Naruto: A Red Eye Hidden by Shadow

by Tatanka4Life

On the fateful night of the Uchiha Massacre, a girl of Uchiha and Nara blood is spared and left with no memories of her past. Now she must walk on the path left by her family to help her build a new future for herself. Her path will be hard, full of struggles and pain, but as long as she has her friends and family at her side she will keep forging ahead, even if it was a drag.

158. Chapter 157: Friends or Sacrifices

Chapter 157

Friends or Sacrifices: The Price for Utopia and the Spirit from Beyond!

Temujin raced through the dense forests native to these foreign lands, weaving around wide oaks and conical pines, greaves flattening blades of grass, crunching the fallen saw-toothed leaves of an elm, and kicking up various foliage as he bounded over deadwood.

Faster, he demanded of his healed body. Six minute miles weren't difficult, but he could go faster, if he pushed himself. And he would. He had to reach the Land of Wind as soon as possible. There was no time to waste.

Even if Wakiko's entire fleet had been annihilated, there was a chance some had survived the ensuing battle. Perhaps a handful. Perhaps more.

Regardless of how many there were, even if only one survived, Temujin knew the natives war-minded culture well now; they were guerrilla fighters, based on their equipment and style of combat, preferring to act from the shadows and ambush an unaware enemy than face them in direct combat.

If all the natives of this continent were trained like Amaririsu, they wouldn't miss an opportunity to take prisoners. They wouldn't miss a chance to gather Intel on an invasion force.

If they hadn't killed everyone already.

He whipped past trees, agility and elegant gait unburdened by his plate armor. He saw not a single creature; they scurried off, alerted by the stomp of his greaves, the swooshing of his cape, the bounce and clatter of his sword, sheathed and secured on his belt, and the faint scent of sweat.

Faster. Faster. Faster.

Nothing else mattered. Not the strange sensation he felt in his chest or how it vanished once he departed their vessel, not Amaririsu suddenly becoming clammy and lying of its cause. Even their arguments and his desire to avoid conflict meant nothing now.

I cannot reach the Land of Water presently, he thought, hurdling over a thick root system. For now I must focus on locating our survivors in the Land of Wind. If these natives have captured them, I will do whatever is necessary to free them. Even if I must kill. That is the necessary sacrifice I'm willing to make.

"Are they necessary? Are they really? There wasn't a better way? A kinder path? A gentler means to accomplish it?"

Temujin tightened his jaw.

Why can't you see that your way is too unreasonable? Kinder paths? Gentler paths? Teaching the next generation? Don't be ridiculous. No, something like that won't work in our world. Our world only understands power and force. Whatever you might think, these traits are neither good nor evil. All that matters is who wields them.

Furthermore, what you seek will take too long. More children like us will suffer. But Master Haido will bring about a true utopia. Once we have that power, all that we've sacrificed will be worth it. All that was destroyed will be healed. Wars will end. Suffering will end!

Why can't you see that?

"What the hell do you think a utopia is? Do you think you'll—what? Open a box and suddenly everyone will be united in a mystical transcendence, and then they'll start helping each other instead of warring?"

Temujin weaved through a collection of slender and bare silver birch trees. He could feel his molars grinding together.

There will be no reason for war.

"Oh, you're giving them plenty of reasons to fight."

Growling deep in his throat, Temujin shook his head and tossed aside the pointless argument.

Master Haido had saved him. He revealed the true path to a world where people could understand each other and come together in a utopia. All that was necessary to achieve it was the ancient Power of Gelel, faith in a better world, and the Will to commit body and soul to a cause greater than the self.

He was committed. One hundred percent. Temujin had seen enough cruelty and savagery, he had seen enough of a society warped by hunger, fear and desperation to survive. He would bear whatever burdens were necessary to create a society without war.

No matter how dirty his hands became.

His cape swooshed and flapped as he whipped through the dense trees. Temujin ducked beneath a low-hanging branch. He heard tiny twigs snap beneath his boots.

Once they had the Power of Gelel, no more children would ever suffer from hunger or war or evil. The children of the world would prosper in ways his generation and those who came before him could not. They would live longer, happier, and peaceful lives.

"By teaching them the ends justify the means? By teaching them to rush towards your goal without caring for the destruction you leave behind?"

Why couldn't she understand the necessity of it all? She had lost and suffered just as he had, so why?

Why did she stand so fervently against Master Haido's utopia?

"Why don't you understand your actions have consequences?"

They could rebuild it all. They could heal the land. The losses the natives sustained so far weren't true losses. They were temporary. Minor inconveniences when faced with a better world.

Their homes, their fields, their crops—all of it would be returned once they possessed the full Power of Gelel. Their lives would return to normal sooner than they expected; in fact, they'd be better than they ever were.

