Chapter Fifty-Four

Hinata watched the rain of black spikes falling toward them. SHIT! She ground both knees on the grass of the forest clearing where she, Neji, Naruto, Sasuke, and Guy had teleported. "If I bat them away, we lose Guy!" Naruto's desperate thought filled her with dread as daylight was blotted out by the sheer mass of spikes closing on their position.

This is your chance; this is what you've waited for since Kushina told you about Nine-Tails eleven years ago! Hinata forced herself to her feet, spreading her arms as she began channeling her chakra to her fingers. "Honey, NO!" Naruto protested via the chakra link. As if to reinforce the objection, Neji leaped above her, spreading his arms in a flaming phoenix cloak of fire. Not today, boys!

Hinata weaved her arms feeling the strength of Nine-Tails join Hamura's chakra and her already massive reserve of Nature Chakra. Eight Trigrams! She envisioned the seal, large enough to protect the people she cared about – the people she loved. Her arms weaved. Two, four, Sixteen! Her arms weaved with speed that would have broken bone and torn muscle in anyone else. The first volley impacted with a clatter of millions of steel ball-bearings landing on a metal roof; the sound nearly split her ears and her concentration. THIRTHY-TWO! The ungodly rain of death continued to fall for agonizing seconds. SIXTY-FOUR! Still, it fell without interruption, and she knew she had to continue or everyone would die.

Her arms continued to weave, and everything ached as she gritted her teeth. ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY-EIGHT! Daylight broke through on the other side as the spikes disintegrated. Holy shit! No one has ever done that much! Hinata sucked in a deep breath as she struggled to end the movement in her arms. A tsunami of exhaustion struck from all sides as her knees gave out. The world became hazy as she struggled to keep her core engaged enough to kneel upright. Loud shouting came into her field of hearing, but she couldn't make out the words, only arms encircling her.

"I'm… all right…" just the effort to speak threatened her put her on the ground. "I'm… all right… no one is going to die…" she gasped as the drain of just speaking overwhelmed her, and her eyes closed.

"THIS WAY, HURRY!" Temari shouted to a group of villagers. As unnerving as seeing Madara Uchiha come back to life was, the massive scale of the tailed-beast bearing down on them threatened to shatter her very mind with its unfathomable mass. Around age ten, she had watched Gaara have the worst attack she'd every seen when Kankaro decided to play keep-away with Gaara's teddy bear. By the time father had contained Shukaku in the aftermath, most of the palace guard were slaughtered and several city blocks of Suna had been leveled. Temari spent days crying afterwards, struggling to make sense of the fact that monsters were real, and her both contained one.

The earth shook as Shikamaru, Ino, Choji Konohamaru, Asuma, and Hanabi raced building to building to herd the residents of the small village away from the apparent path of the Ten-Tailed Beast. Deep in Temari's heart, she was a warrior, and warriors fought such horrors to the death. Seeing such a horrific sight approaching, and knowing all her strength meant nothing to the hulking creature sent her back in time to the terrible night and the horrible nights that followed – too afraid to leave her room after seeing such unspeakable horror.

"That's everyone, now let's get the hell out of here!" Asuma shouted as they rushed those that could run and dragged carts loaded with those unable to walk out of the path of beast which, thankfully, seemed uninterested in pursuit.

Temari aided Shikamaru in pulling the wagon of the elderly and infirm into the distance, the increasing proximity of Ten-Tails dispelling any level of relief despite knowing they were out of harm's way. As they reached the evacuation point, a heartbreaking sighted greeted them. "Please! I have to go back!" a young woman shouted desperately as Choji held her back from running into the path of the beast.

"Lady, it's suicide!" Choji desperately tried to keep the woman from running back into the village as the Tailed-Beast approached with less than a kilometer to go.

"Please! My little girl went back for her bunny!" The woman pleaded with tears in her eyes and her cheeks rosy.

