Happy December First!

If you enjoy this story then feel free to check out 'Hunter from Hunter of the Dark (gift)' by Enock on Deviantart.

Trying to picture what Hunter looks like in my head isn't always easy but Enoch has done a fantastic job bringing him to life.


Chapter 23

Over the course of their careers the jonin of the Hidden Leaf had seen some strange sights. Multi coloured Hunter clones fighting a Darkness enhanced Sound Four, while not the strangest, was certainly in the top four.

"HAYYAHH!" Hunter Red, the clone team's leader, of sorts, was currently squaring off against Kimimaro. The others had all paired up and despite all the 'hiyyahs' so far both sides were evenly matched.

Tayuya, who was fighting a bright pink Hunter, started playing on her flute. All at once the temperature dropped as an impossible blizzard swept the battlefield, pelting everyone with snow and hale.

"Anyone want to swap!?" Pink asked.

"Hey, I'll switch!" Blue Hunter yelled back. He was currently dodging Kidomaru's arrows, which now had an exploding aura of Darkness. As he spoke Kidomaru jumped up into the air, drawing another arrow. Several extra arrows appeared and spun around him in a circle for a moment, then he loosed and all eight arrows came flying at Blue.

"Shitshitshit!" Blue swore repeatedly as he spun and leapt to avoid the projectiles. He almost dodged them all but one stuck his left arm, taking it off below the shoulder. "BALLLSSS!" he swore loudly. Hunter could regenerate injuries but his clones couldn't. "Ohhh, I hope Naruto is having more luck than we are."

Over with Naruto

"This is bullshit!" Naruto yelled as another Assassin Nobody came out of a tree and slashed at his legs.

"Finally something we agree on!" Sasuke yelled back as another Assassin came after him.

Team Seven had completed their mission and escaped Thorns base but as they fell back to a safe distance them found themselves beset by strange creatures that rose up out of nowhere to try and kill them.

Sakura jumped over the head of another Nobody as it rose from the branch in front of her "Well at least Thorn hasn't caught up with-woah!" A bright red bolt of light shot past her head and disintegrated a chunk of a tree ahead.

"Oh, you just had to say it." groaned Sasuke as he looked over his shoulder. Thorn was right behind them, shooting at them with a strange crossbow.

The whole group came to a stop as even more Nobodies appeared in the trees ahead, cutting off their escape.

"Erm...Sakura...Now might be a good time!" said a nervous Naruto.

Sakura nodded in agreement and pulled a scroll from her belt. In an instant she expertly unravelled it and unsealed its contents, an antique suit of samurai armour. Almost as soon as it appeared the armour was infused with dark energy as a Heartless possessed it. The metal warped and changed, turning from a faded red colour to black with purple highlights, the dark energy solidified, taking on a humanoid shape. In no time at all the transformation was complete. The new Heartless had an extra set of arms just below the main pair, a heart shaped hole in its chest, golden eyes and a jagged mouth.

"Took your sweet time." said Hunter once he'd forming. He gave his new body an appreciative look over. "Now this is much better than last time."

"You are going to be very hard to get rid of, aren't you?" Thorn asked rhetorically.

"Oh, insufferably." Hunter reassured him. He raised his main arms slightly and conjured a samurai sword in one hand and an axe in the other. He got into a battle pose, spinning the weapons round as he did. "Take 'em!"

Hunter went straight for Thorn, swatting aside laser bolts and cutting through two Assassins that got in his way. Team Seven broke formation and went on the offensive. Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke hit first with their signature ninjutsu, each destroying one Nobody. Sasuke jumped to avoid a retaliatory strike then he countered by blasting two more Assassins with his fire style jutsu. Naruto had made about thirty Shadow Clones and was now trying to overwhelm several Nobodies with sheer numbers. Sakura ran past one Assassin, planting an explosive tag on it was she went. It detonated seconds later but by then she was already closing on her next target, a Samurai Nobody. She ran straight for it, making hand signs as she went. The Samurai reached for its sword and, waiting for the perfect moment, it struck, cutting Sakura in two. This 'Sakura' promptly disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving only two half's of a tree stump. The real Sakura was above it, holding a kunai. She dropped down right behind it, trying to slice the monster in half but she just phased right through.

"Oh crap." she swore as the Samurai turned.

"Rasengan!" that was when Naruto hit it in the back with his new favourite jutsu, shattering the creature like glass. "The awesome and incredible Naruto to the rescue!" he said while giving his version of Rock and Guys 'hero smile'.