"Can your life be rebuilt? Will a utopia heal your pain? Do you honestly believe it will fill the holes of precious people and memories others stole from you?"

Annoying girl, he growled. I won't allow you to stand in the way of Master Haido's dream.

Temujin shut his mind off as smooth forests began to transform into rocky, arid terrain. Soon after his greaves greeted the warm sands of the Land of Wind.

The fleet and the survivors were all that mattered. Yet unfaithful doubts began to nibble at the back of his mind.

How many more necessary sacrifices would they have to make?

How necessary were their unfortunate deeds?

Was there really a gentler path?

---

The caw of the Crows and fluttering of wings announced 'Risu's true return.

Shikamaru turned in time to see black feathers melding together, forming the last of her torso and head as she entered the cave on solid legs. He noticed the thick tome clutched to her chest first, then he quickly examined her for visible injuries.

There were none, thankfully. Maybe he shouldn't have been so worried; it wasn't like she didn't have Osamu perched on her shoulder, or the skills necessary to pull off such a reckless act. And survive.

Still, when he learned that troublesome girl stayed behind enemy lines alone, when the whole damn land-ship was alerted to their presence, all to acquire some random item—the tome, obviously—he couldn't help but roll his eyes outwardly and stress internally.

You always dive in headfirst, don't you, 'Risu?

Chōji scarfed down another handful of chips—cheddar flavored—and spoke as he chewed, "Glad to see you made it back in one piece, Amaririsu. Is that book what you were looking for?"

"Yep. Hopefully it's worth all the trouble."

"We've been waiting for you," Shikamaru greeted.

"Sorry to make you worry," she apologized.

He shrugged. "You never do anything this reckless without a real reason. Or without assured protection," he gestured his chin to Osamu.

"Indeed. However, Lady Amari, although you were pressed for time, given the circumstances, in the future you mustn't withhold critical information from your guard and comrades."

"I didn't know how to explain it without sounding crazy," she admitted, lowering her eyes. "We didn't have time to discuss what I experienced. The rescue operation and escaping took priority. After… I didn't want them to have the chance to hide the tome somewhere. I knew where it was at that exact moment. It might've been our only chance, so…"

"Even so, consider your actions more carefully next time. We face an unknown foe, who wield a power of unknown limitations—should any limitations exist at all. Acting alone is ill-advised. Alone we can be picked apart. You know this."

'Risu nodded, arms hugging the book a little tighter. "I know. I won't go off on my own next time."

"It's more than just their unknown power we have to worry about." The cat-masked Anbu kunoichi approached. "My duty is to protect you from all those who seek your capture or death."

"I know. I'm sorry," his cousin apologized again, lowering her head. "There wasn't time to explain. I know that isn't a good reason, but I was confident I could sneak in and out without a scene. I almost did."

"That's not the point," stated the Anbu agent. "How am I supposed to protect you if you run off like that? What if they had cornered you? Or he swept in while we were separated? What if you didn't have time to summon Osamu or any of the Crows? There was obviously no time to utilize the Flying Raijin."

"It was risky, I know that. I knew it when I made my move."

'Risu, he noticed, straightened her posture and met the Anbu agent's gaze head-on. It was a subtle shift of tactics. Like him, she knew starting with a sincere apology could lower tensions and open up an avenue to peaceful discourse. Now she was maneuvering into a sturdy defensive posture.

Was her behavior reckless? Without a doubt. But 'Risu was confident, he could tell, her reasons were justified.

"I took a big gamble. And I'm sorry I pulled a fast one on you and Sasuke. However, if I had left the tome there, we would have had no choice but to sneak a small squad into the land-ship again. Only this time the invaders would be on high alert," she explained. "In that scenario, the risk would've been too high; they intercepted me with surprising ease, so they must possess some manner of sensory abilities or equipment.

"Also," she added, "they may have hidden the tome, and then we may have missed our opportunity to acquire this crucial piece of the puzzle."

"We would've adapted."

"We can't," 'Risu stood her ground. Then shook her head. "Not against this enemy. We needed this tome."

Shikamaru furrowed his brow. The unbending certainty in her voice, he felt it tighten and twist his gut in knots.

She knows something we don't. She must've sensed something from their leader or skimmed that tome.

Sasuke, relieved from aiding the Medical Corps, approached quietly.

Unlike the woman, Sasuke was cool as a cucumber. He didn't bear any of the same stiffness or frustration at 'Risu; he'd grown accustomed to the kind of girl 'Risu was, the kind to take a calculated leap ahead even when fire surrounded her foothold.

That she came back, and nailed the landing without getting burned, was all that really mattered now.

Not that he didn't understand the Anbu agent's feelings. He did. Damn girl was going to turn him into a greying old geezer before he hit thirty. It'd be a total drag.

