Chapter 16: Fear

Itachi looked around the darkness at the distant forms of shadowy trees, a black sky, shining stars, and a distinct feeling that something was off. He didn't normally have dreams, not these types of dreams at least. He was fighting, something he couldn't see, nor hear, only feel when it was attacking and he was losing. Loosing horribly. And every time he used Sharingan to try to detect his enemy, he only found himself staring at a pair Sharingan eyes, as if he was looking at a mirror of himself.

Itachi slid backwards, feeling a large impact on his chest from out of the darkness, then another sharp pain on his back that made him stumble. 'What is this...' This felt a little too real to be a dream, this couldn't be a dream...could it? The thought was pushing into Itachi's mind, making itself more and more believable with every blow that fell on him.

Itachi grunted and lifted his arm to wipe away a stream of blood running down his cheek, 'I can't even sense it...What's going on.'

"Itachi!"

Everything else was uncertain, but Itachi was sure he'd heard that, that was Kisame's voice. "Kisame?"

! - ! - !

Kisame charged forward, his Samahada down to his side dragging along the ground and leaving a small trail behind in the grass. He pulled it back slightly, then swung it upward with both arms just as he came upon Itachi's body, striking the strange creature mounted on top of the Uchiha in the chest and knocking it away with a powerful uppercut, enough to draw blood.

Only while it was flying off of the other boy could he get a good look at it. "W-what the hell is that thing..." The first thing he noticed were those eyes, this creature was covered in Sharingan eyes, and was it doing to Itachi? Kisame knelt down next to Itachi who seemed to be waking up, "Itachi, are you alright?"

Itachi rubbed his head, feeling disoriented and dizzy, and probably the most disturbing fact was he still felt the sting from all of the blows he'd taken before, and the fact that he was bleeding in the same places. But...that was a dream? "I'm fine." Itachi said, glancing over toward the creature Kisame freed him from, 'What...it can't be...' Itachi drew back apprehensively at the sight, it bore the image of his father, only monstrously mutated with an abundance of Sharingan eyes.

'That's why I kept seeing those eyes.' Itachi climbed to his feet, looking toward the demon in cautious manner with out knowing what to expect. "Kisame, what happened to me?"

"I don't know." Kisame shrugged "One minute you were with me, then the next thing I know you were gone. When I found you again, that was on top of you."

The Sharingan Demon got up, the eyes covering it's shifted around over their surroundings, then turned towards Itachi all at once. The Uchiha immediately knew what was happening, "Kisame! Close your eyes!" He called out.

Kisame complied, feeling a little uneasy being without sight around a demon and with no choice but to trust Itachi. His grip on his sword tightened considerably.

'Why dose it have those eyes...I have to find out.' Itachi's pupils shifted from the piercing black to the crimson of his active blood line. His eyes locked with the demon's and he activated the inane Genjutsu, attempting to pry into the creature's mind.

It uttered one word in his father's deep commanding voice, "Uchiha."

Itachi suddenly felt overcome, "It's...strong.." he said, feeling as if his mind was being crushed. It's Sharingan was more advanced, more powerful then his own, and every second he was being sucked farther and farther into it.

"Itachi, are you alright?" Kisame asked worriedly. "What's going on out there?"

Itachi was about to respond but the only thing that came out was a strained groan, his mind finally lost strength and was overtaken by the demon. And the second it happened he found himself barded with a familiar image in an unfamiliar way. "!" Now when the demon said Uchiha, it finally made sense, a connection Itachi wasn't happy to make. Itachi's body was knocked back as if from some invisible force, landing hard a few feet away. "Ughaaaa!"

'What's going on out there...' Kisame couldn't wait any longer, so he pulled his forehead protector down over his eyes and lifted his sword, running in the direction he saw the demon last. 'Come on, let this be right...' Kisame drew his sword back and swung blindly, immediately letting out a breath of relief when he felt the resistance of flesh against the edge of his blade. He pushed harder, feeling what ever he'd just it being thrown from his path. 'Did I get it?' Kisame lifted the headband from over his eyes, a risk he had to take.

"Huh?" Kisame looked around..."It's gone...What?" There was no trace of it, none but Itachi laying on the ground behind him. "Itachi, are you alright?"

Itachi lifted his hand to his head, forcing himself to sit-up. "It was...too strong for me..."

"What was that thing?" Kisame took hold of Itachi's arm and pulled him on to his feet.

