AKA the chapter where Kurama is very frightened but no one has control of anything anymore. Don't let anyone tell you that they do. Poor Sakura, why do people always want her for her relations to other people- she's fairly scary in her own right. Firudo comes back next chapter I think, if I've planned this out correctly, which is a near guarantee that I've forgotten something. He's actually in this chapter but very, veeeery peripherally, almost not worth mentioning at all. I'm not a big fan of powerful nin fights in Naruto, at some point it just becomes flashy jutsu after jutsu, stuff gets blown up, the ground splits and people are throwing around overpowered jutsus which somehow get countered. The Academy Three is actually ridiculously powerful if used properly- Kawarimi especially- as is Shunshin and their Fourth Hokage branded upgrade of Hiraishin. How do you fight someone you can't hit? Wide area damage? Status effects? They've probably killed you before you've realised you need to resort to such a tactic. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy the chapter : ) .

Sakura batted away the Jonin's hand as soon as her feet found a solid footing. He let her scrabble away but the after effect of the shunshin combined with her repeated near concussions and shocks caused her to trip, head spinning. When she swallowed into the void, she tasted iron.

"Get away from me!" She spat, incensed beyond measure. Who did Deidara think he was? How many times was she going to be kidnapped today?

"Little liar." Deidara's tone was a peculiar mix of glee and exasperation. He made a little motion at her, two fingers flicking towards the ceiling, and she found herself on her feet suddenly. Little white creatures surrounded them, an awful parody of angels. They nestled in his hair, giving the man a crown of rustling wings. "Are you not going to thank me for saving you from the Hatake? Did you not see how he tried to kill you at the end?"

"Cut the crap!" She shrieked, nearly tearing her hair out. "Do you expect me to believe that despite everything you just saw; you think we're not allies?"

"You're not." He countered, calmly.

She jabbed a finger at his chest. "You should not know that." Pausing, she frowned at him. "You said that he killed your father."

Deidara smiled, a dimple formed at the corner of his mouth. "Did I?" His tone was almost lazy. "I suppose it means I should hate him."

Something was very wrong. She took a step back. "Where have you brought me?"

"You're a sharp girl." The Iwa Jonin held out his right hand and a pale bird with ridiculous plumage rested on his long fingers. His smile took on a sly edge. "Give it a few years, and I'd say you could make an excellent kunoichi. But right now, your training is working against you." He winked. "You really should stop reading too much into what people say. If my memory serves, I believe I said 'My man wasn't always my old man. You ever have any trouble with him and you can count on me, ok?' Where and when did I say that Hatake Sakumo killed my father, un?"

Her jaw dropped. "The implicit-!" Son of a bitch.

"Yup." Deidara popped the word, cheerfully. "If you were curious, my old man blew himself up after one of his experiments with trinitrotoluene and pentaerythritol tetranitrate went wrong. Hey, Konan-san."

His greeting was said so non-chalantly that Sakura, in her seething rage, almost missed it. Her blood ran cold. Half of the floor was missing, the ominous murderous air was still present, and to make everything worse, the impeccable woman floated to their shattered ledge on a shield of paper. Behind her came a familiar cocoon about the size of a human and Sakura's mouth went incredibly dry.

Gaara.

Hadn't Deidara said that Yagura had lost control of his Bijuu? They were closer to the scene now; the bloodlust was stronger and the bestial roars echoed in her ears long after they finished. Why had Konan brought another unstable Jinchuuriki here? So close to the destruction?

"What do you want with me?" Dread slithered down her spine. Her knees felt like water but she drew her kunai anyway, this was no place to roll over and die. "Bait? You want the Bijuu, don't you? Yagura…you already have Gaara…but it must have frustrated you once Naruto stopped playing by your rules and ran amok. Too late." She forced herself to laugh, "I got to him before any of you. He's gone. He's gone. You'll never get your hands on him!"

The thought of three Bijuu in Pain's hands terrified her. Iwa was working with him? Or…it was more likely that it was just Deidara going rogue from his own faction…He had tried integrating himself with the boys but when it had failed, he had gone for Sakura when the rest of Iwa were content to see them all as corpses.

Deidara's hands clapped on her shoulders and she almost stabbed him. Sakura hadn't heard or noticed him move! The blade was wrenched out of her hands in a way that left her fingers smarting. It clattered on the broken marble, skittering towards the edge, before toppling over the side.

"I know I am sixteen and therefore ancient, and obviously my eyes must be going," The Jonin said dryly, "But that shade of orange is rather, uh, noticeable." His left hand found her clenched jaw and forced her to look. Through the widening cracks in the floor, a deep blue black miasma dissipated like mist. Roars of combat filtered to them, a dark skinned muscular man punched the air so hard that the space between him and the thing cracked in brilliant panes of light and diffracted reality. Their own Hokage swung a staff bigger than him, his red robes gone, now attired in an war outfit she had only seen in history books. A smaller shadow zipped above them, cantankerous, muttering insults, a near blinding hypercube in all shades of the rainbow between his hands. A red haired woman sent whips of red liquid spinning in dizzying loops. Shikaku was still smoking, she saw with some incredulity, but when he breathed out, black shadows erupted from his throat, shadows of men, winged people, the dark tide passed over the windows and for a second, the rising sun's rays were extinguished like candle flame.

In between them all, orange blurs bounced off the walls, avoiding the molten pits in the floor. It was rather like several Catherine wheels had gone off simultaneously.

"Hey, Konan-san." The Iwa nin called sarcastically, breaking into a cutting laugh, "Do you think they're fighting to contain old Yagura, or to take it for themselves?" To Sakura: "Enjoy the view. You must be one of the few people in history to witness such a show of inter-village cooperation."

Sakura might have made a choking noise. Why was he still here?! Naruto had been that close to Yagura?

"You fish for Naruto, you'll get 3 kage as well." She said in pure disbelief. The tower shuddered again, a deep low rumbling which got louder and louder until her heart was vibrating in her ribcage.

Konan didn't deign to reply immediately, the origami flower in her hair unfurling and folding into another design. There was something chilly and distant in her gaze, like she was looking through them. Like little design choices in the great plan were beyond her.

"This is madness." She pleaded.

"This is what is needed to fix all that is wrong with the world." The woman said, clicking her fingers. The human cocoon drifted to a gentle rest on the platform. Sakura tried to twist away, to kick at the Jonin, but he just barked in laughter and scooped her up by the armpits, using her size against her. Fear went horribly with an almost concussion. It was an awful time to find this out. "They're gaining the upper ground against the beast, Deidara-san."

The man clicked his tongue. "Better get a move on, un. Oh. Hatake's downstairs. Ran into him just now. Orochimaru-san is keeping him busy but the bastard's tricky, you know how he is."

Sakura's mind imploded. What? Who had that been?! All this time the Kazekage had been Orochimaru? Where was the real one? How was she alive? What the hell was the Sannin up to- oh her gods, that was why the kage had asked for Sasuke-

She growled. The man did not give up when he wanted something. She hoped he enjoyed wearing other people's faces like normal people wore clothes, she was going to rip the skin off his face… if she saw him again… and if she could. Spitefully, she wished for Firudo to rip him apart. There was something satisfying and baffling how they had gone from being allies in the Forest of Death to fighting each other but she wasn't going to question her good luck now.

