The next morning, Hitomi awoke to a loud crash. She wasted little time getting dressed and armed, thanking the Gods above that everything was ready during instances like these, then jumped out of the window. Her teammates were all present, save for Tsunade and Shizune, which was odd considering they had taken a room in the same establishment. A brush of her meridians informed her that there remained no trace of their chakra in the vicinity… while unintentionally opening her senses up to detect the chakra that still haunted her nightmares to this day.
"Orochimaru," Jiraiya grunted, before she could even open her mouth to warn her friends. "Seems you were right, Hitomi-chan."
She turned white and tore herself away from her perceptions. The mere sensation of that man's residual chakra proved too much—that insatiable longing for carnage and blood was impregnating the atmosphere and sullying her body and mind. "H-he's probably here for Tsunade-sama. We can't let them…"
"No, we can't. Let's go."
Silent, the five shinobi fell into arrow formation. Hitomi and Naruto —the two weakest members of the group— at the center, Jiraiya upfront, and the two deserters on their lower flanks.
Within Hitomi, the Whisper screamed its rage and bloodthirst, demanding destruction, but another more reasonable and unquestionably terrified voice begged her to turn back and flee as far away as she could before she was hurt again. She ignored them both, draping an icy cloak of determination she had prepared in anticipation of such an encounter around herself.
To her absolute horror, the infamous Tanzaku Castle was no more. All that remained was a pile of rubble, and a scurry of civilians fleeing the mess. Most had probably perished, crushed by the falling debris, but she couldn't mourn them, not now. Right now, she needed every ounce of her time and energy poured into the battle before her to strip away even the slightest chance of survival from the monsters that did this—the very monsters that destiny put on her path.
Hitomi could see now, behind the frantic trample of bodies, the stand-off between two legendary Sannin and their apprentices. Orochimaru and Kabuto stood over their counterparts like a threatening shadow, their expressions making it blatantly clear that the Senju Princess had refused their bargain. She hadn't been so strong in the canon; she had accepted their offer and only backed off at the last moment.
Jiraiya was first on scene, followed closely by Hitomi and Naruto, then Zabuza and Haku. Without losing any time, Hitomi unsheathed her tantō and stepped in front of the two medics—not something she would have usually done considering the sheer strength of everyone in this fight, but she couldn't risk Tsunade seeing even a single drop of blood, lest she get petrified by her hemophobia.
"It's been some time, Jiraiya," Orochimaru said, his chilling voice triggering a sharp flash of pain across Hitomi's scarred cheek, along with an icy dread that crept along her back. "Shouldn't you be retired? You're starting to show your age."
Jiraiya snorted. "Still looking as ugly and evil as ever, aren't you?"
The Hermit turned his body and lowered into a battle stance then, allowing Hitomi to properly see Orochimaru for the first time since their last encounter; what she saw sickened her to the very core and made her stomach lurch in its place. No one had been able to accurately describe his injuries to her, claiming only that his hands were in horrific shape.
They were understating things.
What remained of Orochimaru's hands was nothing more than a mess of crushed, dead flesh, barely held together by what she presumed was Kabuto's medical chakra. The rot seemed to creep all the way up to the middle of his forearms, which meant that while he still retained mobility of his arms, weaving hand seals was simply no longer a possibility with those miserable excuses for fingers. That said, Hitomi made a mental note not to get cocky.
Orochimaru was plenty deadly even without access to his jutsus.
"Fighting won't change my decision, Orochimaru-kun!" Tsunade said, still squarely behind Hitomi. "I'm not repairing your hands. Go find yourself another medic."
"Oh, but, darling, I didn't ask for your opinion on the matter. You'll heal me, whether you want to or not. I have the means to make you obey."
"You'll have to reach her for that," Hitomi hissed.
The Sannin turned to her then, his curious expression tainted with disdain. "You again? Aren't you a pain, my little fairy? Maybe this time, I'll properly take you out—that way, you can't mess with my plans anymore, right?"
"You won't touch her!" Naruto's voice exploded beside her.
Oh, Naruto… If that man wanted her dead, nothing short of a miracle would prevent that from happening. Her heart thundered in her chest. She didn't want to die, she had so many feats to accomplish yet, so many plots to undermine and so many truths to restore.
Hitomi didn't want to die today.
Her chakra acted upon her will, wrapping her blade in its water coat. Now, everything the weapon touched would be torn to shreds. Beside her, Zabuza grunted in approval.
"Don't forget about me, Orochimaru. You know I can take you."