"I'm not sure." Itachi did manage to get one piece of information from that attack, since he was mentally forced to relive the day he killed every one of his family members, only in the role of the person being killed, the role of each Uchiha he'd slain order. He was able to come to a definite conclusion "But it's after Uchiha family members."

! - ! - !

Konohamaru rolled over in his sleep, half expecting to find Sasuke there, though the part of him that was conscious was disappointed that he wasn't. '...probably out training.' He thought to himself. Konohamaru didn't usually get up early, his mind usually wasn't coherent enough to get out a thought at this hour. But he'd gotten a lot of sleep the previous day after expending large amounts of Chakra to help out Naruto. 'I wonder if it worked...'

Konohamaru opened his eyes, finding himself in his room instead of Neji's and figuring Sasuke must have carried him down here. And he was in nothing but a pair of boxers so he must have woken up sometime in the middle of the night and he couldn't he remember it. It was pretty hot, much hotter then it usually got down here... Konohamaru rolled out of bed, looking in the comfortably dim lights of the still burning flames from his shrine.

"!"

Konohamaru jumped, his mind racing as he immediately grabbed a Kunai resting on his nightstand, turning back and letting the weapon fly. Though it was easily intercepted by Kisame who caught it with two fingers only inches away from his chest. "Nice going kid, almost got me there. Next time aim for the head."

"Boss?" Konohamaru looked up at Kisame, his lips immediately curving into a smile. "Sorry, you sacred me. How'd you get down here?" Konohamaru was well aware that Kisame was a wanted criminal and if anyone saw him he wouldn't have made it this far...then he remembered Kisame was a ninja. "Oh yeah, nevermind...where's Itachi?"

Kisame folded his arms and looked up toward the ceiling "Something attacked him, a demon. Heh, where's SDI when you need them."

"A demon really? What did it look like?"

Kisame thought about the mundaness of going in to detail, then he remembered that Konohamaru was apart of an association that hunted Demons. "It looked human, but it was covered in eyes, similar to the ones the Uchiha family has. Seen something like it?"

"Yeah!" That sounded familiar to Konohamaru, how could he forget the thing that attack Sasuke? "I saw something like that yesterday morning, when I woke up it was on top of Sasuke. It was doing...something to him, what's that weird eye thing called?"

"Sharingan." Kisame looked down at him, this may defiantly have been the same demon 'It was on top of Itachi too...' Either there was more then one or this was too closely related to be a coincidence. "Did Sasuke say anything about it looking like anyone he knew?"

Konohamaru nodded "Yeah, his said something about his father."

No, this was the same demon, no doubt about it. "Look's like a demon's after your friend Sasuke then."

"Really? That demon?" Konohamaru thought about it for a moment "Sasuke can handle it."

"Yeah right, that thing took down Itachi in a few seconds." Kisame warned "If you want him to stay alive, you should make sure he doesn't fight it alone."

"Itachi..." Konohamaru may have completely idolized Sasuke, but he knew his brother was stronger. And if it beat Itachi, then Sasuke didn't stand a chance. "Is he alright?"

"Don't worry about him." Kisame told him, "But that's not what I came here for."

Konohamaru started looking around for his clothes again, finding them neatly laid out nearby. "What is it Boss?"

"Pick an Element."

Konohamaru sat down as he pulled on his pants, glancing up at him confusedly "Huh?"

"The weapon you wanted, pick a element. Fire, ice, lighting, water, wind, earth, metal." Kisame sat down on Konohamaru's bed, leaning back on to the wall it was set against lazily.

Konohamaru slid the black shirt over his head, feeling a certain longing for his regular one baring the Leaf insignia, then reached for his scarf and wrapped it around his neck. "Uh...fire sounds really cool...no...lighting sounds better...I like water though...maybe earth, that sounds strong...what do I get if I pick earth?"

"A very blunt object."

"...Wind...what do I get if I chose that? That sounds cool."

Kisame closed his eyes, this could take a while. "A very light crossbow."

Konohamaru thought about it. "What about lighting?"

"Just pick one damnit."

Konohamaru didn't ask again, he silently contemplated to himself instead. "Then I chose...Metal."

"Finally." Kisame reached into the dark cloak he wore and retrieved a set of Kunais made of a strange metal, only they were blue except for the edges of the blades, which were completely clear. What seemed to be the most defining thing about them were the designs carved into the center. "Here."

Konohamaru caught each one as Kisame threw it to him, looking over the weapons as if they were the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. "Whoa."