Where the hell was Sasuke? He wasn't going to turn up with another disaster their team had to deal with, was he? This trend was worrying.

Konan's eyes narrowed for the first time. "It is high time that the man joined his clan. I'll take care of him after this."

The cocoon shivered, a deep snarl emanating from the captive genin. If she could reach the flare gun, then she could warn Naruto not to get near her no matter what he saw. But would he obey? The boy was monstrously loyal to his idea of a team.

"You want all three of them loose at once." Sakura said dully. Yagura had been killed somehow already, Gaara's seal was unstable enough for the Bijuu to escape and she imagined that they planned to use her death to undo something fundamental in Naruto to make his seal unravel. The Fourth had been a fuinjutsu expert after all, it made sense that Naruto's seal needed special work. "Why?"Instead of waiting for them to respond, she barrelled on. "The invitation was bullshit, wasn't it? You guys have no idea what happened at Uzu, you just bluffed-"

That didn't make sense. Pein had known Sasuke had known the truth. And Team 9 had been manipulated into accusing Ame so that Naruto would end up here. This led back to Firudo and his seals but why would he do so much for Pein, then turn against him now? Heart sinking, she realised that it went further back; after all this, was it possible that Chan'neru worked for Pein and had been used to set up this over complicated gambit? But…how had they known Naruto was a Jinchuuriki; clearly, they had known before the Forest of Death incident? Was it something to do with Naruto's heritage? The Uzumakis being hosts one after another? And Firudo was involved in that as well- dammit, she still hadn't gotten the name from him-

It…didn't go back to her first meeting with the man, did it? When Naruto had approached her at the café table and Firudo had realised who he was and what he could be? But that was a sheer coincidence, wasn't it? Unless-

She went white, he was an ex-Konoha nin. There was a possibility that he knew where the Konoha Jonin sensei would take their green genin for their first out of the village missions because they must be quite standard. Was he waiting for Naruto with the expectation that the new Jinchuuriki would have to be trained at some point? The village had really painted itself into a corner by repeating the Uzumaki pattern…

No. That was ridiculous. The sheer amount of on the fly improvisation needed to pull that off was ludicrous.

Had Firudo even turned against Pein? Sakura didn't know what to think, her mind was travelling at a million miles an hour up every possibility but it all came down to the simple fact that she didn't understand. These bastards…

"But why stop at three?" She cocked her head, talking quickly as to keep her momentum going and to hide her line of thought. "I bet you want them all." Sakura was mainly bluffing and throwing out the first idea that popped into her head but Deidara's fingers were suddenly vices, cutting off blood flow to her arms. Oh gods, she was right, they were all mad, they wanted to release every single Bijuu. "I bet you wanted to see how many you could lure in, take the easy pickings and land a crippling blow to all the villages simultaneously, then take the rest." But why…

She looked Konan straight in the eye and tested a theory. "I bet this has something to do with the most powerful Jinchuuriki being a fresh genin. You wanted to get him before he had any chance to build up his power. Gaara being a genin too was a nice bonus, was it?"

A small smile curled at Konan's mouth, sharp and viciously pleased. In that instant, Sakura was reminded oddly of her exams and the thrill of successfully solving a difficult problem.

"Do you think so, kunoichi?" The woman shared an amused look with Deidara and bent slightly. "I couldn't possibly comment. I see why they put you on your team though, very well done." She snapped her fingers and the bindings on Gaara came loose, spilling sand like a broken hourglass.

Sakura was going to die. How would the battle above fare with a sudden ambush from below?

"Give her her best chances." The woman ordered and Sakura was spun to face a smirking Deidara.

"You're soft for children, Konan-san."

"There is enough of Konoha's teachings left in me to try to educate a child even as they die." The woman said serenely, stepping off the edge, robes flaring, paper swirling around her feet to support her weight. Sakura's head snapped up but she regretted the motion. She was just in time to see the utterly unreadable expression wipe itself blank from the elegant woman's face as she turned away.

Exactly how many stupidly dangerous nin was their system responsible for producing?

The Iwa Jonin cupped Sakura's icy cheeks and knocked their foreheads together. "Apologies, un." He said mildly apologetically. "My grasp of healing chakra isn't that expert. I need contact with the chakra point for the third eye for this. It's a delicate matter healing the ruptured vessels in the brain. Don't struggle, Sakura-chan. Not if you don't want to have a stroke."

She froze. Warmth bloomed at contact, before intensifying to a needle point intensity in her forehead. The man's lip curled at the corner subconsciously, eyes closed.

Sakura could take the risk and stab him. She considered. Then she considered again. And again, a third time.

Or. She raised a finger to her mouth and bit the knuckle hard, rubbing a drop of blood between her index finger and thumb. Or she could be smart about this. Her headband was tied around her thigh, hidden by the long hem of her dress. She had almost forgotten about their special function, how they froze when blood was smeared on them, but by gods, she was going to use what she had.

Sakura wiped the blood on the band and wiped it off again with her clean middle finger, careful to repeat it in a pattern which all of Team 7 would know. The rate at which Naruto's headband turned cold should tell him the message. Sasuke didn't have his so there was no danger of confusion.

Danger below. Do not approach.

Deidara's eyes opened. For half a second, genin and jonin tried to read each other's secrets before stepping back.

Sakura went to stab him.

He laughed, loud and free, before spinning on his heel, causing her to miss. One of his birds flew to the struggling Jinchuuriki before exploding. The last binding fell away.

Sand exploded with the force of a small bomb. Sakura vaguely heard Deidara whistling before stepping off the ledge onto a pale, white monstrosity of a bird. A scope covered one of his eyes and his hair whipped around his head with the wind pressure.

"You got this, Sakura-chan!" He cheered. "Maybe, un."

She couldn't remember which one Gaara was…with any hope, it wasn't one strong enough to blast the entire area and kill her outright before she ran away. Gaara's maniacal gasping filled the air, parts of his face seemed to be dropping off, eyes mad with battle rage. He clawed at his face, vomited up sand and blood in equal measure, all the while screaming as his spine cracked ominously. She thought she saw his shoulders contort in angles not possible for humans before the sand covered them and held them in place.

It was horrifying how they had turned him into a weapon. It was all too easy to look at his agonised face and imagine it was Naruto. It was lucky that she had thrown up earlier and that her stomach was empty. The sand was compressing, solidifying as much as it could until Sakura could recognise vague shapes in it: the shadow of razor claws, a spiky tail, the curve of awful teeth-

Her mouth was so dry.

The Bijuu slammed one half formed arm on the ledge, the marble crumbling under its claws. It rose and rose, Sakura had to step back and crane her neck to keep it within her vision, heart beating faster and faster. It was morbid awe which kept her in place. She should be running, she knew, but how many people had seen a Bijuu up close? There was something beautiful about Gaara's destruction…like how people couldn't look away from an impending train wreck.

It blanketed the floor with immense pressure. It was like standing in the middle of a storm, leaden weights falling out of the sky. The screaming laughing boy locked eyes with Sakura and there was something broken in that expression. The seal wasn't the only thing damaged beyond repair. The beast roared, a bestial shriek which had Sakura shrinking and clapping her hands over her ears. The sonic blast hit all of her nerve centres.