A sweatdrop appeared behind Sakura's head "Baka." She looked over Naruto's shoulder and saw two more Assassins swimming through the ground towards them. "Erm, Naruto."

The blond ninja turned and found himself facing an Assassin's arms, ready to strike. "Ut-oh." The Nobody launched its attack, slashing repeatedly at him, one blade covered arm after the other. Naruto was forced back as Sakura was chased away by the second Nobody.

Up in the trees Hunter was barely doing better. He'd so far been unable to land a hit on Thorn, in fact it was taking all he had just to avoid damage. Thorn caught his axe with the crossbow and tried to shoot Hunter in the gut but he jerked out of the way and wrenched his blade free.

Thorn spun away, dropped to one knee and fired several shots that Hunter batted away with his blades, then he fired two dark bolts from his extra arms, forcing Thorn to jump down from the tree. "Kakashi! Blow the tags!" Hunter yelled.

Kakashi grabbed and Assassin's arm and threw it into an oncoming Samurai. Immediate threat dealt with he looked up at Hunter "But were not at a safe distance yet!"

Thorn heard all this and took aim at Kakash. Hunter leapt between them and started deflecting shots as more Nobodies appeared all around them. "Do it now!" Hunter insisted.

Kakashi nodded and made the hand sign to activate the bombs planted all over Thorn's weapons caches. There was a slight ground tremor that made a handful of leaves fall.

Hunter cocked his head "Huh, I thought that there be more of a-"

That was when the real explosion hit. In the distance a pillar of fire consumed Orochimaru's old lab, rising high over the tree line. The detonations continued outwards from the epicentre, demolishing the forest a whole football fields worth at a time.

"Oh snap." said Hunter as he saw the fire racing towards them. "Go go go GO!" he and Team Seven ran.

Thorn looked back at the approaching inferno dispassionately. "Warp out." he ordered. All the Nobodies vanished with Thorn himself disappearing last, just as the firestorm consumed the area.

"Hunter! We can't outrun the flames!" Kakshi shouted as they ran.

Hunter looked over his shoulder at the approaching wall of fire. Thinking quickly he came to an abrupt halt and spun to face the inferno "OK, everyone stop and get close to me!" Team seven complied, standing in a tight circle around him.

"Three." Hunter counted down.

Naruto gulped as the flames grew closer, Sakura grabbed hold of Saskue's arm, making him briefly consider throwing her into the fire.

"Two."

The four humans were sweating from the heat now.

"Reflera!" At the last moment Hunter cast a shield spell around the party. Instead of being immolated they were launched high into the air, above the flames. It wasn't exactly a smooth takeoff, with the five of them being buffeted about inside the small magic ball but it was better than dying.

"We're alive!" Naruto being the master of the obvious as usual.

That was when the spell ended and they were left tumbling out of control.

"God damn it Naruto!" Hunter yelled over the wind.

"How is this my fault!?" the blond yelled back.

"Oh just shut up and stay close! Aerora!" Hunter cast another spell, this time surrounding them in a bubble of air. The spell only marginally slowed their decent but its main purpose was to soften the impact when they landed, which it did.

Mostly.

"Ooof!" The five landed in a pile in a spare part of the forest at the foot of a large hill.

Hunter got back up sending Naruto, who'd been on top of him, tumbling off to the left. "Always a happy landing." He proclaimed.

"Guys." Everyone turned to see what Sakura was looking at. Orochimaru's base was completely gone, replaced by a crater half a mile wide. The surrounding forest was charred to ash, only a handful of black, branchless trees were left standing like strange tomb stones.

"If you're done gawping." Hunter started walking away "Let's get back to the others. While they're still alive please! Move out!"

Back with the Hunter Rangers

"Well, looks like we've got this in the bag." said Kimimaro.

"Like hell you have." Hunter Red shot back.

The destruction of Orochimaru's base had made everyone stop fighting for a moment as they all looked up at the column of flame in the sky. While the Sound Five were distracted the Hunter clones had fallen back, taking up position between them and the Leaf ninjas.

Nick was still there, standing off to one side just waiting for his pay to show up. He'd seen planet of fights like this before and now he was bored.

"With these powers we're unbeatable!" Jirobo proclaimed "We've got you five on the ropes."

"Heh, and it looks like you're out of time." Tayuya pointed at the blue clone who was starting to disintegrate. The others were starting to fade out too.

"That's not good." said Asuma. "That's not good at all."

"Should we run now?" Choji asked.

"No point" Asuma replied "Everyone prepare to stand your ground!"

"Oh, this is going to be fun!" Sakon was overflowing with sadistic glee. "This was the best deal we ever made!"