Something about the mother's pleas hit Temari somewhere in the pit of her stomach – a part of her she never knew she had. That could have been you ten years ago. In ten years you could be that mom! "Ino," she turned to the other kunoichi, "can you sense her?"

Ino stared blankly into the distance, eyes becoming glassy, "Yes! She's running this way, but she won't make it!"

Temari stared desperately at Shikamaru and then toward the village. She extracted the fan from its cover and spread it out, "Not going to stop me?" she asked as she began weaving the fan to generate wind currents.

"I'm a married man, and I know I can't stop you," he let a soft chuckle, "I guess I'm whipped," he shrugged.

Temari smirked as she gave the fan a final wave, and she released the winds, climbing aboard the fan as the airburst carried her skyward. She glided back into the village she'd help evacuate only minutes before, scanning desperately for a small girl and her bunny.

"MOOMIE!" the faint but discernable cry filled her hearing, and Temari honed in on the sound, soon rewarded by the sight of the little one scurrying about the village. Temari swooped low to her target, dismounting the fan. And running the few remaining step to the little girl, maybe five or six, clutching a tiny white rabbit.

"Come on!" She held out a hand to the frightened little girl as the girl froze. "I'll take you back to your mom, but we have to go, right now!"

The girl hesitated for a moment, but she soon ran to Temari, embracing her. Temari made ready to take to the air again when the earth shook beneath her, causing her and the girl to stumble. As she ground her left knee in the dirt road, a towering shadow loomed over the two of them and let out an unholy bellowing roar. The airburst blew out windows and sent pieces of buildings flying about. Dammit! Temari raised her fan to shield herself as she used her body to protect the girl and her bunny from harm.

Despite her fan's durability, the air currents began ripping the material between the wooden supports, and the supports themselves cracked in several places as roof tiles, loose bits of siding, and bits of timber struck mercilessly. So loud was the roar that Temari didn't hear the approaching wood fragment that struck the right side of her head and her right arm.

A wave of nausea washed over her as she collapsed over the child, desperate to shield her. As the wave subsided, Temari fought dizziness as she pushed herself upright. Blood was streaming down the right side of her head, and she was seeing double. As she went to move her right arm, fire burned through it as muscles spasmed in protest of movement. Damn you, move, or we're going to fucking die! Temari fanned desperately back and forth with both arms, mixing her chakra with the air current. "Climb up on my back, honey," she knelt for the girl, and she climbed up, bringing her arms around Temari's neck. "Here we go, one, two, three!" Temari whipped the damaged fan one last time and mounted it, moving awkwardly as a leaf on the wind versus a streamline glider as the air currents seeped through damaged sections of fan.

Temari struggled to keep the fan level, but damage to the fan and her overwhelming dizziness caused it to roll out of control as she tried to descend. OH GOD! In her last desperate act, Temari shifted the precious cargo to her left as she fell to her right. The ground hit with the force of a brick wall, and searing fire shot up her right arm and down her right hip.

"BABY!"

"MOMMIE!"

All sound became muffled as her vision blurred. Before her eyes closed, she heard the desperate scream, "Temari! TEMARI!"

She tried moving her lips, but she could feel herself slipping, "Shi… Shi…k..amaru…"

Naruto still clutched an exhausted Hinata as Dad teleported in with Mom, Kakashi, and Sakura. Dad disappeared just as quickly and reappeared with Gaara, B, and Orochimaru with the three reanimated Hokages. "Thiszz is bad," Orochimaru hissed as he eyed the gargantuan form of Ten-Tails, "This is real bad!"

"No shit, genius," the reanimated Lord Third spoke with rising indignance. "The damn thing will be in range of the village in only a few hours!"

"You always were short-sighted, Sensei," Orochimaru's viperish lips formed an unnerving smile as he pointed to a strange protuberance forming in the top of Ten-Tails central mass, "When that opens in a few hours, he'll have everything he needs to cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

"What the hell, I thought he had to wait on the October full moon!" Naruto shouted, "Tomorrow night!"

"Oh God," Mom spoke, "That was what Obito was telling us before he died!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Neji spoke, confused for sure.