Sand swirled up from the floor, growing thick fingers, an opposable thumb, long nails, before wrapping itself around the howling Jinchuuriki and squeezing. Oddly, the boy's gourd burst open in a geyser of sand which rushed to combat the hand but the difference in volume proved vital.

She had never heard the sound of an entire body breaking before. Every single of Gaara's bones cracked, his skin ruptured and split like ripe fruit, his torso, head and arms were reduced to mangled pulp. His legs jerked once or twice before stilling. The sand absorbed the blood without letting it hit the ground. The thing, almost unrecognisable as a corpse, sailed over the edge and out of sight.

Her scream fled her. Sakura stood there in silence as a boy was murdered in front of her, feeling utterly empty. Was there anything she could have done? This was the fate Ame wanted for Naruto? A slow rage ignited deep inside her, crystallising to a stone in her heart. Did they think lives could be toyed with so easily?

Features emerged from the whirling sandstorm. The sand whipped against her skin and left burns. Wincing, she took a step back. The whole ledge had been covered in a thick layer of shifting sand, with the grains spilling to the floor below. Her ankles were buried in the stuff and still more poured off the Bijuu like a waterfall. The demon tanuki's eyes blazed golden, harsh and hot, the musculature in its face being formed from the amber grains knitting together. Its teeth were geode, its throat an endless red heat. Artificial terror slammed into her that this was it, it hadn't listened, this was the end-

It was funny, Sakura thought idly, the difference in terror between facing a human and a Bijuu. With an enemy nin, the fear was sharp and coppery, like steel wire wrapped around her mouth and slicing her tongue to pieces. This fright was dull, blanketing, all encompassing, like she was wearing a metal suit of inwardly spiked armour. Her hands had stopped shaking. What point was there to be afraid of a natural disaster? If she died, she died, and no one could say that she had wasted her life.

"Sakura!" Naruto's shriek was several octaves above normal. "What are you doing? Get out of there!"

Her teammate moved to join her but was blown back by the vicious winds which appeared out of nowhere between their floors.

"Sakura!" There was genuine fear in his voice. It changed to a high pitched yelp as the Bijuu he was dealing with changed targets to him.

Everything was going to Ame's plan. This was unacceptable. All background noises faded to buzzing. If she was going to pull this off, Sakura would need absolute concentration. First things, get on top of the sand. Sakura vaulted off one foot, leapt over a vicious swipe, landed on a knee and a foot, sliding slightly as the sand shifted under her landing.

A cage erupted around her, the bars like thorny whips. She kawarimid out of there, swapping with a piece of falling rubble.

The solution was actually fairly simple. It was just absolutely insane.

She couldn't match a Bijuu, no. But another Bijuu could.

The one above her was water natured, it would have the advantage against this one's sand. Against all logic and sense, instead of running away from both and praying to survive, Sakura just had to provoke a clash between two of the titans of their world. If it killed one or two of the Ame bastards, all the better really.

Someone was keeping a wind barrier between the floors, she just needed to bypass it.

"Deidara!" The bellow would have scared the old sensible Sakura out of half her life. The Tsuchikage barrelled through the barrier, moustache streaming behind him, face twisted in a snarl. Rainbow light glittered at his fingertips, "Where is my granddaughter?!" Even the Bijuu turned to look, distracted.

The blond Jonin's head quirked. "Kurotsuchi?" He queried; a laugh buried deep in that question. "Ye gods, why are you here, old man? Why did you have to play the hero?"

"She was your-"

"You don't need to remind me, un." The man's voice grew cool. His bird soared to a greater height, matching his kage.

The Tsuchikage spat a curse at his subordinate, then contrary to all expectations, fell out of the air like a missile, landing on the sand covered platform with a shock wave which blasted a clear zone all around him and Sakura.

"Girlie." The man's voice trembled with rage, "I'll handle this." His entire frame vibrated from head to toe, brilliant light sparking dangerously around his hands and head as the kage struggled to contain himself. "Go."

"They wanted to separate you." She told him.

He ran a hand through his white hair and snorted. "What is the alternative, Konoha girlie? Let you die here, and be attacked from both sides? This is only the One-Tail, I will be enough."

"I had a plan."

The corner of his lips lifted in a vicious smile. "I think, we've had enough of your team's plans."

"That's quite enough, un." Deidara smiled beatifically at them, "Hey, old man, for old time's sake I'll make you a trade. What do you say?"

"You better hope you're far out of my reach once I'm done with the racoon, Deidara."

"So hostile." Deidara sighed, cross legged on his bird, leaning his chin on his palm, eyes half lidded. "But it's fine, I forgive you, it must be a very stressful time. You should have retired long ago, perhaps you might have been able to enjoy it." His fingers drummed a tune on his thigh.

The Tsuchikage's knuckles were white on his beard.

"When did you betray us, Deidara? How long? Why?"

"Don't phrase it like that." The Jonin clicked his tongue, irritated. "You make it sound so dramatic. The deal, ojii-san. Do you want to hear it? Don't you want Kuro-kocchi back?" The Tsuchikage went rigid and Deidara grinned sharply. "That's more like it, un."

"Isobu!"

The roar took them all by surprise. The wind pressure knocked the bird off course, Deidara avoided slamming into the ceiling, twisting like a cat before landing lightly on a broken protruding support beam. Sakura could see the startled twist of his eyes from there, lips slightly parted as the Bijuu utterly ignored the three humans to stretch its bulk towards the other. Hope flared into life, hot and furious, and she could finally breathe- they had miscalculated, of course they had miscalculated, when was the last time two Bijuu had interacted? The assumption that they would ignore each other until the humans were all dead had been false, because for some reason despite hating shinobi to the point of madness, the emotion lost out to seeing another of their kin for the first time in centuries.

The fight above them dipped slightly in intensity.

"Shukaku?" The question started off soft, rising in incredulity, a voice like a thunderous waterfall crashing home next to her. "Help me, brother, they want to see us gone."

The sand demon stirred, great gouts of gold went cascading as it rose on its hind legs to slam its claws into the ceiling, sending it crumbling easily. Sakura had to clap her hands over her ears at the answering, bestial shriek. "Who's lining up to die, then?!" It snarled but rainbow light flickered at its extremities and exploded, blasting clean spheres of nothing as its paw went reeling from the blow. Quicker than she thought possible, it swung its head around, maw swinging wide.

Sakura flung herself off the platform in a desperate dive.

She felt it explode behind her, a great, surging blast of sand turning the entire thing to dust as the Bijuu expelled the force of a sandstorm in a whipping beam as it screamed. It raked around the room, unpredictable and lethally quick, scraping marble to nothing while scoring deep grooves in stone. The noise was tremendous and marble chips went flying, sharp projectiles which sunk deep into her exposed skin as she landed awkwardly. Sakura pulled them out, hissing, cowering behind a ruined grand piano. The Tsuchikage, however, was no pushover in aerial combat.

He wove around the thrashing beam, snake like in his grace, bringing both of his palms together, forgoing any seals altogether. When he drew them apart, sweat dripped down his brow and an incredible force seemed to be required for the action.