Still, he was surprised to see a stranger—a guard—share his feelings. To his knowledge, the Anbu agent had no direct relationship to 'Risu beyond her assignment. Then again, what he knew was limited to the superficial—the obvious.

She was a woman, a member of the Anbu Black Ops, wore a cat-motif mask, and had purple hair.

Nothing truly groundbreaking there. Nothing remotely connected to how or why she was so emotionally invested in 'Risu's continued survival.

He planned to continue his quiet investigation. Maybe then he'd figure out some real answers.

"What's so important about that dusty old book?" Sasuke asked.

"It's the key to stopping these guys. It's the only way for us to save everyone."

She spoke as if it was a forgone conclusion. Shikamaru pursed his lips in discomfort as he observed his cousin's verbal and non-verbal cues. Her posture didn't budge, her voice didn't waver, and her eyes… As fierce as they were in the heat of combat.

She wasn't playing around. She wouldn't back down, either, until they understood the threat they were dealing with.

From what he could tell, 'Risu was convinced that, even with a member of the Anbu Black Ops and the Crows among them, they had better chances of beating the Fifth Hokage in an arm-wrestling match than completing their mission without the knowledge within the tome.

That's a bad sign, he thought. If 'Risu doesn't think our combat strength is adequate to stop the invaders, then the best thing we can do is shut up and listen. Members of Team Seven don't hesitate against dangerous enemies. Hell, I don't think they've ever asked for reinforcements, even when clients lied to them.

"Tell us everything, 'Risu," Shikamaru requested. "You're not the kind to rely on some random old book to get through a tough mission. What happened on the land-ship?"

"Yes. Why are you so certain that book is our only means of success?" asked the Anbu agent.

"How to explain it… When my Shadow Clone was in the throne room with Sakura and Naruto, she sensed something…strange. She sensed an immensely powerful presence. A being, maybe? An entity of such vast scope, such power… I'm sorry, I'm struggling to find words to accurately describe it," she apologized, scratching her cheek.

"Did it come from the invaders?"

"No. Despite both of them wielding a Stone of Gelel, it didn't come from Haido—the leader of these invaders—or Temujin—the scout who attacked us. But maybe it…hmm."

She pursed her lips and lowered her eyes in thought. "I'm not sure, but maybe it resonated from inside their Stones. It'd explain where it came from, at least. Otherwise it just appeared without cause or reason inside the throne room at that exact moment."

"Stone of Gelel?" Shikamaru repeated.

"Gelel…" Osamu ruminated.

"It's the source of their power, from what I can tell," 'Risu answered, shifting the book to show them the cover. "This is sort of what it looks like. It's a turquoise stone or crystal of some kind; it glows, too. Temujin has the stone implanted in his chest—fused with his flesh. Haido wore it on a glove.

"But both utilized its powers differently. Temujin could unleash a powdery, vapor-like green energy. Think of it like highly concentrated pure chakra, except it possessed natural offensive and defensive properties. No rotation required. It also grants its host a passive healing ability, similar to the power of a jinchūriki."

"Sounds like a real pain," Shikamaru judged. "A vapor-like energy with offensive and defensive abilities, in addition to passive healing… This guy will be one tough customer if we have to fight him."

"Assuming Naruto doesn't blow up another mountainside," Sasuke added.

"Normally I'd say I don't want to know how that idiot pulled that off." Shikamaru sighed. "But I'll have to ask eventually. Anyway," he looked back to his cousin, "what about this Haido guy, though? How did he use these stones differently?"

"Haido could shoot invisible blasts of energy from the stone; my eyes could see the build up of power and release, but the easiest way for anyone else to dodge is to watch his Stone. Once it begins to glow, you need to be moving. Think of it like a loosed arrow without gravity—once he launches it, it will stay on the same course until it hits something.

"Overall, I don't think he's mastered its power yet. It looked like he was trying target practice in his throne room, to be honest. Maybe even on his own followers. It wouldn't surprise me.

"Anyway," 'Risu lowered the book, "that strange presence my Shadow Clone sensed didn't come from them. But it was there. It was enormous. Naruto and Sakura felt it, too."

"I don't recall sensing any enormous presence," the Anbu agent noted.

"I didn't either," Amari nodded. "Not until my Shadow Clone dispersed. But it was real. Stranger than that, the presence began to speak to me. Within my own head."

No wonder she thought she'd sound crazy.

"You think it could have been a genjutsu?" Shikamaru asked.

"No. I didn't sense a genjutsu. I also had my Byakugan activated the whole time, so I would've seen through one. The voice…" 'Risu clutched the book tighter. "It knew my birth name. It kept telling me to take the book. It said I couldn't kill Haido without it. It said we couldn't save everyone without it."