"Don't get wide eyed on me yet, since it's metal it works with Chakra, so your going to learn how to use yours if you want to use that." Kisame pushed off the bed and knelt down next to Konohamaru, "You see these." He pointed to two small holes at the bottom of the handle. "I designed it so that putting your Chakra in to the handle creates a wire, the more you put in, the longer and stronger the wire gets."

Kisame took the weapons back after Konohamaru got a good look at them, "Watch." For him it was simple, pushing his chakra into the handles in small amounts. Then he pressed the two small holes together and pull them apart again, this time a blue wire lay in-between them, connecting them together. "Simple. The same applies to the top, you push Chakra into the blade and..." The clear edges of the blades changed to blue, the color of Kisame's Chakra. "The more you put in, the worse it's going to hurt when you hit someone. Wanna try that out too?"

Konohamaru shook his head frantically. "No, that's ok!"

Kisame gave Konohamaru the weapons back, having no point in keeping them if Konohamaru didn't want another...demonstration. Usually Kisame's demonstration's or training for that mater meant working out some frustrations until he deemed Konohamaru had enough. "I made them simple enough that even you can use it."

"Hey!" Konohamaru gave him the meanest look he could mange but gave up when he realized Kisame was laughing at him. He didn't care, he was much too involved with his new weapons. And these apparently weren't for throwing 'Wait, these are Kunai's, they're meant to be thrown. But why would he give me something I'm only going to use once?...Unless...'

Konohamaru pressed the handles together, pushing his Chakra into the Kunai's then drawing them apart. It'd worked just like Kisame showed him, he could see a yellow wire between them, the more of his energy he pushed in, the longer the wire became. With that idea in mind he held one Kunai in his hand and the other by the wire, then he drew his arm back and threw it forward. Pushing more Chakra in as he watched it fly to the other end of the room and crash into the wall, the wire still intact. And since he'd put so much in, it was completely visible. "Whoa, that is so cool."

"That's not all kid, you see those markings?" Kisame pointed to the markings on the blade that Konohamaru still held. "Move your Chakra from the wire and in to that."

Konohamaru listened, drawing his chakra from the wire and into the markings on his one remaining blade. The engravings carved into the black metal became yellow, then the other Kunai he'd just thrown came reeling back towards him with a rapidly shortening wire. It was so unexpected that Konohamaru flinched, luckily Kisame had been there to catch it before it ran into Konohamaru's face. "Thanks."

"Just pay attention next time. And one last thing, the Chakra you put into that wire stays that way. So until you do what I just show you and take all of the Chakra from it, then that rope stays the same length. If you use it right, it'll be helpful, but you probably wont figure it out anyway."

Konohamaru was about to say something back to Kisame for insulting his intellect, but he found himself unable too. A strong rush of pressure washed over his head, as if he was getting a very bad headache. "Ahaaa!" He fell to his knees, clinching his head tightly. The pain was so intense, and it burned severely. The next thing he knew, images bombarded his mind, familiar images, of a forest, he was seeing a forest...The same forest he'd seen in his dream, and he felt just like this that time too. In a forest, blood, a body... "Ahhaaaa!"

'Die..Reedamaru...'

They were flashes, too quick to decipher with normal thought. "Stop it! I'm not Reedamaru!"

"Konohamaru!" Kisame ran over to him, his eyes coming upon something oddly strange "Wait a minute..." There was a black Chakra surrounding Konohamaru, one that seemed to be pushing down on him as if trying to get inside of him. The same black Chakra Itachi had described when they rescued Konohamaru from a basement that didn't exist. 'That's what he was talking about when he said a demon was after him, what the hell is it doing! And...Reedamaru? It doesn't want him, it wants his father!'

Kisame pulled his Samahada from his back and swung it directly at Konohamaru, the blade just barely skimped over the boy's neck enough to qualify as a touch, but it hit the black Chakra directly and the darkness seemed to lift from the boy at the contact of the Chakra eating weapon... Konohamaru fell backwards to the ground with eyes wide, both he and Kisame watching silently as a black haze rose like smoke and dispelled when it hit the ceiling.

"Ok, what the hell was that?" Kisame stood, still watching the spot where the black haze had disappeared for any signs of it.

"That's it." Konohamaru scrabbled off of the ground and latched on to Kisame's leg fearfully "That's the thing that's after me!"

Kisame thrust the sword into ground and kicked Konohamaru off of him "First thing, get the hell off me and stop being so scared. I told you you'd have to fight against it soon or later. Why do you think I made those for?"

Konohamaru tumbled backwards, landing in a sitting position on the ground. "Yeah...I guess your right."

Kisame picked up his sword and returned it to his back, "I heard you guys have a database on demons, you have resources, don't waste them." He said, turning to leave.