"He said," Dad started grimly, "if Madara used a mismatched Rinnegan, the Infinite Tsukuyomi would cast imperfectly, everyone would be trapped in nightmares instead of dreams, and…"

"Everyone would die…" Sasuke spoke in a flat, undisturbed voice.

"Was this his plan all along?!" Naruto felt his jaw drop.

"Naruto, Black Zesu…" Hinata muttered.

"Kaguya is the real puppet master," Naruto spoke in harsh realization, "She no longer cares if the world falls asleep in nightmares or survives. She wants the word's chakra, and she wants the withered husks of all of us to make those White Zetsu things!"

"If everyone dies in the thrall of the Infinite Tsukuyomi," Orochimaru added, "their chakra will release much faster, and she'll be at full power and have Ten-Tails fully at her disposal for whatever comes next."

"Yo, man that's great and all, but there has to be a way to stop it!" B's voice shook.

"There is," Naruto reached into his chakra, feeling the knowledge of his ancestor overwhelming him, "We have to defeat Madara and release the other Tailed-Beasts!"

"And here I thought this would be hard," Dad spoke, a slight grin on his face.

"Mom," Naruto turned to stare at Ten-Tails, now stopped and looking like it was becoming petrified, "Get Guy, Hinata, Sakura and Neji away from here!" His chakra pumped through him as he re-entered Six Sages Mode, holding the Staff of the Sun.

"N-Naruto… we have to… together…" Hinata protested.

"Hinata, just until you recover," Naruto added, "You used a frightening amount of Chakra to bat away Ten-Tails' attack, and we will need you again, soon!" Naruto had no illusion that he could do this alone, let alone without Hinata in the end. He exchanged a glance with Neji and Sakura, and they nodded in sync.

"What about us?" Gaara asked.

"I need you and B to keep Ten-Tails occupied so it focuses on you and not the rest of us," Naruto said as Neji began to lift Hinata Naruto's shoulder.

"A distraction?" Orochimaru asked.

"No one person can beat Madara in our current state," Naruto said as Neji steadied Hinata, "And we don't have time to measure things out piecemeal. We gotta hit him between the eyes with a kanabō right now." He turned his eyes back to Hinata, activating his unusual Byakugan, and checking her chakra network. She'll be ready in a bit. "And even then, we'll need her soon."

"I'm going with you, dammit!" Hinata protested as she pushed off Neji. Sakura raised her hands in surrender, not wanting to stir things up further.

"What's so special about her?" Sasuke asked with dismissal.

"If we fail to stop the Infinite Tsukuyomi," Naruto started at the sky, now beginning to turn to afternoon orange, "She and I can stop Kaguya, I think."

"How?" Sasuke scoffed, "The girl passes out after blocking one attack."

Hinata glared with her Byakugan sharp enough to cut glass. Naruto on the other hand, could feel his blood boil at the off-color comment, "I didn't see you getting up to block tens of thousands of spikes bearing down on us!" Naruto yelled, approaching his friend, "I'll have you know…"

"Yes?" Sasuke scoffed, and Naruto stopped speaking immediately as Hinata placed a hand of his shoulder. Goddammit, I'm being played. Between Sage Mode and his altered Byakugan, Naruto could tell Sasuke's lips were moving, but he wasn't the one speaking. Orochimaru wanted him to spill whatever was so important about Hinata so he might be able to exploit it. Kaguya is manipulating Madara, and we're being manipulated by you, you son of a bitch! The pulsing cursed seal in Sasuke's neck was invading a chakra node in Sasuke's right lung, and the node was starting to turn red as Orochimaru metastasized his own chakra into Sasuke. Naruto estimated they had days at most before it Sasuke was doomed.

"We will cut that cancer out, love," Hinata spoke through their linked chakra. She nodded as her chakra began to burn from a mix of Kyuubi and Hamura's chakra, encasing her in a purple-blue Sage Mode.