"Tch. I've always kicked your ass, Jiraiya. You don't stand a chance."
"We'll see about that."
A terrible rush of chakra tore through the air and a huge toad appeared from nothingness, ready to fight. Even though she hadn't ever seen him, Hitomi recognised Gama Bunta, the king of that contract. Oh, how she wished she could call Aotsuki, leader of the ninja cats, to her aid, but she didn't want to risk breaking her own contract. Naruto's face lit up with something akin to relief when he saw the toad. After all, the summons and her brother knew each other, even if, in this universe, Naruto hadn't needed to call him to battle.
That time would come though. She was certain of it.
The two Sannin launched themselves onto the heads of their respective summons with an impossible jump, clashing swords high above the ground. Kabuto, on the other hand, leapt forward towards the rest of the group, a cruel smile across his lips. Haku was sent off to aid Jiraiya with a silent order from Zabuza—he was, after all, the only one amongst the children capable enough to provide support, especially with how adept he had gotten with his Ice Release ever since their first encounter in the Land of Waves.
"Be careful," Hitomi said, voice full of tension. "That one is a medic who uses his techniques in battle. If he manages to touch you with his hands, you're out of commission."
"How do you know that?" Naruto asked.
"I got my hands on Shikaku-ojisan's files. His office is always empty now that he's Hokage so I took advantage. I wanted to see what this bastard had in store for us."
When Kabuto got within earshot of them, the two children went quiet and put themselves in opening stances. Naruto positioned himself up front to leverage the massive range of his giant sword while Hitomi lingered back, her tantō proving disadvantageous in the current battle state. Even with this formation and Zabuza on their side, however, they were still in for a world of trouble—Kabuto's prowess rivaled that of Kakashi's, and that was without taking his immense regeneration into account.
"Hitomi, Naruto, funny seeing you again!" The disturbingly cheerful medic turned his focus solely on Hitomi, his dark eyes gleaming with something akin to bloodlust. "I heard you were the little slut who killed Tayuya. Do you have any idea how much time I had to spend turning her into the perfect version of herself? I'll have your head for wasting my efforts like that."
"You won't touch her," Naruto snarled, repeating himself. He was furious, but unfortunately not nearly enough to call on the Kyūbi. Volatile as it was, Hitomi wouldn't be at all opposed to its presence right now; having the Demon Fox himself on their side would very much tip the overwhelming odds they were facing. She had to have the boy communicate with his demon… perhaps by putting him in the path of Killer Bee or Nii Yugito's vicinity sometime soon, seeing as the two jinchūriki from the Land of Lightning were renowned for their harmony with the demon inside them.
Well, all that fell under the assumption that she survived this fight.
With a surge of chakra and a few hand seals, she sent her new offensive technique, the Calling to the Pack, towards Kabuto. The five water wolves shot from her fingers like bullets, their graceful arc placing them right where she wanted them to be… only to be destroyed by the medic's earth pillars. The Whisper stirred in her mind, eager to hurl itself into the fight. This time, she didn't resist its pleas, taking advantage of Naruto's movements to open herself to it.
Shizune let out a little gasp, much to Hitomi's puzzlement. Was having her meridians visible under her skin really that surprising in a world like theirs?
"Can I trust you to take care of things here?" she asked her brother. "Zabuza-san, the toad and snake have stopped moving. We should wrap things up quickly."
"Don't worry, Hitomi-chan, I got this, bel—"
Her momentary relief turned into horror as she watched Kabuto, moving too quickly for anyone to react in time, hurl himself at her brother, slamming his palm into the boy's chest. Naruto let out a weak gurgle and stumbled as blood spilled out from his mouth. She could feel Tsunade's chakra surge in little terrified spikes as she froze.
Hemophobia.
"Naruto!" A spark of chakra and she was in front of him, the Shunshin twisting the air around her. She took advantage of Kabuto's surprise and stabbed him in the chest, pushing him back for the moment being. This would be as good an opportunity as any to call upon her cats, but she was still hesitant—sending them against such opponents would spell their demise, something she simply could not let happen. With a feral hiss, she thrusted her finger in the wound she had just inflicted and started siphoning chakra, the Whisper singing in her ears.
Kabuto broke her grip then, pushing her hard enough to make her trip against Naruto's body. He staggered away, already healing his wound. "So, the rumours about a new Kekkei Genkai in Konoha are true… I should have known you were behind it all, little fairy. Bah, I'll still kill you slowly before your friends' eyes and that power of yours won't change that!"