"Wait! Your just going to leave me here?"

"Don't worry, I'll be back, I need to find Itachi. So stop being so afraid, your suppose to be trying to become a Ninja. And your boyfriend's here anyway." Kisame called back, right before his body disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Just as Kisame had said, Sasuke descended down the stairway from above without ever being aware of Kisame's presence, though he saw the smoke. "Practicing a new Jutsu?" He inquired, knowing Konohamaru often tried to create his own technique though he unusually failed.

"Sasuke, it happened again." Konohamaru spoke more calmly then he himself had expected too, though his voice still came out slightly panicked, and he was panicked. "That thing attacked me."

"Are you alright?" Sasuke looked over him with evident concern, checking for any injury. "What happened?"

"I don't know, it just came out of nowhere. It's gone now..."

"Where did you get those?"

Konohamaru looked down at the Kunai's in his hand, he was sure if he said the word Kisame then things would turn out badly, and he was horrible at lying to Sasuke..."I...got them from a friend...a while ago." A half lie, that wasn't so bad. "And...it called me Reedamaru again, it told me to die. It was doing something to me, it hurt.."

'...What's doing this to him...demon.' "Come on, let's see if we can find out what's going on."

! - ! - !

Sasuke emerged from the basement, looking around cautiously, followed by Konohamaru who was walking closely behind with his Kunais in hand. "Do you have any idea what that thing is?" Sasuke asked "Or who Reedamaru is?"

"Not sure, demon I think...and I don't know who Reedamaru is." Well, Konohamaru didn't completely know who Reedamaru was, not enough to help anyway. Or at least that's what Konohamaru--... Konohamaru froze, feeling a cold breath run over his neck, one that shouldn't have been there. "Sa-Sasuke..." Konohamaru called out, slowly turning around only to come face to face with one of nine-tail's offspring. "Ahaaaa!"

Sasuke immediately turned around "Konohamaru! What's wrong?" Sasuke couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it at all, he hadn't even sensed it.

Konohamaru stumbled backwards, holding the kunais in his defense. The demon fox lunged at him with it's mouth wide, just barely Konohamaru held the kunais out and blocked it's mouth, trying to push back while the demon's jaws bit down on the metal so hard that it should have broken through regular ones. "Where did this thing come from?" Konohamaru panicked, and just as before his Chakra exploded, most of if traveling around him but a good amount of it entered his Kunai. It forced the demon pup to let go and pull back, then it's body flew to the side and down the stairs thanks to a swift kick from Sasuke.

Sasuke ran down after it... only to find that it was gone. "What?"

"Sasuke..."

Sasuke felt a small wetness at his heels, causing him to glanced down just enough to see that he was standing in a pool of blood, blood that was streaming down the stairs in small rivers. 'What...? Konohamaru!' Sasuke's eyes widened as he turned to head back, and just as he reached the top, the door slammed shut in his face hard enough to make him stumble backwards a step or two. Sasuke turned the knob with no avail, then he rammed the door with his shoulder. "The hell, it's blocked!"

"Sasuke!" Konohamaru ran to the door and pounded his fist against it, no matter how he tried nothing would open it.

"Reedamaru."

Konohamaru saw it, a shadowy figured from the corner of his eye, he flinched and turned around, his back falling against the door from lost balance. 'It's gone!' Konohamaru looked around frantically, watching helplessly as every door in the hall slammed shut, he was trapped. "Sasuke!" He called out, watching in horror as blood seeped through the walls, forcing Konohamaru to jump back away from the concrete barrier.

Sasuke yelled in frustration at his helplessness being trapped on this side. "Sharingan." His black eyes changed to the red of his blood line and the level 2 Sharingan, but all he could see was black, this black Chakra that surrounded the doors and walls. "Konohamaru! You have to fight this, just don't panic." He called out, taking a step back away from the blood running under the door.

'He's right.' Konohamaru told himself, though his heart was willing to fight, his mind was shaken. But he forced himself, mainly from fear. Chakra flowed around him, most of into the metal kunais. Notably he felt as if he was being pulled on, like his chakra was being drawn from him, he barely noticed through. "Leave me alone!" Konohamaru pressed the handles together and created the Chakra rope...

"Reedamaru..."

Konohamaru turned back, throwing one of Kunais before he even caught a glimpse of what he was attacking. The blade flew through a cloud of black smoke and into the bleeding wall behind him, Konohamaru moved the Chakra in the wire to the engravings on the blade and pulled the thrown knife back to him.