Naruto's cool returned at Hinata's reassurance, "I'll have you know, she's done more to stop this than you ever did!" Naruto scoffed, hoping he hadn't given away too much to Orochimaru just now. Naruto scanned the other Hokages and concluded the same disturbing thing – they reanimations of the originals, but they were not free from Orochimaru's control no matter how much they acted like they were. "There is no time to explain," Naruto turned his gaze to Hinata's beautiful Byakugan eyes, "Are you sure you don't want to spend some time to recover?"

"I'll go to the end of the world with you, love," Hinata showed no sign of exhaustion she'd shown momentarily. "I sat out one big bad and you almost died; I will fight with you this time."

Naruto nodded, lips tightening into a smile, "B, Gaara, distract him as best as you can, everyone else, follow me!" Naruto walked away, followed closely by Hinata. He paused and turned back to Sasuke, Orochimaru, and the Hokages

"That means you, too, duck-butt!" Hinata shouted with a wicked grin. She winked at Naruto. That's my girl! As expected, Sasuke grimaced at the mention of his old nickname Naruto had coined for him in childhood. Sasuke's haircut did mimic the tail-feathers of a duck at times. Sasuke trudged forward with a scowl. So, you do remember, and you are still in there. Good! Naruto began hoping his and Hinata's plan was still in play. Orochimaru was still the wildcard – whether he betrayed them before or after defeating Madara, everyone agreed he would betray them at some point, and it was coming soon.

Minato ran at full sprint among his predecessors to his left and his wife to the right as the ground shook. Gaara and B were attacking Ten-Tails with Beast Ball and Wind Bullet attacks. While Ten-Tails could intercept the massive attacks, it couldn't intercept the attacks and the small group of legendary Shinobi scaling the beast's body. Just remember, not all of us are on the same side. Minato sadly eyed was had once been Lord Third.

The man had been a father to Minato's generation. He had believed in Minato and passed him the torch at a time when people expected Lord Third to easily reign for another twenty years. His death had been an inevitability, one of the few things Himawari could not change by going back in time.

Minato turned an eye to Kushina as she sprinted along with the group, moving up the side of Ten-Tails. She had earned the Hokage's Jacket out of necessity, and she wore it well. He thought back to the angry girl with the glorious red hair, imaging what that girl would say if she saw this dream come true. As he neared the objective, Minato wondered how any of this went down in the world Himawari came from – the world that was no more. The world where you and she weren't here for them. Even years after learning the truth about the night Naruto was born, the nightmare of his wife laying dead and his son growing up an orphan still caused Minato to lose sleep.

Minato turned his eyes forward to his son and daughter-in-law, both burning with chakra in their more advanced Sage Modes as they went over the top. Growing up, Jiraiya once believed Minato to be the child of prophecy due to his precocious nature – graduating the Academy two years early and well ahead of Kushina. In almost seventeen years of life, Naruto had surpassed him and his achievements in every measurable way except holding the office of Hokage; deep in his heart, Minato knew that wouldn't take long. You're no longer the Hokage, and it's no longer your story! Make sure his story gets told!

The group crested the edge, and Madara stood awaiting them, holding Naruto and Hinata suspended by some invisible force. "I must admit, the kids are strong, but you sent children to do a man's job, Kushina!"

"Let them go, Madara! You've done enough harm to the world!" Minato yelled.

"Have I?" the long-dead Uchiha patriarch scoffed. "That's rich coming from a man with the blood of thousands on his hands from the Third War, including two apprentices!"

"Two of whom would have lived if not for you, you son of a bitch!" Kakashi roared, eyes wild with anger despite the lack of Sharringan.

"Brother," the reanimated Lord Hashirama spoke, "there is no need for this; the world found peace without us!"

"And all it took was one bad decision to bring it back to war!"

"Your decision!" Kushina shouted, red hair flailing as she clenched her fists, "And your idiot decision will cost us all!"

"What in the fuck are you talking about?!" he scoffed in reply to Kushina's indictment.