All the clones looked at each other "Deal?" Pink repeated.

Tayuya looked annoyed "Are you five deaf as well as stupid!?"

"In case you didn't notice" Red explained "Thorn is kind of like a demon. You know the whole 'what you ask for, not what you want' kind of thing."

"So what exactly did you ask for?" asked Yellow.

"And what exactly did Thorn say?" asked Blue.

Kimimaro shrugged "It wasn't a deal exactly. We asked him to teach us Dark Power and he did."

The clones looked at each other again, looking more concerned this time "Did any of you say you wanted to control it?" Red asked.

Now it was the Sound Five's turn to give each other confused looks.

"Ut-oh." said all five clones in unison.

Nick was starting to pay attention now. If this was going the way he thought it was then thing around here were about to get very dicey.

Blue noticed a dark aura appearing round Tayuya's hand without her knowledge "Looks like we're not the only ones out of time."

Tayuya looked at her hand. She tried to shake the aura off like it was some kind of disgusting insect but that just seemed to make it spread faster. The same thing was happening to the rest of them now. The Sound ninjas arrogance quickly being replaced by panic.

"W-what's happening!? What did you do!" Kimimaro demanded.

"It's not us jackass!" Blue shot back. He'd almost completely faded away now, he had just enough time to say "You made your choices." before he disappeared.

"After what happened to your boss..." Yellow went next.

"...you'd think you would've learned." then Pink.

"There's no one to blame but yourselves." Green faded out next.

Red gave a heavy sigh and then looked at the Sound Five. He looked like a disappointed parent scolding his children and somehow despite everything that was happening to them it pissed all five of them off.

"Why couldn't you all just have..." Red's shoulders dropped "Blagh, blagh whatever." Then he vanished to.

"Stupid!" Tayuya almost screamed "Goddamn! TRASHHHH!" the dark aura had completely enveloped her now. She was starting to vanish into it. "No! I won't! I...I..." then she was gone.

One by one the rest of the Sound Five followed, leaving five concentrated points of dark energy.

Nick drew his sword once more. "Everyone get ready."

"Now you're helping!" Ino yelled at him in disbelief.

"This isn't about munny anymore, it's about survival. Now brace!"

The Darkness faded away, revealing what remained of the Sound Five. They'd given up a lot of their humanity in service to Orochimaru, and the Darkness had consumed the last of it, leaving only monsters behind.

Kidomaru had become a centaur like creature with blue and green skin, humanoid from the waist up but where his legs should have been there was now a massive spider. Unlike normal arachnids it had a round head with a mouth instead of fangs, although it still had eight bright yellow eyes. It's eight feet and leg joints were protected by pointed red and gold armour, it even wore a helmet . The humanoid part only had two arms but they were holding a massive ornate looking bow. Like the spider it had red and gold armour but it didn't wear a helmet.

Tayuya's Heartless still had a human shape with a long mane of pink hair but it had a pair of curving horns, long spindly limbs and a demonic looking flute that hovered about her of its own accord. It's skin was a dark magenta with dark red hands and feet.

Sakon and Ukon's Heartless was, like the people it came from, two beings joined together. Sakon had become a large, muscular red oni-like demon. It had one large horn growing out of the right side of its forehead. Its arms were massive, ending in big three fingered claws which it used to walk like a gorilla. Ukon's Heartless looked like a blue oni only unlike its twin it had no legs, instead it was fused to its twins back, that and its horn was on the opposite side to its brother. Both had large Heart shaped holes in their stomachs and the same golden eyes that all Heartless had.

Jirobo was now a massive dark brown coloured blob like Heartless, a giant mouth resting atop six razor sharp legs that looked more like knives. The two front legs were bigger than the over four, making the creature look like some kind of demonic crab.

Kimimaro's Heartless looked like a miniature T-rex only it had no arms and its back was brisling with bone like spines. Two more bone spikes grew from its knees and another from the beasts head.

"Annnnd we are eight levels of screwed." Nick summed up the situation.

That was when Hunter and Team Seven finally arrived, bursting into the clearing and coming to a halt by Nick.

"Hey guys what did we-SHIT!" Hunter had guessed that the Sound Five would become Heartless but he hadn't expected them to be this powerful. "Erm...the Sound Five I presume?"

"Please tell me you have a plan for this?" Nick asked.

"My plan was to get here before they changed and kill them off."

"Running might be a good idea now." Kakashi pointed out.

Hunter shook his head "I'm back at full power now. Once I get my body back I'll try to get them to back down. Maybe they'll listen to me."