Sakura couldn't see anything there but the beam changed direction abruptly, the sand flying towards the kage and coalescing in the space between his hands, crushing into a space too small for all of it. Bright light winked like stars in the destructive chaos, the flying dust, marble and sand collapsing inwards into a ball, swirling and glowing red, then yellow, then white as it superheated but still more flew in, now taking material from the Bijuu's outer layer.

"A party trick." The newly named Shukaku said scornfully, cutting its attack short. Its accent was strange, unlike anything she had ever heard. Almost…antiquated, and carefully enunciated like the speaker's tongue had to be careful of its teeth. Heat washed over them in a wave.

It held up its strange paw with the opposable thumb and a small black ball ballooned in its palm. It sucked in the light at the corner of her vision, the Bijuu lazily slapped it at the kage who swore and fell vertically for dozens of feet before catching himself. Deidara disappeared in a crack. Sakura was confused before the ball abruptly expanded to several times its size, from the size of an orange to a small house. Everything in its interior was gone, the sphere cut neatly into stone, wood and wall as if sculpted from clay. It had missed her by three feet. Half of the grand piano was gone. Its broken keys clattered on the marble. Sakura might be out of her depth here.

A jet of water cut through the ceiling like it was butter. It was like she was standing next to a kendo master and their blade had passed through her neck between one breath and the next.

Where the finger thin jet of super-pressurised water hit, the ground exploded in a geyser of debris. The whole tower shifted on its two halves, stone screaming against stone, as the first Bijuu's attack literally cut it in half.

Sakura, however, had a different target. Racing across the gap, she hurled herself across, skidding the landing in a crouch. Deidara reappeared in a crack of shunshin, an explosion at his fingertips and murder in his eyes. Before he could get his shot off at his ex-kage's back, Sakura slammed into him, shoulder first. It paid to plot everyone's death in her mind constantly when she was furious, it helped to anticipate how other people might assassinate her allies.

The Jonin was strong, no doubt, but no amount of muscle could withstand a twelve year old slamming into their knees at full speed. His attack went wide and something far above them exploded in a shower of stinging metal. She grabbed one of his clay birds and stuffed them in his mouth when he snarled at her wordlessly.

"Go on." She punched him in the cheek, a solid connection. "Make it explode. Make anything go boom. You'll face your justice in hell."

He had the cheek to roll his eyes at her, bite down deliberately and swallow. The man wriggled his fingers at her, eyes creasing at the corners. To her shock, a tongue stuck out at her from his palm, the flesh splitting apart to reveal another mouth.

Hngh. If she got range, he would blow her up, if she was too close, he was stronger.

"You must hate very much."

Deidara smiled, lopsided, sharp and somewhat fond. "Don't cast me in the same group as everyone else. I just liked the symmetry." He shoved her off and picked up his monocle from where it had rolled away.

Naruto smashed through the remains of the broken window, tucked into a ball, bypassing the wind layer by presumably swinging down. He landed feet first in Deidara's stomach, twisted like a cat and landed in a low crouch, blood stained face foreboding doom. It was such a relief to see him healthy, if in a very dangerous position.

"Yo."

"Sup." She snarked. "Seen Sasuke?"

"Nope."

"Ah. Orochimaru is after him."

"What, again?" The blond's mouth tightened. He jabbed a fierce finger at a narrow eyed Deidara. "Why is this fucker wanting to sacrifice you to Shukaku?"

Sacrifice.

The little word immediately threw dark connotations and bloody, ancient light on what she had just been through. A chill rose in her stomach and settled under her heart, the hairs raising on the back of her neck…More people who believed in gods?

"To affect you, most likely." She ran through the possibilities in her head. "They could have done it anywhere, they had Gaara in their possession after all. But they needed to do it in your sight."

The snarl which ripped from Naruto's throat was nothing human.

Deidara waved a hand and the avalanche of sand heading for them split neatly down the middle, passing around and over them in a great, roaring rush, like they were standing in the middle of a sunlit river. The unconcerned look in the man's face told them how trivial the Iwa Nin found manipulating something from the earth. Sakura dared to glance up when small gaps appeared in the sand, the Bijuu distracted by the flying, furious kage. The Tsuchikage punched the air repeatedly, his fists blurring, and huge impact craters rocked Shukaku, imprints of knuckles sinking deep into his body, driving it back.

Naruto's head jerked back and his head rotated to face Sakura like a clockwork machine getting used to its cogs.

"Beneath us." The voice was thunder and blood stained kunai, the crackle of flame and the rasp of steel, senseless violence and irrational fear rolled into one package. Hatred danced in the voice. "They're linked, girl, and unstable. The destruction of its mate tore out half of its foundation, more than any other attempt. Uzu was not a lie."

What.

What the hell?

Her teammate shuddered violently. "Shukaku, stop being a child." The Kyuubi said sternly, sounding far more like a reasonable authority figure than it had any right to be.

The demon tanuki let out a wail mixed with gleeful laughter. "I won't let them put me back! You might be content with being a pet, Kurama, but I am my own master." Sand creatures loomed above them and the Bijuu slammed its tail across the space, splintering the floor with an awful boom.

"Do you remember what came before us?" The Kyuubi said. "What will it be, little brother: prison or oblivion?"

The One-Tail stopped dead.

"Little Shukaku." The Kyuubi whispered. "Talking big, acting out, who do you think you are, you think you know better than me? Cocky brat, it's still too early. You're still that baby who used to sleep wrapped in my tails. Now listen."

The One-Tail blanched and nearly got its head blown off.

The Kyuubi sighed. "Is it too much to ask for you to focus on multiple things at the same time? Good grief." It snarled. "You're interrupting me, son of Iwa, and you're fighting the wrong target. And I thought my host was illogical…We want to leave. You want us to leave. You want your granddaughter. The blond gnat has her in a storage scroll. And you attack my brother and ignore your traitor because why?!"

"You miserable fox." Deidara breathed.

"Oh, I'm sorry." The fox said dangerously. "When I see stupidity, I can't help but point it out."

"Give Naruto back."

Sakura caught the boy by the elbow. Instead of breaking it, he rested his hand on top of hers winking even as an unnatural voice poured out of his throat. "You think it is so easy to break my prison, gaki?" The fox demanded of Deidara. "You could kill a thousand little girls and not match my death toll. If it was despair which freed me, I would have broken his mind long ago."

The Tsuchikage drifted closer, incredibly suspicious. "You are the Kyuubi?"

Naruto's lips peeled in an awful smile. "At your service." The sarcastic expression faded quickly. "This is my offer, you floating rock. Concentrate on your human wars and leave me and mine alone. Get your granddaughter back, turn this place's host into a red smear, belittle the other monkeys, stab them in the back- I don't care. But you let Shukaku leave here now, unimpeded, as well as Isobu. I will make them obey." Naruto glared. "This is only the start, you realise. They need all nine of us, including the ones you hold back home. Stay alive to keep them safe, if you have any sense. Take it or leave it." He tilted his head. "Or do you fancy yourself even a third of the man Senju was?"

"Kurama-nii!-" Shukaku protested.