"The Black Zetsu," Naruto shouted from his place suspended in the air, "is manipulating you! You're using mismatched Rinnegan and the full moon isn't until tomorrow night!"

"SHUT UP, KID!" Madara flung Naruto off into the distance.

"Madara!" Hinata shouted, "if you cast the Eye of the Moon imperfectly, everyone will fall into nightmare-induced sleep and die within hours!" He got ready to fling Hinata away, "The Black Zetsu isn't an instrument of your will! It's Kaguya's!"

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Madara paused his wind up.

"You people talk way too fucking much!" an inhuman, throaty voice spoke as the black, oily lifeform that had bonded to Madara separated from him, and stabbed the man through the chest.

"AHHH!"

"Time for the world to sleep! Time for my revenge!" The Black Zetsu growled as it shot skyward with Madara.

Minato gave chase as the massive blood-red bloom atop Ten-Tails opened, and the sky suddenly turned black as night. SHITSHITSHIT! Madara was out of reach and not approaching the moon, now glowing blood-red in the distance.

An orange streak went across the sky, toward the distant figures. However, Minato did not see if the two connected. Instead, he saw the image of Rinne-Sharringan form over the moon, imperfect in its shape. As it did, his limbs froze like he'd been encased in concrete. An unbearable sense of foreboding wash over Minato as his vision turned hazy, and his eyes opened on the horrific sight of him and Kushina impaled by Nine-Tails, their baby son wailing into the hellish night. Son, I failed you!

Shikamaru spotted Temari shooting up from the wreckage of the village as the ground shook again. Even to his untrained eye, he could tell something was seriously off about her flight pattern. A quick glance through field glasses revealed her fan was badly damaged and showing serious instability as a it rode on the wind. Even worse, Temari was bleeding from a serious-looking head wound and was clutching her right arm to her. At the least she has a concussion and a broken arm, and she's losing control!

Shikamaru sprinted toward her flight path despite the protests of Asuma Sensei and the others. Temari was a few dozen meters from them when the fan began to side slip and pitch downward. Temari's eyes rolled back in her head as she fell off the fan to her right.

"Oh my god! TEMARI!" Shikamaru watched as she fell at least three meters to the ground, clutching the little girl she'd rescued to her left side. Temari flopped to the ground with an audible THUD! "TEMARI!" Shikamaru closed the distance in mere seconds, grind his knees in the dirt as he skid to a stop next to his stricken wife. Shikamaru heard the little girl running to her mom, but the happy reunion was lost in the panicked haze of trying to process the situation. Keep the patient still, assess for bleeding and consciousness, and oh god please don't be dead! "Temari!" he shouted, voice starting to choke in his throat.

"Shi…Shi…kamaru…" her lips moved clumsily as she struggled to collect syllables to words.

Rational thought abandoned Shikamaru as shock began setting in. This was his wife, his troublesome woman, his one and only, and she was dying right in front of him. Through the haze, the first rational thought came to him, "INO!" he screamed.

The medical-nin was at his side in mere seconds, but it could have been hours. He turned to see Choji and Asuma sprinting toward them. As they two men approached, Shikamaru's already chilled blood froze as day suddenly began turning into night, and the sky turned a hellish red. Despite not wanting to know what was going on, he looked skyward, seeing a bright red moon and a swirling pattern forming on its face.

Before Shikamaru could think any other thoughts, his limbs became heavy as lead, and he flopped to his side looking Temari straight in the face. He watched as Ino collapsed the same. Have to help her! She'll die if we don't move quick! Cant… move! His eyes closed as he took one last, desperate view of Temari's teal eyes.

The effect of being thrown like a chew-toy disoriented Naruto, and he was nearly a kilometer from Ten-Tails by the time he'd stopped his momentum. Through his altered vison, Naruto watched in horror as the Black Zetsu put its hand through Madara's chest, and thrust the man skyward. If he approaches the moon we're fucked! Naruto propelled himself with his chakra back toward Madara and Black Zetsu, moving to intercept the two faster than a speeding bullet.

