was such a drag.
*~~*
Blaze cursed heavily, dodging another kick and slamming a kunai deep in his enemy's throat. This wasn't even technically his fight. He wasn't Guild or Destruction. Another enemy down, and he made his decision. He had to tell his leader what was happening, and he had to get to safety.
Turning, he disappeared off into an alley, heading back for Force.
*~~*
Hinata leaned over yet another Guild ninja who had been taken out by the blast. This one too, was dead. No pulse under her fingers. She turned to the child he'd protected, caught under his dead weight. A light, thready pulse like a frightened bird jumped under her fingers and she breathed a sigh of relief, pushing the dead ninja off the unconscious girl.
Behind her, another Guild ninja was doing the same thing: checking the vitals of the people littering the ground. Four civilians and a severely injured ninja were huddled together, watching the fighting and fire consume the street. Hinata lifted the little girl and put her into the arms of the uninjured Guild-nin.
"Here, take them to the place I told you about before. Friends are waiting." The man's eyes flickered for a moment, and then he nodded, gathering up the others and herding them towards the alley Hinata had indicated. Behind him, Hinata watched their backs until they were out of sight.
Then she was off again, her heart pounding.
Besides Shikamaru, she hadn't seen another familiar face. She forced back every dark thought she could. She'd checked a lot of dead already, and her friends weren't among them.
But there were a lot of dead bodies, still. She pushed forward.
The kunai left her hands like lightning bolts, and she dodged through the melee as best she could. No one seemed to notice her coming, and no one tried to stop her going.
She did what she could, gathering up as many of the living as she could find and pointing them in the right direction, into Shikamaru's capable hands.
She did this tirelessly, until finally, finally, she came upon another familiar face.
The pallid, dying face of Kurenai-sensei.
For a long moment, Hinata's world stopped.
Kurenai was lying propped against a building, weakly holding a kunai in case someone attacked her. Her eyes followed Hinata's movements as the Hyuuga stumbled over to her sensei in disbelief.
"Hinata-chan?" the woman whispered in disbelief. This ninja surely could not be Hinata. As improved as Hinata had become, as capable a ninja as she was, Kurenai could not believe that Hinata could become so fierce on the battleground.
"Oh, sensei," the girl breathed, wiping blood from Kurenai's wound to inspect the damage. It was a deep gash in her side, bleeding out onto the pavement. Kurenai stared at Hinata, almost in shock. She jumped when the girl looked back up with determination in her eyes.
"Where is Asuma-sensei?" she asked, forcing a shred of cloth over Kurenai's wound, tightening it and holding back the blood as best she could. Kurenai blinked. This wasn't good. She hadn't even heard Hinata rip the cloth from Kurenai's outfit.
"He's out there, looking for you guys," Kurenai gestured faintly at the battle, then winced at the painful movement. Hinata's eyes darkened, and she put Kurenai's hands down hard over her wound.
"Don't die," she told her sternly and she turned back to the fight. Already, she could see Asuma-sensei, who was fighting off a group of Destruction shinobi. Without being asked, she joined him, taking out two of the five. When he'd killed the other three, he turned to thank his helper and flinched.
He'd never seen anything like an angry Hinata.
"Go back to Kurenai-sensei. Get her out of here," she told him fiercely. "She's dying."
Asuma paled, and Hinata directed him quickly to the place where Shikamaru would be waiting. Her body shaking, Hinata pressed forward.
She had to help as many as she could. And she could still fight.
After that, she didn't see anyone for what felt like eternity. She couldn't tell you how many people she cut down. It was one Destruction-nin after another, one dead Guild-nin after another. She became aware of a roaring noise at one point, but didn't stop, even when the heat of the fire made moving around insanely uncomfortable, bloodstained and weary as she was.
And then she stumbled upon something infinitely worse than her dying sensei.
A dead comrade.
She'd only met Husky a few times in passing, but he was infinitely more familiar than all of the unknown Guild ninja she'd seen so far. He'd clearly been too near to the stage, because his entire left side was burned black and crisp.