"Shut it, tanuki." The Kyuubi slapped him down.

"What about you?" The demon tanuki's ears were flat against its head.

From above, there was a wail. "Kurama-Nii! You didn't tell me you were here!" Sweat beaded on Naruto's forehead.Deidara and the Tsuchikage looked like they didn't know how to react to this madness.

"I would be mad to take up an insincere offer from a demon." The Tsuchikage laughed, the utter lack of humour turning it cold and stony. Glowing fuin circles blazed into life around his wrists as he gained height, imperially looking down on Naruto. "Even madder still to take it when that child hosts you. Are you possessing his corpse, fox?"

"Why are you creating more enemies for yourself!" The Kyuubi snarled. Sakura couldn't help but think he had a point.

The kage cocked his head. "You want me to allow you to crush us from behind?" A rainbow light flickered in his palm, multicoloured lightning which solidified into a spear. "When you wear that boy's skin and lie to take your revenge on humanity? You hold the advantage here and you want me to believe you're willing to walk away? Do you take me for a fool?!"

The spear of lightning exploded on impact with the floor. Intense heat radiated out, the stone blackened and molten at the edge of the impact crater. Light flashed and the thunder which accompanied the bright flash blew out every single window on their floor and several floors below. Naruto and Sakura had reacted at the same time to their incoming death, the kage unwilling to spare the innocent with the guilty or uncaring for the collateral damage from a rival village when facing a Bijuu, she wasn't sure which. If the man thought Naruto was dead and possessed, then Sakura's worth in keeping her alive dropped dramatically. The fox was already in control. This cold calculus…so this was why he was a kage.

They crashed into the floor below with ungraceful landings; Sakura stumbling her landing and having to recover with a cartwheel while Naruto was halfway through a tumble and had to reorient himself mid-air by slamming a palm onto the shattered marble.

"Was worth a shot." She consoled.

"I can't blame him." The boy responded, morose. "The fox doesn't have a history of good diplomatic relations."

"Yeah…" She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled to the kage surrounded in a storm of flickering light. "He's not dead! Stop attacking us!"

Shukaku shrieked in absolute rage. His fist went through a wall as the kage hurriedly avoided, sand leaking off his form like golden fire.

Naruto lunged for Sakura's arm and dug his nails in. Surprised at the sudden attack from him, she was too late to react and blood dripped down her wrist but he didn't let go. "Genjutsu." He warned, "Shukaku's apparently pretty good at it." His eyes were distant, the Kyuubi must have been advising him.

The tanuki waved a hand and scythes formed in mid-air from the trailing sand, the colour of warm brass and copper, their razor edge gleaming. They shot everywhere, some of them cutting through pillars like mowing grass, lodging in stone, slicing chunks off jagged boulders leaving smooth mirror like planes behind. The rest went through the obstacles like ghosts. It was a whirlwind of blades and illusion with no way of discerning between them. The tanuki flicked a finger and half of them went through the ceiling in a smooth about turn. People screamed from above and blood trickled from the gashes in the ceiling.

Sakura had been waiting to try this for the longest time. Finally, all her experience getting kidnapped would pay off. She stepped forward, grabbed Naruto and flexed her chakra in the same pattern she remembered Firudo, Deidara and Obito committing to when executing Shunshin. Her first attempt didn't move them anywhere, they flickered out for a brief second before crashing back into the same spot in a cloud of smoke. She didn't like sliding through the spatial dimension without a counterweight, Sakura immediately decided, fighting the urge to throw up. It made her head spin and stomach feel like it was going to float out as all gravitational forces on her ceased to exist.

Naruto eyed the hail of scythes the failed Shunshin had caused them to avoid by the skin of their teeth.

Hands erupted from the marble around them, lily pale and numerous like a flower unfurling. They extended into elbows, shoulders, torsos until stone maidens surrounded them, each large enough to cause the ground to shake when they moved. Naruto's hands raced through seals - Shukaku smacked the edge of their floor when they were distracted, tipping the whole layer like a plate flipping. Sakura and Naruto were sent flying shrieking along with the Tsuchikage's creations.

The tanuki's sunny eyes narrowed on her, dangerous instinct skittering down her spine at his expression. In desperation, she attempted Shunshin again before she landed in a sucking pit of teeth filled sand.

She reappeared in a long skid on a higher platform. Well. Wasn't this great? The Tsuchikage wanted Naruto dead because of the belief that the Kyuubi had possessed him. Now it seemed that Shukaku wanted her dead, possibly to free the Kyuubi so he could do the possessing. Sakura griped mentally why they couldn't realise that their goals contradicted each other. Deidara floated above them all, sprawled on his bird not even bothering to hide his shock at how well this had turned out for him. Growling low in her throat, she took the edge with a running leap, heart in her throat.

A shunshin got her to just below the clay bird where she rudely interrupted their lovely flight pattern by grabbing the bird's scrawny legs and plummeting the Jonin in a downwards crash as the bird failed to keep both of them aloft.

Deidara landed in a move so graceful it was like he voluntarily chose to step off a falling bird onto an adjacent platform instead of being forced to abandon it. She snarled at him in abject disgust.

"It's nothing personal." He told her mildly, smirking with his hands in his pockets.

Excuse her if she was still bitter over being betrayed. His expression changed suddenly and the Jonin swore, falling back with a lightning quick reflex to deflect an attack. The Tsuchikage barrelled into a full on brawl, boulders ripping themselves out of the ground and surrounding him as easily as a child juggling pebbles. The stone slab under Deidara's left foot loosened and rocketed past the older man, knocking the blond off balance. Heavy rock crashed into the man's knee from behind as the Tsuchikage jerked a finger and the kage's fist slammed home into the pretty man's cheekbone with a satisfying slam.

Deidara went head over heels, skidding at least fifty feet over the uneven ground with a nasty crack.

With both of its targets together, the One-Tail drew up for another attack, dropping his jaw wide. Golden light glittered before he expelled it in a sweeping, rocketing beam which obliterated every obstacle it encountered.

"What the fuck?!" Deidara roared at his ex-kage, pointing to his cheek. "Have I tried to kill you, un?!" The man looked incensed, blond hair spilling over his furious eyes.

"What?" The Tsuchikage screamed back, similarly enraged. "Indirect means such as releasing a Bijuu don't count?!"

"NO." Deidara looked like he wanted to rip his hair out by the roots. "That was for her, but that damn thing is just as likely to kill everyone including me as it is you!" He pointed at Sakura who didn't know whether to be flattered or offended.

"My granddaughter!"

Deidara threw his arms up, "And why in the name of the gods, do you want her in the middle of this mess?!" He inhaled, "Just let her die. Just let the One-Tail kill her, and I'll give Kuro-kocchi back regardless of your awful grandparenting skills and you can do whatever you want to that racoon."

Sakura did not like where this was going.

"What did Pein promise you?" The Tsuchikage's voice was as hard and immovable as rock. The Iwa nin clashed against each other head on, not one movement wasted. Even she was forced to admire the skill.

"For once in your life." Deidara hissed, knocking the taijutsu blows aside. "Be a grandfather before being a kage. Or are you planning to tell your son that his daughter was a necessary sacrifice to keep a Konoha genin alive?" He gestured at Naruto and laughed coldly, "His father already decimated us. Someone should have told him not to bother, Iwa's own kage would take up his job for him of keeping the Konoha dogs safe."