"Die, Reedamaru."

Konohamaru cried out in pain from the burning that scorched his head, his eyes grew wide as he watched the black chakra surrounding him, surrounding his Chakra. His body tensed and he fell to his knees as he felt blood dripping down from the ceiling, before he could even notice it his mind was bombarded with images.

That forest that same forest he kept seeing before, he realized he knew that place, it used to be the forest surrounding Konoha. It was a familiar place, familiar enough to know that this place he was seeing was on the ground this building was built on. And blood was everywhere, streaming down the trunks of surrounding trees, dripping from the leaves, exactly like what was happening here. He heard a scream, someone, a woman pleading for someone to stop, though Konohamaru could barely make it out he heard a name...Reedamaru... right before Konohamaru saw the man killing the same woman in a brutal manner, spilling more blood..."Stop it! I'm not him!"

'How can this Chakra be so strong...' Sasuke drew his arm back, pooling chakra into his palm, followed by streaks of lighting that sparked in his hand "Chidori!" The energy intensified in one large burst, becoming a blinding light that shined through every shadow. Sasuke was so intent on building his energy that he didn't even notice the curse seal creeping down his arm. "Konohamaru!" Sasuke thrust his hand onto the blocked door, blowing it apart in a cloud a smoke and discharging lighting.

And it stopped, it all stopped, the blood, the pain, the visions, all it ceased as if never having been real. Being aware of that, Sasuke ran over to the fallen Konohamaru. "Are you alright?"

Konohamaru nodded, his Chakra slowly reducing at the sight of Sasuke. "I saw something, it was Reedamaru--"

"Konohamaru, slow down." Sasuke wrapped his arms around the boy's waist and lifted him on to his feet. Taking notice of his heavy panting and racing heart, he even felt sweat starting to form. "It's alright now, take it easy...What did you say?"

Konohamaru stopped for a moment to catch his breath and try to calm himself. "I saw Reedamaru, he killed a woman, and a lot of other people too. There was blood, it was everywhere..."

Sasuke watched Konohamaru carefully, noticing that he was shaking slightly, and it was becoming harder by the second. He sighed as he looked Konohamaru in the eye "You have to stay strong, we can beat this thing." He said, placing a hand on Konohamaru's shoulder "We're demon hunters remember, we can do this."

""Yeah your right." Konohamaru clinched the weapons in his fist tightly to steady his hands and he stared into the red eyes. Seeing that Sharingan always made him feel a little at ease since the only people who had it were Itachi and Sasuke. "We were going up to the library right? Let's go then."

Sasuke smirked as he climbed up to his feet. "Alright then."

! - ! - !

"So I see." Neji looked over Sasuke and Konohamaru, easily finding evidence of their clams from the blood that covered them. "You say it's just Chakra right, but it's doing all of this, moving around on it's own, appearing and reappearing."

"Uh-huh." Konohamaru nodded. "And it's after me, it keeps calling me Reedamaru."

Neji sat down at his desk, glancing down at the books surrounding his study. He didn't have to research this matter at all, knowing as much as he did about demons he easily could tell them what was happening. "What keeps attacking you isn't a demon Konohamaru, not entirely at lest. And you say it keeps showing you things, visions of people being killed by this Reedamaru that it keeps calling you?"

"Yeah."

"This chakra your seeing is a form of people killed by this Reedamaru person, apparently they all were very angry and hateful towards Reedamaru for murdering them. This doesn't often happen but that hate and anger was strong enough to leave behind something of them, pooled chakra, and create the demon you keep seeing. And because of the hate and anger that created it, it's out for Reedamaru. But what doesn't make sense is why it's coming after you instead of Reedamaru."

"I don't know either, but...uh...Reedamaru's probably dead." Konohamaru rubbed the back of his head nervously, hoping that they would believe him and not ask questions about it.

"That's a possibility, and it would explain what's going on." Neji said "But for it to come after you, then you would have to be related to Reedamaru, something close like a brother or a son." Neji stopped, looking back at Konohamaru. "Reedamaru must be related to you, he has to be."

"Are you sure?" Konohamaru asked, he couldn't imagine a person like Reedamaru being his relative, and not knowing about it.

"I'm sure of it, there's no other reason this demon would be after you."

'Really...But how? Wait who was he then?' Konohamaru would have to ask Itachi and Kisame, they would have to know something about him since...wait, something was missing...Konohamaru looked down at himself. "Hey, my scarf's gone!" Konohamaru looked around, he couldn't have dropped it up here, he hadn't even felt it since they came from downstairs "Oh man, it's gotta be downstairs." Konohamaru sighed, though adamant about going back their was no way he'd leave his favorite possession in the whole world behind. So he wasted no time turning around and running back.