The sky turned pitch black, and an eerie, unholy red glow came from above. Naruto looked into the sky, seeing the Infinite Tsukuyomi form on the face of the moon. More disturbing than anything, he saw the slightest imperfection as it cast itself on the world below. For a brief second, there was dead calm, and then Naruto's enhanced senses flooded with the feelings of pain and anguish as thousands of people nearby screamed as they became prisoners of their most horrid nightmares.

Naruto felt himself spinning, and he threw up as he fell to the ground at the base of Ten-Tails, now morphing into some kind of massive tree. Naruto fought his senses, trying to remember to focus lessons Hinata had taught him early on with his unusual Byakugan. When he'd first learned Sage Mode, he'd taken months to be able to sense nature and the world around him; the exact opposite had happened immediately after Hinata implanted him with Hizashi's Byakugan. So much sensory data at once had been like drinking from a firehose, and Hinata had spent a desperate few weeks to get him acclimated to using such a powerful doujutsu.

"Naruto," a familiar masculine voice called from nearby as Naruto regained his bearings. He looked up to see Sasuke, Sakura, Orochimary, and the reanimated Hokages stood like survivors of an apocalyptic event, "I'm surprised you're still awake." Sasuke's mostly lifeless voice left Naruto uncertain as to whether Sasuke or his puppet master considered it a good thing.

"How are you still awake?" Naruto asked.

"The Rinnegan can shield a limited number nearby," Orochimaru explained, then gestured to the Hokages, "And the dead cannot be enthralled by the Infinite Tsukuyomi." The viperish man tilted his head, "But I'm curious as to how you're immune?"

Naruto expanded his senses, feeling Neji, Uncle Hiashi, Mom, and Dad imprisoned. Then, he remembered one thing that made him unique – Hizashi's Byakugan, or whatever it had become. As he expanded his senses, Naruto realized the world around them was not sitting still. "What's happening?" Naruto gasped as he watched all those placed in slumber were becoming cocooned and attached to what looked like tree roots. A glance with his enhanced vision gave him the horrific answer, "It's siphoning their chakra, rapidly!"

"How long do we have?" Sakura asked.

"Hours, maybe less for the vulnerable!" Naruto felt the true weight of the world on his shoulders. His village, everyone he loved, the future Himawari hoped for would die in mere hours if he didn't move fast. As he felt the chakra flowing away, he sensed another ominous chill run down his back as another new chakra signature formed near where Madara had been. "Kaguya is here," he said grimly.

"Naruto, you said you and Sasuke could re-seal her!" Sakura said desperately.

"Naruto!" Hinata screamed through their chakra, still linked to his despite him sensing her trapped.

"Hinata," Naruto began moving toward her when he felt an arm on his shoulder.

"Naruto, we don't have time for this!" Sasuke spoke sternly.

Naruto hesitated. From the tablet and what the Sage of Six Paths told him, Naruto knew that he and Sasuke could re-seal Kaguya and release the Infinite Tsukuyomi themselves, but something about Hagomoro and Hamura's warnings stuck in his head. Kaguya's agents have him firmly under their control.

"Naruto, if she drains Hinata, B, and Gaara; you won't be able to stop her! Get Hinata, and don't trust him!" Nine-Tails warned.

Naruto, slapped away Sasuke's arm. As he did, he grabbed the boy's forearm and surreptitiously marked the arm with a Thunder God seal, "I'll be back!" Naruto turned all his focus to the seal he'd placed next to Hinata's ANBU brand and vanished in a flash.

Author's notes: Hello, everyone. Apologies for this coming out at such a weird time. As always, I hope you enjoyed. While most of you can guess what will happen, there might be some curious surprises ahead. Until then, stay healthy, stay safe, and I'll see you next chapter.

Also, I posted a poll on my profile looking for feedback about possible plot threads you might want to see explored in Volume III. Some spoilers included, please help me out and vote if you can. I always treasure your input.