The Tsuchikage went white.

Sakura's heart thudded, painfully skipping a beat. Naruto's father? All the information they had related to his mother, who did Iwa think his father was? All she could work out was that the man had been feared in the war, but that…wasn't too helpful.

"Wait!" She yelped, jumping forward, "Who-"

They all got interrupted by Shukaku punting them into the far wall with a sweep of his tail. Something gave in her shoulder and cracked. Sakura landed hard on her side, wheezing, instinctively curling up and biting back a cry at the flare of agony. That's what she got for letting her guard down for a second.

Deidara rolled to his knees, panting, a scroll in one hand and an open flame in another. The kage froze where he was gearing up for another round.

"I'm serious, old man." He said, "I'm not asking you to do anything unforgivable. I'm not even asking you to kill her. Before today, you wouldn't even have hesitated. The Kyuubi's taken over the boy already, there's no advantage to you protecting her. Just do this one thing or I light your heart on fire."

"You knew it would be me." The kage whispered. "That I would be sent against the One-Tail if you released it here."

"Did I?" Deidara smiled and didn't blink, his gaze like an ice pick. The flame skimmed the corner and the kage let out a moan, inevitably moving forward. Sakura sat upright, head spinning. She could taste blood in her mouth and a burning pain where she had bitten her cheek.

"All this effort to see me dead." She whispered, forcing herself to stand. "I'm not going to make it this easy, Deidara." If she was the Tsuchikage it would be an easy decision. Her strongest ally had just turned against her and she felt the chill lick her spine. There was something horrifying to knowing that people would calmly watch her die like it was a spectator sport.

His jaw tightened, sapphire blue eyes flicking once to her then back. "This was set in stone the day they decided to put you on their team, Sakura. Don't fight fate." Sakura scoffed and read the lie in his face. Not even Deidara believed the words he just said. It was just a last ditch attempt to console Sakura before her death by putting the concept of inevitability on the table.

The kage licked his dry mouth, throat pulsing.

"Don't tell me you grew a conscience today of all days." Deidara laughed, the sound bitter. "How insulting."

"How do I know that she's in there?"

In response, the Jonin snapped the scroll open. The parchment rolled open to reveal an ink drawing of the girl Sakura vaguely remembered from the hall.

"Naruto's not possessed." She told him quietly. "Kill me and his trauma might do irreversible damage."

"The fox is a master of deception, girlie." The Tsuchikage said, hands shaking. "I don't believe that the Yellow Flash's son would be so disrespectful to his memory by letting the fox have any agency. I don't believe that the son would be so weak." He grew in a shuddering breath.

Naruto's father was the Fourth Hokage.

The Fourth. Hokage.

Holy shit.

Sakura suddenly felt like the world's biggest idiot. Why would Naruto be under Obito's care if he didn't have some connection to Obito's past such as say, being the child of a teammate? Rin was alive, Kakashi never had children and everyone knew what the Fourth's description was. Why would the Fourth seal the fox into any baby? How could he ask any parent to sacrifice their child like that when he had one of his own. She had known being Hokage involved difficult decisions but this…did every kage have a mind like ice?

"Gods, what has your team done?" The Tsuchikage breathed, palms over his mouth as he looked to the ceiling. Almost as if he were praying. She glimpsed true horror in his expression before it clouded over with something sorrowful.

He snapped his hand at her.

A great force took Sakura in the chest, sending her spinning towards the enraged Bijuu.

She had known it was coming. It was his best option for getting his granddaughter back, but…could Sakura really be blamed if her heart grew cold from that choice? Naruto screamed from somewhere where she couldn't see him. Sand coiled around her limbs in a manner which suggested that Shukaku understood perfectly well how human joints worked but didn't care. Fear rose thick and cloying in her throat. There was a weight to the sand, which was evident from close up, from their texture as they rasped over skin and applied pressure to lift her off the floor.

"Give her back." The kage snapped.

"Ojii-san." Deidara sounded half aghast, half awed. "You are not fit to be a kage." There was the flutter of a thrown scroll.

Sakura faced the Bijuu's geode teeth and that endless red chasm. Hot air blasted over her face mixed with the smell of animal fur. She thought that she would have preferred dying quickly, this anticipation was worse than anything. Sorry; Naruto, Sasuke. It seemed like she would be the one to fall first. She didn't want Naruto to see this. She didn't want her death to be used for such a heinous purpose as to damage his seal and unleash the fox. Who knew whether or not that would kill him? And Sasuke, who had done everything right, would find out later that his teammate and his brother had been killed in action because she had been incompetent. That thought was so heart wrenching that she had to bite down to avoid any shameful sounds.

It turned out it wasn't possible to shunshin out when she was grasped by chakra enhanced sand. She hadn't been planning on taking being sacrificed lying down, and she still wasn't but her doors were closing one by one.

A band of ice encircled her thigh and she hissed.

Play along.

Confusion swirled with resolution in her. What did Naruto mean? Hope blossomed like a candle flame. What had he taken the chance to do when the three of them had been distracted? Leaving the Kyuubi host and the Ichibi enough time to have a conversation…oh, a laugh bubbled in her gut, desperate and full of panicked relief.

Sakura threw her head back and screamed like a banshee, kicking and struggling like her life depended on it.

The Ichibi threw her in its mouth and slammed its jaws together.

Two Narutos waved cheekily to her from behind teeth in that cavernous mouth, the creature having taken care to throw her in the centre. One of them henged into a bucket of red paint and the other splashed it at the corners of the mouth. She wanted to strangle him. This was what he meant by play along? She settled for leaping on him and hugging him as hard as she could.

"Off, creature." Said the Kyuubi's disdainful tone, but Naruto hugged her back just as fiercely. Her dress stuck to her back in seconds, drenched in sweat. His bloodied face was streaked with clear skin.

"Now, we get out of here." He whispered, pinching his throat. "Ame, I mean. We'll pick up Sasuke and beat up that snake on the way. Okay?" He offered her a Gai thumbs up complete with winning grin. "I'm thinking of picking this up, actually. It works fantastically in situations such as these."

"…How?" She shook her head and clarified, "Shukaku listens to Kurama?"

"The fox told him to shut up and listen, and surprisingly enough he did after a little bit of whining." Naruto shrugged. "I think," His face twisted at the weird thought, "That Kurama must have been a bit of a tyrannical eldest brother in their childhood." He glanced at her, "Not something I ever thought a Bijuu would have, if I'm honest."

"Your dad's the Fourth Hokage." She blurted. "Does that mean that the Bijuu had a dad? That's terrifying."

"Your opinion is both irrelevant and ignorant." The Kyuubi snarled with genuine heat before Naruto clapped a hand over his mouth. "The." He seemed to be having a minor crisis. "The Fourth-" His voice squeaked, "Hokage?"

"Ya." Sakura said, not sure if now was the best time to mention it. "Though, to be fair, this is from the Tsuchikage, not Firudo." She grabbed him by the shoulders, "Think about it later! I know it's hard but we let our guard down once and we're dead. We haven't even double checked it yet."