"Konohamaru?" Sasuke hadn't expected him to be so quick about it, he hadn't expected him to even go back. "Konohamaru wait." Sasuke unhesitantly left Neji behind and ran through the rows of books toward the door at the end of the room and after Konohamaru. And just as his body got past the frame, the heavy doors softly closed and locked behind him. "!" Sasuke stopped and looked back. "No.." intuition prompted him to check it, he knew that couldn't be a coincidence. He tried to push the door open again, and it wouldn't move inch. "Konohamaru stop!"

Konohamaru was abruptly brought to a halt when the door leading to the main hallway and his scarf slammed just in his face, knocking him back on to the ground. "Awww..." He rubbed his forehead, finding himself flat on his back with what he was sure was going to form a bruise. "Hey, what--" Konohamaru was stopped mid-sentence by the feel of sudden wetness against him. He didn't even have time to look back before water rose from the ground above over his head. "!"

He couldn't believe it, this water was coming from out of nowhere and so quickly. Konohamaru's first thought was to swim to the door that had just slammed in his face, but something was there, blocking his way. It was a person, the same one he saw in that cloudy image shown by the mirror in the bathroom before, and just as before he couldn't see it clearly, the lights started flickering .

"!" Konohamaru panicked to get away in a scrambling furry, only he felt something grabbing his legs. Konohamaru looked down, though he was unable to see anything because of the lack of light. 'Let me go! Let me go!' Konohamaru tried to swim against it, but he wasn't strong enough...That thought triggered his Chakra to resurface in one large burst, filtering into his arms, his legs, his torso and each and every muscle, a strength increasing measure that happened to Konohamaru when he panicked.

With more power , Konohamaru kicked and struggled at what bound him, finding himself running out of air quickly. 'Let...go!' Konohamaru drew back the Kunai in his hand, connected with Chakra rope, and tossed it down towards the ground. Immediately the unseen force that held him released it's grip and Konohamaru swam furiously through the dim waters towards Sasuke a flight above him who seemed to have been having a similar problem.

Konohamaru moved past him at a furious rate, rising to the surface about 5 feet above Sasuke with a desperate gasp for air. "Sasuke!" He looked around, he was sure he'd seem Sasuke right behind him. "Sasuke! Where are--" A strong and sudden current jerked him to the left hard. Konohamaru looked and saw that the library doors opening, and Sasuke's body being drawn in to the next room. Konohamaru expected it to be pulled in with him, but he wasn't, his body was slammed against the wall hard enough to knock the little air he had remaining in his lungs. "Sasuke!" He could only watch helplessly as the large doors slammed shut again, leaving him completely isolated.

! - ! - !

Sasuke hit the ground in a large loud splash, coughing loudly and expelling as much water as he could from his lungs. He sat up slowly as Neji ran to his side from where he had been working. "What happened?"

"It's after Konohamaru again." Sasuke coughed again and wiped the water from his eyes with his forearm. Using the door he knew wouldn't open as support, he climbed to his feet, quickly shifting his use of the door knob from supportive and resistant. "Everything's flooded, it's trying to drown him."

"Drown?" Neji grabbed on the second door knob and tried to pry it open "How?"

"I don't know, it's just creating things from nowhere. First the walls were bleeding, now water's coming out of nowhere."

"What? These types of demons can't create things like that..." Neji paused "Unless it's recreating a situation that's happened to it before...Konohamaru said he kept seeing Reedamaru kill people, the only way this could be happening is if it's recreating the situations Reedamaru killed a victim in."

"What about Konohamaru!" Sasuke growled angrily, unnoticing as the curse seal farther crept along the side his face, over his shoulders and down his other arm. His eyes shifted into the blood red of his level 2 Sharingan.

"I don't know." Neji took a step back, peering at the door through his white eyes, surrounding veins made themselves known as he activated his own bloodline Bakyugan. All he saw was darkness, at first at least, his Bakyugan begin to pierce the black Chakra... "Oh no...We have to get out there and warn him!" Neji kicked the door, failing and stepping back to kick it again.

The red eyes of the Uchiha boy turned on him quickly, "What? Warn him about what?"

"Konohamaru's using a lot of Chakra, and that's what it wants him to do. Don't you get it, It's absorbing his Chakra and feeding off his fear, then it's going to kill him."