Hinata's heart went cold. Cold enough to fight back the heat of the raging fire. Cold enough to freeze each of these enemies in place and pierce them through the heart.
She wished she had time to say a prayer for a fallen comrade, but she still had to push forward. She still had to find survivors.
And finally, finally, she found hope.
As she rounded a corner, she found three familiar Guild-nin and two leaf-nin fighting and subduing a pack of Destruction-nin. The Guild-nin ran circles aroud them, anger to match Hinata's and Naruto's painting their faces, and the two leaf-nin wrapped them in rope as they knocked them out. At least, Hinata thought they were knocked out. The Destruction-nin had been hit so hard, it was possible they were dead.
"Fennec!" she shouted in relief. Fennec looked up, eyes wide. At some point, she'd shed her yukata, and clearly she'd planned to do this all along, because she was wearing her full uniform, which she must have hidden underneath. Behind her, Wolf and Boar had copied Naruto's example and ripped off their sleeves to fight. To her right were Ino and Sakura.
"VIXEN!" she roared, hugging the girl in relief. "Oh, kami, we thought you were dead!" She looked the girl up and down, clearly unperturbed by the blood.
"Fox-kun wants me to get you guys out," she said, her voice breaking slightly. Why, no matter how many people she got out, were none of them her most precious people? Kurenai-sensei excluded, who was dying from her injuries, Hinata had yet to see her friends. Ino and Sakura may have been from Konoha, but they were not the kinds of friends Hinata truly cherished.
Where was Kiba? Where was Shino? Where was Neji-niisan? Where was Naruto?
Holding back her first tears of shock, Hinata directed them to Shikamaru. As they left, they promised to gather as many others living as they could. Hinata grabbed Sakura's arm as she passed.
"Please, Kurenai-sensei is dying. Please, help her." The tears started to stream down Hinata's face, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her arm, causing blood to smear on her face.
Sakura looked her up and down. Hinata was a mess. She'd clearly been fighting harder than they had, and possibly for longer. And she was clearly on a mission. She nodded.
"I'll do everything I can." The group left, taking their prisoners and all the malice of the angered Guild-nin with them.
Hinata kept going. Further into the heart of the fighting. The fighting which would surely would never end.
As she turned around a corner, another enemy attacked. Hinata dodged, jamming her kunai into his stomach. As he went down, a second ninja in black appeared, his sword raised high to cut her from her blind spot.
And then the ninja's head fell off.
Under the spray of blood, Hinata felt like her world had tilted. Above her, Sasuke stood, stolen sword in hand. A second group of enemies attacked, and she watched as he dispatched them all almost effortlessly. Sticking the sword in the ground, he lifted her to her feet.
"Have you seen anyone else?" he asked her calmly, grabbing his sword and looking around. "I sent Sakura on with Ino and Fennec, but I'm not sure how far they got."
"I told them how to get somewhere safe. Shikamaru is there, with Asuma-sensei and Kurenai-sensei." She was presuming a lot. None of them might have made it. But she had to believe that they had.
Sasuke grunted and nodded, heading back into the fighting. Hinata followed, the two of them dispersing enemies left and right.
"Have you?" she asked, a few minutes later, after they had sent the closest enemies running either home or to their graves.
"No." He looked her over for the first time, surprised. Even he wasn't nearly as bloody as she was, and he was fighting with a sword.
"Shouldn't you be resting?" he asked her, looking around to determine which way they should go.
"I have to get as many people out as I can," she said, walking on towards the center of Guild territory. It sounded like all the fighting had moved from the burning stage of the festival to the area nearby Tigerdragon's mansion. The further they moved, the more apparent it became that she was right. It also became harder for Sasuke to see in the dark, as they were walking further and further from the fire's glow. Twice, Hinata had had to save him from wandering kunai. He was quickly growing frustrated. Finally, they stopped and Hinata turned to him.
"Go back to the stage. Get as many people out as you can. I'll go on and see if I can help Naruto-kun." Sasuke grit his teeth. He didn't want to abandon anyone, and he didn't want to feel incompetent. But it was true. He was having a hard time seeing in the dark. Hinata, with her Byakugan, had this advantage over him.