He didn't respond, mouth parted in an o. "Naruto!"

Naruto's gaze snapped from a distant whirl of confusion, shock and what looked like betrayal, focusing on her with gimlet precision and a ferocious intensity she had never seen before. Sometimes, her team mate really was terrifying. "Un." He gripped her wrist. "Thank you-"

Everything shuddered and went sideways. Sakura crashed into one of the teeth and nearly got her arm bitten off as Shukaku's jaws snapped together. Their cavern rumbled with a bone shaking noise, growing louder and louder; laughing? Warning? They were truly blind in this safe spot. And how long would it be safe? The Tsuchikage was still there.

Sand erupted out of that red darkness, coating their legs, sticking to their skin as the cavern filled up- Sakura had never been roasted alive before but the sheer heat of the sand on her skin was almost too much to bear. What was happening?!

They were spat out into the cooler air in a torrent of sludge like sand, looking more like mud monsters than people.

If she could, she would go on her knees to thank the Bijuu. Who would notice two sand covered children in a pile of sludge? Then she noticed what had prompted the hasty decision- The Tsuchikage had flown high, scroll hanging at his side and was firing beam after beam at Shukaku, evaporating his sand and scattering them into clear globules as the Bijuu screamed and struggled to reform.

There was an almighty scream of stone being shredded.

Isobu ripped their ceiling apart by the gouges already there and Sakura's first impression was a rich pearly shell and raw flesh. The Bijuu had more teeth than could fit reasonably in its gaping mouth, with a chill of horror she saw that the saw like teeth spiralled all the back to the back of its throat.

It had been attracted by its brother's screams.

The kage was too close. In getting the better vantage point to subdue Shukaku, the Tsuchikage was far too close to the ceiling. A piece of rubble struck him on the temple and blood cascaded. He staggered, perhaps a half a foot drop but it was too little too late. The Three Tails' jaw closed around his left side and bit away the flesh as cleanly as tearing paper.

The old man dropped out of the air like a stone, smashing into the edge of a platform before falling another storey in an awful crack. Sakura jumped after him on instinct, rolling to avoid taking the brunt of her fall on her ankles. Her shoulder twanged. The kage's blood poured out thickly as he gasped, his remaining arm clutching at the remains of his neck, left side and stomach. White bone could be glimpsed like maggots in that sickly wet tear. It was too much, she didn't know any medical jutsus and she wasn't sure that she would be willing to save him even if she knew.

The Bijuu ripped the gash open wider, the walls starting to take the strain as its tails smashed through as they flailed.

"Isobu," Shukaku's voice was almost lost in the living storm of sand he conjured, "He was my prey!"

"You always had that bad habit." Isobu sighed, sounding more like a crashing wave. In his claws, entrails hung like the party streamers Sakura used to put up at birthday parties, blood filmed, grey and looping. As more of the floor broke, the dreadful situation above them became evident. Blood trickled down the walls. They had been four against Shukaku and there had been barely enough space to survive. Above…

Body parts smacked into the stone around like a macabre rain. Crushed suits, hanks of hair fluttered like spider silk, clear water which hissed and dissolved the stone it dripped on, shattered pieces of coral all tumbled down. The Hokage and the Raikage were still alive, she saw with numb disbelief, the former panting and pale, the latter with shallow cuts over his darkly bronzed skin. Where did everyone else go? What was left of them?

The Tsuchikage gurgled.

"You're beyond help." She told him, "Can you see? At least three kages will die from this peace conference. You're all beyond help."

The man's bloopy mouth curved into a painful, regretful smile before coughing up dark chunks. His stubby fingers reached for the missing scroll on his belt and grew more frantic when he realised that it wasn't there. Sakura had naturally seen what had happened to it but decided out of some misplaced pity and actual creeping horror not to tell him. Better for him to think that it had fallen off.

A breeze rustled her hair and there was the sound of fruit being crushed along with some cracking sounds. She wasn't stupid enough to think that stone could fall with the flat side down with such force.

The Tsuchikage's head had been obliterated by a flat piece of granite, paste spread out like a red star under the black stone on the dusty marble. It was so incredibly deliberate that it wasn't even worth hiding as an accident. Sakura went to swallow but all she could find was bile. She gagged, scrambling back from the corpse as quickly as she could, terrified of a similar fate- if they could kill him like that, killing her would be like squishing a bug. It was in her mouth and hair, oh gods, she gagged again, mind dissolving into a mush of white static and screaming.

The puppeteer of this whole incident was still hidden; Pein had not once come out to take the field. Instead he had been content stirring up old hatreds and paranoia until his enemies killed each other for him. Three kage had died for the man's plan. Two Bijuu had been released. This was the man Firudo worked for! The spider at the heart of Ame had ensnared them all in his net.

There was an awful creak. Then thunder. The scream of stone grinding against stone.

The Heaven Tower had simply been through too much; numerous explosions, fights, lava, Bijuu- Sakura felt one side drop in a breath of air which might have been a sigh. Her heart leapt back into her throat. Someone laughed in her head, high and lovely and dreadfully amused. Time, and time thrice I say it is time. Down we fall to paradise!

Everything caved in towards the centre. The walls crumbled like paper. Everything was falling, people were shrieking- shrieks which cut off perilously quickly- the roar of stone slamming together was met with the crack of ancient beams splintering as the Heaven Tower started to collapse. The structure leaned to one side, swayed as shattered pieces cascaded off the tower like ice sheets breaking.

Above her, gold and blue light glittered as the Bijuu screamed together in high, keening notes. Dust mites of light floated past her and she saw the mind boggling net again, golden threads glittering at vast distances now tangled and flaring.

Everything collapsed in great cracks, marble blocks snapping into pieces as easily as glass, not falling…but cascading in a staggering fashion, catching on each other as they fell. Sakura's standing went almost immediately. Chakra grip was no good when the surface you were clinging to shattered into sliding layers. Bricks smashed outwards in showers of rubble and dust. The pillar in the centre gave, sending out bricks like cannon balls, some just missing pulping her brains out of her ears.

Sakura's breath was gone for an entirely different reason.

The pillar…the pillar. Why had it been brick, when everything else had been stone?

Because, her mind realised too late, it had been recently done.

A gaping hole was punched through the very centre of the Heaven tower, like someone had taken a skewer and ran it through lengthwise. The curved edges of the hole were smooth, when she tottered near the hole, she could see the vertical tunnel disappear into shadow and get propagated through all the lower and upper floors.

Why not? Why not?

There was no time to wonder about Naruto, the boy had the Kyuubi as a tenant. She would be very surprised if he died here. In panic, she dove into the tunnel even as it warped and cracked around her. Falling was a terrifying sensation, the darkness was cracked with light where the pillar was breaking on the different floors but she didn't know how long it would be before she hit the bottom!

The tunnel twisted because of the pillar shattering inwards and it was Sakura's bad luck to be caught with the blow. She was knocked out of her free fall, breaking through into the welcoming hall of Ame even as it collapsed around her ears. She had been so close to the ground and the hole had shown no signs of stopping? How deep did it go? The Tower leaned precariously to a side, the great stairway cracking to pieces.