Hitomi forced herself not to react, gaze transfixed on Naruto. She cradled him in her arms as delicately as she could and tried to ignore the gurgles in his breathing and the wheezing from his lungs slowly filling with liquid. She hurried him back to Tsunade and Shizune, refusing to meet the Sannin's eyes. "I-I know you're afraid, alright? But please, I'm begging you, heal my brother. He can't die. He'll become Hokage one day and turn Konoha into a paradise you can't even imagine. He must live."
There was a gleam in Tsunade's eyes that only Shizune caught on. Careful and delicate as ever, the apprentice took Naruto's inert body and laid him at her mentor's feet. "Leave Naruto to us, Hitomi; we'll make sure this boy survives. You just focus on the—Look out!"
A clash of steel against steel behind Hitomi's back made her whirl around, breath catching in her throat. Zabuza had just blocked a blow from Kabuto that would have ended her. That was sloppy of her, not expecting the medic to have healed up this quickly. Huffing, she homed in on the chakra she'd stolen from him and rejoined the fray.
The duo rained a barrage of blows onto Kabuto—a crack of the water whip she had just conjured against his cheek, a slice of her sword into the side of his arm, a kick from Zabuza to shatter his knees, but none of the damage stuck. The medic was recovering quicker than they could injure him, and seemed foreign to the concept of pain, almost akin to the particularly vicious and clever zombie.
Hitomi could see rivers of fire clashing against seas of mud. The two other Sannin were going all out in their duel, leveraging strengths that so far exceeded her own it made her feel like laughing or crying in dismay. Unfortunately, however, she could do neither with her persistently undying opponent before her.
She managed to have one of her acid bombs explode right into Kabuto's face, but he immediately purged the liquid from his skin, sending the tiny metallic fragments raining down his feet. Zabuza, on the other hand, was becoming more and more frustrated about the fact that he couldn't wound Kabuto seriously enough to be able to cut him in half. Kakashi had said that medics were some of the most adept at dodging, and it seemed this one was no exception.
Something spurred her attention towards the fighting Sannins, and what she saw when she glanced forced a choking noise through her lips—Jiraiya had been run through by Orochimaru's sword.
No. He couldn't die. He had to… He had so many things to teach Naruto, so many life lessons far beyond her reach. He was the key to her brother's future sanity, to everything that was good and pure in him.
He had to live, so he could be the light to her shadow.
Hitomi didn't even stop to think about the consequences then. A shunshin sent her on the toad's head, stopping Orochimaru from finishing off his former teammate. The combined killing intent of the two Sannin nearly choked her out completely, but, for the first time, she managed to fend the sensation off with the help of her chakra, burning high and clear to allow her to keep her wits about her. She shot her shadow out towards Orochimaru's, trapping it and rooting the man on the spot.
She tensed immediately; muscles torn by a terrible burn. It was a thousand times worse than when Kakashi struggled against her bindings, but she had progressed so much since then, and the Whisper in her mind refused to back down. She laid a gentle hand against the spot where Kusanagi, Orochimaru's sword, was embedded in Jiraiya's chest, and started draining chakra from him, as slow and delicate as she could. She needed it more than he did.
From her periphery, she noticed a little, suddenly so little silhouette collapsing a few metres behind the snake. For a moment, she refused to acknowledge the conclusion that her mind had already formed, entirely focused on siphoning Orochimaru's chakra. The thought, however, preserved long enough that she could ignore it no further.
Haku. She couldn't let fright cripple her, not right now, but how could she not? She couldn't keep her thoughts off Haku's inert body—he couldn't die, not after surviving the Land of Waves, not after finally reaching true happiness… But there was a battle to be fought, willpower and raw chakra clashing against the Sannin's. She had to focus. Deadly pale skin, blood trickling from parted lips. Focus.
"Zabuza!" Her scream tore through the air, desperate and terrifying, filled with fear and rage.
The deserter appeared by her side, an explosion of fury and determination. His eyes stopped on his apprentice for a moment, then on Jiraiya, so weak behind her, and finally on Hitomi herself. Her pale, creased features, the sweat on her brow, her clenched teeth, coupled with the shadow connecting her to the traitor, told him all he needed to know about the situation. He knew that, trapped in this technique, Orochimaru couldn't move, just as he knew the terrible strain that maintaining the technique was putting on Hitomi's body.
There was no hesitation when he raised his sword—the blade that had claimed so many lives, but never one so glorious and terrible.