"What! Konohamaru!"

! - ! - !

Konohamaru pushed himself off of the wall as he swam on top of the surface of the water. Just before him lay of stairway the led upstairs to a 3rd that hadn't been completed yet, and his only way out. So Konohamaru swam towards it, and just before he reached the first step of the next flight, the lights blew out loudly. "!" Konohamaru looked around frantically, but only thing there was the sound of him displacing water.

"Die, Reedamaru."

Two hands grabbed on to his head and pushed him down into the water, he nearly gasped but he barely retained himself. His eyes widened to dark waters and he started failing wildly, He held the two Kunai's in his hands tightly enough to bruise, and once again his Chakra made itself visible in a yellow pulsing light. Konohamaru dove the golden Chakra lined kunais upward into the hands that bound him and they immediately let go. Now free, Konohamaru scrambled to the surface, frantically turning back to see his attacker and finding nothing but the water.

His visibility demised to zero as the light from his Chakra dimmed and brightened again, and to his shock the water had become thick and red, blood red just that quickly. "No..." Konohamaru turned around towards the stairs as his Chakra pulsed in a quick dim and a return to light, unveiling more of the thick red liquid, he was surrounding, he was standing in it! "No! Stop it!"

"Reedamaru. Suffer."

Konohamaru turned around just as his Charka dimmed, he drove the metal Kunai outward. He felt it connect with something, his Chakra brightened showing the shadowy, distorted form of this creature and the blood around him before dimming again. "Stop it!"

"Reedamaru!"

Konohamaru turned back again, jumping from the thick liquid and thrust the Kunais forward towards the sound of the voice as his Chakra brightened. He found himself staring a demon pup right in it's red eyes. The fox whipped around quickly... "Ahaaaa--Uhuff!" Konohamaru was sent flying backwards from three tails slamming into him, he slammed into the wall hard enough to leave in imprint, then sliding down into the blood again.

He'd forgotten how high it reached, until it rose over his head and he was completely submerged in it, he couldn't tell his blood from some one else's. '!' That's when he started to panic. His eyes shot open, only to be stung by the crimson liquid, he coughed, filling his mouth with blood that wasn't his own. It took all of his will power not to spit it back out, if he did that he knew he'd gasp and inhale. His mind was so frantic that could barely think, he had to get out, he had to get away! He tried to push himself upward but a paw slammed down on his chest, knocking the wind out of him, forcing more blood into his mouth, and pinning him down hard enough to leave a bruise.

'No!'

His Chakra pulsed faster and faster, moving in time with his heartbeat like a measurement of his fear. As his heartbeat pounded faster and harder so did this chakra, giving him quick flashes of light from behind his closed eyes. His lungs screamed for air and it seemed like the only thing he could do was flail and struggle against the demon fox. 'No! I can't...breathe...'

It seemed like he would pass out, or have a heart attack, but it became aware to him that his fear would prevent him from losing conscious. His mind raced though nothing seemed to come useful, expect for two things, Kisame yelling at him to stop being afraid and fight back, and Sasuke telling him to be strong. That's when he realized he still had the metal kunais in his hand.

'I...have too...'

With a loud growl, Konohamaru thrust both of them upward into the fox's head and his pulsing Chakra erupted into a steady light. The pressure was so great that his chest felt like it would explode.

! - ! - !

"Chidori!" Sasuke drew his arm back, covered in the markings of the curse seal, and thrust the lighting Jutsu into the door. Sparks and bolts discharged everywhere surrounding him, then faded away.

"Koseichi Chudan no Jutsu." Neji clinched a shrunken tightly in his hand, watching smoke rise from the steel as he pushed his charka upward into it. Then the threw it swiftly at the blocked door, watching it detonate in an eruption of flames. Though none of it seemed effective. But he looked deeper with his Bakyugan, "It's working, I think we're about to breakthrough..."

Neji stopped, then glanced at Sasuke. "Wait...do you see that?"

Sasuke nodded "Konohamaru's using way to much, at this rate he'll kill himself."

"Yeah but... That's an immense amount, at this rate he'll--"

The whole wall suddenly exploded, sending Neji and Sasuke flying backwards in a rush of yellow charka, concrete, and blood. Seemingly tons of the red liquid rushed into the library and on to the two, though the amount that actually reached back into the bookshelves was small. It was more then enough to put out the flames that had been spawned.

Konohamaru coughed out the blood he'd inhaled, soaked from head to toe in it he couldn't stop himself from shaking. He couldn't even breathe. What made matters even worse was that he was pinned down by the body of the nine-tail's pup he'd just killed, and this time he didn't have the strength to pull it off of him. He could barely move. And he couldn't deny the fact that something was happening.