He took a few steps forward and began to shed his armour until all that remained was a mass of dark energy that slowly shifted into a human form. Part way through the transformation the energy suddenly pulsed violently and unseen to all a phantom Hunter was thrown out of his own body, landing on the floor back by the others.

"Ow!" he proclaimed, then he looked down at his now transparent body. "Oh shit, Sixty Three is back."

"That's not me."

Hunter looked up and saw the spectral form of Fem Hunter standing to his left. "But If I'm here and you're here...then who's..." realisation hit him like a train "Oh shit."

The Darkness finished forming, leaving a creature that looked like Hunter save for its mouth which was fully of shark like teeth.

"Ah...sweet reality at last." He proclaimed.

"Ut-oh." said Sakura.

"Everyone get back." Kaskashi ordered. "It's Evil Hunter."

Evil rolled his eyes "See what you did there. You're trying to apply pretext to me. You want to frame me as objectively bad and leave it at that. By that same token I could call myself Angel Hunter."

"You look more like the Devil than an angel!" Asuma yelled.

"Hmmm, Devil Hunter. I like that. Ya know some people actually look up to the Devil. They see him as the embodiment of freedom and free thought."

"Looks like he plans on boring us to death with philosophy." Saskue joked.

Devil Hunter ignored him and instead focused on the Sound Five Heartless. "Ok...Violent Melody." He pointed at Tayuya's Heartless. "Dark Hunger" then Jirobo's. "Twin Demon" Sakon and Ukon. "Archer Spider" Kidomaru. "Annnnnd Bone Dragon."

"If you're done naming your pets" Nick pointed his sword at Devil Hunter "can you just hurry up and start ranking about you evil plan already. I'm getting bored here!"

Devil chuckled at that "Ah, you've done this before I see." He spun round, doing his best dramatic pose. He opened his mouth and...then he just burst out laughing." Hahaha! Oh my god this is so cliché. I even had a speech prepared, you know the who order-over-freedom schpeel but now I think it just sounds pretentious." He conjured a dark bolt in his palm "So how about I skip to the part where I kill you all."

"Stop." Out of a black portal Thorn appeared, standing between Devil Hunter and the Leaf ninjas. "I've gone through a lot of effort to make those Heartless. Hand them over."

"As if today wasn't surreal enough." groaned Shikamaru.

Kakashi decided to try and explain "Thorn, this is-"

"I know." Thorn cut him off "I've been listening to you all for the last couple of minutes, the rest if figured out on my own."

"Is it hard, Thorn?" Devil asked mockingly "Seeing what you were. What you've lost? Having to fight your original self, all rather poetic isn't it."

"You're lying." It wasn't a denial, more a statement of fact. "You're not the 'original me' or some memory of him. You're just Hunter's fears. I doubt you even existed until recently."

Devil Hunter had stopped smiling now "That's it. Killing you all." He thrust out his hand and fire a volley of Dark bolts at the group.

Naruto raised his arms in defence but before the bolts could strike they were blocked by a massive white thing. It took Naruto a moment to realise that the 'thing' was a hand. Where Thorn had been just a moment ago was now a towering white creature. He could only see the back of it but it had a mostly human shape with unnaturally long arms, short legs and big diamond shaped shoulders. That's when Naruto noticed the blue scarf wrapped round the monsters neck.

"Th-that's Thorn?" he stammered out.

"This just got too heavy for me." Nick proclaimed "All in favour of running away?"

"Good idea." Asuma agreed "Everyone fall back!"

As the humans and anthro left Thorn and Devil just stared each other down.

Devil tilted his head slightly and spoke to his minions "Kill them all."

The Heartless Five Shot forwards like hounds that had just been let off the leash. Thorn ignored them, letting them run past him. Once he'd dealt with this Devil Hunter the Heartless would only obey him. All he had to do was pick them up once he was done.

Thorns huge arms surged towards Devil, who sprang into the air to dodge them. All around Thorn lines of black and white thorns appeared and shot towards him but moving at impossible bursts of speed Devil blew past them, flying at Thorns head.

Hunter and Fem Hunter were still there, sitting on the side line watching the fight.

"So we just...sit here and watch?" he asked.

She gave a sigh of boredom "Welcome to my world."


Early on I was torn between making the Sound Five Heartless or just killing them off, but what would a Kingdom Hearts story be without Heartless?

A big final Thank You to Enoch for her art and to MercenaryX for commissioning it.

The next chapter will be at Christmas, featuring a fight between the Leaf ninjas and the Heartless Five and the arrival of and Organisation member.