Orochimaru's head flew through the air and fell at the feet of the toad they were all standing on, just as the snake summoned by the renegade disappeared in a huge puff of smoke. Hitomi had let go of the body just before it was hit and collapsed on her knees, out of breath and feeling a burning acidic taste of bile in her throat.
She glanced at the corpse before her then… and flinched when it began to move once more. All the times he had defied death in the canon slammed back into her mind with the delicacy of a fist to the chest. With a feral hiss, she threw herself at the body and thrust her whole hand where head and neck once connected. A brutal surge of willpower awoke the Whisper, allowing her to devour every ounce of chakra within the corpse, down to the very last drop.
Her body convulsed with ecstasy and agony alike, and for one perfect moment, her mind went absolutely blank. She arched painfully and went back to her senses, welcomed by the vile, bottomless pain from emptying Orochimaru's entire chakra reserve. She doubled over screaming and poured all the stolen energy back into his bloodstream.
The moment Orochimaru's blood started boiling, she knew the man was no more.
For almost a whole minute, Hitomi couldn't move at all. Zabuza had already turned to Jiraiya, but decided it was wiser not to touch the blade still buried deep inside his chest. Eventually, she found it within herself to stand, despite all her joints aching and protesting the effort. She clenched her teeth, jumping from the toad that disappeared once everyone left its head and stumbled to Haku's still form on the ground. She burst into relieved tears when she realised he was just out cold, with a huge bump at the back of his head and one of his arms twisted to an unnatural angle from the rest of his body. Nothing too serious. He was alive, at least.
Hitomi knelt next to him, mobilising her chakra for a Shunshin—
And suddenly she was pinned down, Kabuto over her.
She cried out in pain, her nerves raw from her last summoning of the Whisper. She saw the feverish gleam in her assailant's dark eyes as she struggled helplessly under him, as if his mentor's death had pushed him over the edge. It happened that way, in the canon. She was forced onto her feet then, hefted up against the medic's back by a hand around her throat.
That pulled all the attention on the battlefield onto herself. Naruto, miraculously pulling himself upright despite his severe injuries. Tsunade, pale but resolutely mending the wound of her former teammate after patching her brother up. She had overcome her fear of blood—that alone made Hitomi want to prostrate herself at her feet to thank her for saving her friends. The only one that acted was Shizune, rushing towards them… freezing only when a kunai grazed the Yūhi girl's throat. The blade was pressing hard enough to prick her skin, drawing warm blood from beneath her pale skin.
She didn't fight back. She couldn't.
"Well, well, little fairy," Kabuto crooned, licking the blood on her skin. The sensation made her so sick and aware of his body against hers that she wanted to throw up; maybe it would disgust her captor enough to allow her to break free, lest he hurt her in the way they both knew he wanted to. "Looks like I won't be able to take my time to end you after all. Don't worry, though; it will still hurt. Let's keep your little friends busy, now, shall we?"
She didn't answer, swallowing her fear so she could smile at Naruto. She wanted to tell him that everything would be okay, that it wasn't anything serious. She always tried to be honest with him, but that lie was acceptable. She was exhausted, unable to fight back.
A little hiccough escaped her parted lips when Kabuto's kunai sunk deep under her right breast, between two ribs.
The medic let go of her and she collapsed, her shaking hand trying to compress around the blade to stop the blood already pouring out of her. It was the first thing she had learned in first aid class, at the Academy—applying pressure to stop the bleeding, above all else. With all the willpower she had left, she managed to focus medical chakra in her hand, despite her meridians screaming in pain. The mint green energy crackled around her fingers for half a second then dissipated.
Shizune was there. And Naruto too. She blinked once, twice, and her eyes rolled back, only to be brought back to this world by a sharp pain as Tsunade's apprentice slowly extracted the blade. It wasn't any use, she wanted to tell her, but she couldn't breathe anymore, let alone speak. She had accepted the idea of dying during this mission, it was okay, everything was fine and well.
She didn't hurt anymore. She wanted to extend her hand and touch Naruto's damp cheek; to part her lips and tell him not to cry, to focus on Jiraiya, who needed him more, to look after his own convalescence since he had probably barely been patched up. Neither her fingers nor face answered her commands.
The spasms and tremors stopped.
Was it a good sign? She blinked again, weaker this time; opening her eyelids was the hardest thing she'd ever done. So, when she closed her eyes the next time, she stopped fighting to open them, and let herself sink into a bottomless sea.