He could see the black Chakra floating above him, and it was pulling on him like a suction. He saw what it was pulling when he felt the very last of his Chakra siphoning out of his body and in to the dark haze. The black smoke like mass started to descend, taking the form of that shadowy and undistinguishable person. More Chakra, yellow Chakra, Konohamaru's Chakra that it'd been absorbing all of this time started to radiate around it. That's when it really started to take form.

The dark haze lifted, revealing a truly demonic body. It was dark, nearly black, and it had the most haunting black eyes with red pupils, it was just a few inches taller then he was. Short wings with black feathers extended from it's back, and Konohamaru could just make out claws on the shadowy form. It lifted the claws above it's head. "Die, Reedamaru!" It's voice was a thunderous growl, furious and hateful, it didn't seem like such a small body could make such a sound, Konohamaru flinched at the voice as it thrust the claws down at --

"Not today!" From behind Kiba came rushed the demon, ramming it with his shoulder and sending it flying over Sasuke and Neji. "Are you ok Konohamaru?" Kiba kicked the demon fox's body off of the boy and picked him up by his shoulders.

"I...think so." Konohamaru said weakly, he was dizzy and everything was spinning. He'd used too much Chakra, more then his body could handle giving. "I need to sit down." Before he even noticed it he'd fallen back against Kiba's leg.

"Whoa...that's kinda creepy." Kiba watched as the Fear demon's body dissipated into a cloud of black smoke. "The hell was that?"

! - ! - !

! - ! - !

"Wow..." Kakashi sat down on the flight of stairs leading to the unfinished third floor, staring at demolished wall. "Konohamaru, what do you have against walls? Or you just thought some redecorating was in order."

Konohamaru looked down on him from 2 steps above, feeling weak and a little disoriented but wide awake. Despite it only being 6 in the morning he wasn't quite ready to head to bed, not after sleeping all of yesterday. "It wasn't like that!"

"I like it, it gives that open feel."

Sasuke ascended from the flight below, after a shower and a change of clothes "Don't pay attention to him, you'll just encourage him."

"Oww, that hurt." Kakashi wined.

Kiba glanced back at them, then held his head down again as he sat in the pile of rubble that used to be the wall. "If this keeps up, we won't have any money left. I mean come on! We haven't even finished the third floor!"

"Is anyone else worried about the fact that this place was built on top of the blood of people in a mass murder?" Naruto sat down against a bookshelf next to Gaara, watching the remains of the wall smolder. "I just noticed something, is anyone here that is not being hunted by a demon?"

There was a small pause, then a short silence.

"You can't be serious." Naruto said. "Man, we've got problems. What about Akamaru, dose he count?"

"Nope." Kiba shook his head, though Akamaru had a tight grip so that he wouldn't fall. "Bugs."

There was another small pause between them, until Neji emerged from the back of the room a book in hand with Iruka following behind with a scroll Neji had created. "Good, everyone's here." Neji sat the book on the ground and knelt by it "I found something very interesting, a Jutsu."

Naruto shrugged "So."

"It's something that can useful." Neji said. "And since Naruto bluntly pointed out that we all are having problems with demons, very strong demons, some of which are constantly growing increasingly stronger."

"So what is this Jutsu?" Kakashi asked.

"It's called Overclocking, it allows the body to reach it's limits of current potential."

"So what's the side effect, there is always a catch to this type of thing."

"Your right, there is." Neji agreed. "But it's different for each person who uses, there's one accounted for someone's fingernails stopped growing, to someone who stopped breathing."

"So if we use this, we're basically playing Russian roulette with ourselves." Sasuke leaned against the wall next to Konohamaru. "What are the chances of something harmful resulting?"

"50/50."

Naruto snorted. "That's not Russian roulette, that's an attempt at suicide."

"Your forgetting that something harmful could be something simple." Gaara reminded him "It could be loosening a hair."

"I think we should learn it." Neji said decidedly "Possibly for an emergency or desperate situation."

"I say we go for it." Kiba nodded. "Last time we fought those bugs, we were nearly killed. If we get in to that situation again we're probably gonna die anyway, why not take the risk?"

Neji took a look around. "So everyone's decided?" He got some type of affirmative response from everyone, it was clearly seen that Overclocking could be a useful skill. Setting aside the fact that it was from a demon book, and it was a demon technique, and there was the risk of serious injury. "It's decided then."