To her incredulous disbelief, a man was walking down the stairs, calm and unhurried even as the steps crumbled as he passed. His hand rested lightly on the bannisters, the stranger surveying the scene like an unaffected bystander. Dark hair touched his collarbones, his black robes immaculate, a red cloud stitched onto the front with exquisite embroidery.

"So, Deidara failed." His voice was unconcerned, "Step to your left, genin."

At her defiance, he smiled thinly, more of a twist of pale lips than anything else. She couldn't pin down his age, he could be anywhere between sixteen to thirty, his skin youthful but marred by two lines at the corner of his red eyes to his cheeks.

The boulder struck too close to her footing sending her sprawling. A hand seized her by the back of her neck and she was thrown clear, out of the hall and into the torrential rain. She was instantly soaked to her skin, the water hitting her body like needles.

"Get lost." She spat. Any ally of Deidara was no friend of hers.

The scariest part was the complete control the stranger had over his body. Not one muscle moved unless he wanted; Sakura had been counting the timing of his blinking, it had been the same time gap between each one each time. Some people had the aura of rocks, or trees when they stood still, muscles locked in tension. Not this man. He just was. What position he was in didn't seem to matter, he burst into blinding speed at a ridiculous speed none the less. He leaned against the doorway, watching curiously.

From outside the slow collapse looked like the destruction of something sacred. The tip ripped through the clouds as it careened towards the ground. The sun shone through the opening, casting a spotlight on the action. A section of the wall sheeted off and struck a power line. Instantly every single light winked out in Ame in a flash of sparks, the long wooden post fell across Sakura acting as a rudimentary shield when part of the tower collapsed on top of her. Luckily it was only the lower levels so their energy was not too high and instead of crushing her, Sakura was trapped, held in place for the more lethal missiles.

She struggled harder, but the combination of the rubble and the fallen post had pinned her tight in a display of leverage which she could not appreciate! Intense pain flared in her shoulder making her vision blank and eyes water.

The man reached out and placed a long-fingered hand on the stone half crushing her. She shouldn't have felt that extra weight, not with its relative weight to the massive block of marble, but it seemed reality didn't work that way. Tears trickled down her cheeks, dripping off the side of her cheekbones.

"The crows take you." She grinned, determined to be defiant even if she died…until she died… she would not go begging for mercy.

The man twitched a finger.

A crow, jet black and glossy, wove out of shadows, about the size of a small eagle. It tilted its monstrous head at her and shrieked a raucous cry. She really was hearing things she despaired, for a second, the cry had sounded just like a boy's harsh laughter.

Her words dried in her throat.

The bird pinned her with one Sharingan bright eye, the shuriken like pattern stark against the sunset crimson.

"Get away from me." She whispered. There was another Uchiha in this world? Did Sasuke and Obito know? For a second she thought it might have been Firudo wearing another mask but the behaviour didn't match up.

The mysterious Uchiha ignored her blood seeping into the seams of his robes. Was she going to be fed to it? Have her eyes and flesh ripped off her skeleton while she screamed? Was this her punishment for being on the same team as his kinsmen? Sakura spat blood at him, fury lending her strength.

The man closed an eye.

Purple flames, twilight dark and eerie, blazed. The sun must have gone behind the storm again, that must have been why all the light was fading…

He held a bow.

Seven feet from tip to tip, six feet if he notched an arrow and drew it fully as he had done. It was an abomination to nature. The very thing reeked of death, like the White Fang's sabre but magnitudes more. She could hear it, a ringing in her ears like funeral bells-

When it fired, her chakra vibrated as if struck with a gong and recoiled deep under her skin, hiding, a deep panic she had never felt rising like a scream. She felt the shock in her teeth, in her bones, behind her eyes, it meshed with her heartbeat, and for a second, she thought her heart was going to burst.

Stone dust was raining on her face, light as a kiss.

Bewildered, she just had time to squeeze her eyes open to see the marble absolutely obliterated and the man brushing the dust off his sleeve. She hadn't realised that the fight had extended to outside of the Tower but figures were sparring in the early morning air, flitting between the smaller towers in bursts of chakra fire and teeth shaking screeches, the rain obscuring their figures so she couldn't make out who they were or where they were from. The third smaller tower had its base smashed out from under it by the Heaven Tower breaking apart more, this one perilously close.

"Who are you?" She demanded.

He grinned faintly, "Welcome to the family." His eyes flicked upwards. It was impossible to read his mood. "It's not safe here."

She looked at his outstretched hand as if it were a snake. Like hell she was going with yet another missing nin whose motivations she didn't know. Let alone a traitor Uchiha. Why hadn't Sasuke or Obito mentioned this man? How was he connected to the Massacre?

"I suggest you take it." The Uchiha said evenly, and she saw the similarity to Sasuke when he grew cold and proud, to Obito when the man was lost in nostalgia more akin to a sculpture than a man.

"I'm good." She said, pushing the remaining debris away before taking several steps back.

"Children should be seen, not heard." He held a finger to his lips and her voice wouldn't make another sound. Sakura choked, trying to spit out any word, any noise but she didn't know what he had done. "Come here, child."

Genjutsu, she realised with an awful fright. How long had she spent examining his eyes? Stupid, stupid, stupid!-

She still had control of her mind but any decision she made to move away resulted in her body stepping forward. What had he rewired?! He hadn't interrupted the signal between the brain and the nervous system and inserted his own command there, had he? Sakura stared in naked shock. Why did anyone sleep on Genjutsu? Any fight should be over in seconds if the Genjutsu user forced their opponent to cut their own throat. The thought of anyone rummaging in her mind and slotting in foreign parts…the skin around her eyes prickled as if thousands of insects were pouring out of her empty sockets.

"Because the most the average nin will be capable of will be hallucinatory images which any child can realise is artificial." The man murmured. "It's written on your face." He explained in mild amusement.

She shook her head violently. She didn't want to go! Where would he take her?

"You don't have to look so worried." He said idly, examining his black nails, "Don't you want to see your team again?"

If he worked for Pein, odds were that he wanted the Kyuubi freed as well. Sakura tried to swallow but her throat was too tight. How many people did they have to look out for? She dug her nails into the fallen post to drag herself back but she lacked strength, moving steadily back into danger. Something hissed like a frying vat of oil and a colossal pale shadow moved in the dim darkness of dawn. Lightning flashed overhead.

"What do you think of my little brother?" He asked softly. It was entirely rhetorical; Sakura still didn't have control of her voice.

He was Sasuke's elder brother? You would think someone would have mentioned this. But then again, the Uchiha family tree was too tangled and twisted for anyone to make sense of with the inter-clan marriages, adoptions and their recognition of sensei-genin relationships as legal bonds. There was a chance that he wasn't Sasuke's full blooded brother.

Sasuke only had one brother and it wasn't him.

Sakura thought that cruel line as hard as she could, glaring at the red eyed man, hurling it with as much force as she could. His jaw tightened and his mild smile faded away.

Bastard, she thought for good measure. Get eaten.

I'm really looking forward to Sasuke finding out what shit his team have been through in his absence. Who told him to fall into a centuries old corpse city? I should probably pay some more attention to him…he has important stuff to do down there…