"Fine," he nodded, and after Hinata told him how to meet up with the others, he turned back to the stage. Hinata continued towards the sounds of fighting in the distance.
When Hinata found the fighting ten minutes later, she froze.
A hundred Destruction-ninja, at the very least, were fighting what had to be about twenty Guild-ninja. The only thing making a difference was that Naruto was fighting, shadow clones and all.
Hinata felt her heart jump at the sight of Shino, fighting nearby with a girl and an older man that Hinata hadn't met. Quickly she joined the three, pushing back their enemies as quickly as they could. Distantly, she could see Tigerdragon fighting back a group of his own enemies. One of his daughters and his generals were also nearby, engaged in fights of their own.
She still couldn't find Neji-niisan or Kiba.
And then she realized that the roaring sound earlier was coming from nearby.
More specifically, Naruto.
He'd transformed, past what she'd seen so far. Not only were his features feral, but a layer of bubbling red chakra was writhing over his skin, daring anyone to touch him.
Naruto's claws were bloody, a tribute to his anger. His eyes focused in and out as quickly as lightning, capturing his targets in his sights. He'd already stolen far more than enough weapons from the shinobi he was fighting, but the idiots who kept attacking him got the sharp ends of his claws, rather than their stolen weapons.
A third, pissed roar ripped from his throat, and a tail of chakra emerged from behind him, wiping out three ninja who tried to attack him from behind.
All at once, the Destruction-ninja seemed to realize their mistake.
This was not something to be fought.
As one, the head commanders of the fighting force, three tall, lanky Destruction-ninja who were staying back and out of danger, gave signals to their dying men. Signals of retreat.
The Destruction-ninja turned as one and tried to run. The slowest, the Guild-ninja caught, taking them to the pavement and knocking out.
The commanders were not so lucky. Naruto had been watching for something similar to what they had just done, and he had caught their signals.
And Naruto was pissed.
In one smooth motion, he cut through the reatreating Destruction-nin, who parted like the Red Sea when they realized he wasn't after them. In only a few moments, Naruto was behind the three commanders, his claws bared, a kunai in hand.
"Tell me who was behind this shit, and I might let you live," he hissed, the sound coming out demonic and low.
The three commanders stopped. Two of them were shaking, clearly familiar with what Naruto could do when angry. The other stood firm between the two.
"NOW!" Naruto bellowed, the sonic boom from his anger knocking them back into a wall.
"Okay! Okay! Don't kill me!" One of the men squealed, a coward to the core. "It was Li-"
blood spurted from the man's mouth, and the unafraid ninja pulled his kunai out of the man's throat before planting it in the third man's chest, effectively preventing them from giving Naruto any information.
"You bastard," the third man hissed, looking down at the hole in his chest, the light in his eyes already fading.
"You bastard," Naruto echoed, stalking up to the man, slamming him against the wall by his neck. The man plunged another kunai into Naruto's lung and waited. To his surprise, Naruto laughed darkly, yanking the weapon out and waiting. A few moments later, the hole began to close. The Destruction ninja paled.
"Now tell me," Naruto hissed into his ear. He gathered the boiling red chakra into his hand, slowly burning the man's throat. The man's eyes rolled, and a choked scream broke from his throat. Naruto eased up, disliking torture, and not wanting to kill the man until he had an answer.
"WHO?!" he boomed again. He lifted the man up higher, so that his feet couldn't touch the ground. The ninja caught his breath, closed his eyes, and looked at Naruto.
Then he pulled out another kunai and slit his own throat.
Naruto pursed his lips in disgust as the man bled out, and he threw the man's corpse down with his companions'.
"Bastard," Naruto hissed, turning back towards Tigerdragon's.
The sun started to rise over the city, and the shadows could no longer hide the full extent of the destruction.
In the street in front of Tigerdragon's mansion, a bloody kunoichi and a bloody shinobi met in a relieved hug.
In a field outside of town, two lovers exchanged endearments as one lie on her deathbed.
In the streets of Guild, dozens were still missing.
In the streets of Force, allies were building.
In the depths of Destruction, enemies were watching.
*~~*