"Sure it wasn't lying?" Sasuke asked the obvious question.

"The way it spoke…" She lowered her head. "There was a dreadful certainty in it. Like it could see everything. Like it knew everything."

"What did this presence feel like, Lady Amari?" Osamu asked.

"It's…difficult to describe. When it spoke to me, it made my head feel like it was splitting open. I was afraid I might pass out. My body became clammy, my pulse began to pound, and I started to sweat."

"Sounds like killing intent," Sasuke offered.

"Sort of. I didn't sense a desire to kill, though. I didn't sense malevolence. Its existence was just so tremendous, so powerful…it felt like another mind was invading mine, a mind the size of the world itself just shoving itself into my brain.

"Its voice was everywhere and nowhere. But it's presence… Impossible as it might sound, it felt greater in scope than the Nine-Tailed Fox's. I'm not even sure I comprehended its entire being. There was…there was just so much. Too much. No end, no beginning. It just…was."

Shikamaru crossed his arms. "Now that just sounds troublesome."

"Sounds pretty scary if you ask me. Are you sure we should listen to something like that?" Chōji questioned.

"Hmm." Osamu lowered his beak in contemplation. "For now, Lady Amari," he began after a brief pause, "I suggest you begin reading the tome. There may yet be answers within its pages that will hasten the defeat of these invaders. As well as the recovery of those we rescued."

"How are they?" she asked, peering around the group to the collective of hostages they recused.

"Those we pulled from the spheres haven't come around," Sasuke said. "They're alive. The doctors say there isn't any reason they should be unresponsive, but…"

"Osamu's right. I need to start reading," 'Risu concluded.

"Do you recognize the name 'Gelel' from Intel the Crows have gathered, Osamu?" the Anbu agent asked.

"I dare say there is something innately familiar about the name 'Gelel' Lady Amari mentioned. I believe it is from a bygone era—before the Warring States Period. Much else, I cannot say, at present. It's true nature escapes my memory. I intend to send word to our archivists, however. They can assemble all relevant information we Crows have gathered over the years so we may prepare properly."

"We may not need to ask the Crows," 'Risu spoke up. "The caravan I traveled with is the remnants of a fallen kingdom; their kingdom once possessed the Power of Gelel, which I have a hunch led to their inevitable destruction. If we can get them to talk, we can… Ah hell!"

'Risu whirled towards the cave mouth. "That naïve idiot! He told Haido about the caravan!"

Shikamaru didn't know what to make of a lot of the situation. A strange voice speaking to 'Risu. A power beyond the Nine-Tailed Fox. It all sounded crazy. And troublesome. But he did understand one thing.

"Those people are screwed if we don't get them to safety," he said. "Assuming this Haido guy learned about this 'Gelel' power and its presence on our continent from that tome, he probably knows the connection that caravan has to it. He'll go straight for them. It's the quickest way to learn its location, since it wasn't explicitly written down. If it was, he wouldn't have wasted time scouting.

"Chōji, wake Ino up," he ordered, looking to his best friend. "It's time for us to move."

"Roger that, Shikamaru."

Chōji then upended his bag of cheddar chips and sent what remained to his bottomless stomach.

'Risu turned around, lips pursed. "Shika…"

Let me join you, was what she really said with his name.

"You need to read that tome anyway, right?" he reminded.

"I can still help. They know me."

They're my responsibility.

"You need to rest. I can see it on your face, the Flying Raijin took a toll on you."

And it was true. She wasn't at her absolute limit, but she wasn't fresh for a fight, either. As he anticipated, moving so many people—three at a time, bare minimum, counting her Shadow Clone, Sasuke or the Anbu agent, and at least one hostage—demanded more than if she only transported herself. Or maybe it was the distance. Maybe it was both.

Later, he reminded himself.

For now he had to focus on mobilizing his squad before the enemy reached the caravan.

Shikamaru moved to stand beside his cousin, shoving a hand in his flak jacket pocket as he did.

"My dad told me something recently," he began, turning his head to look at her. "I thought I understood what he meant, thought it was just for me. But looks like my old man was already way ahead of both of us, as always. He probably figured I'd need to remind you of this at some point, so here goes.

"Blazing a trail doesn't mean you have to walk ahead of everyone. Some of us may have needed extra time to catch up, but we're here now. We're walking beside you. So just remember, you can count on us, 'Risu. Always. This isn't your fight alone. Trust in us. We believe in you, so it's only fair for you to believe in us."

'Risu shut her eyes. "I do. I really do. I just…"

"You want to protect everyone, and always push yourself too hard. I know. But some of us are only learning that now," he said.

He didn't know the woman's connection. But he knew one when he saw it.

"You're always in a rush. It's a real pain," he complained without any heart in it.

"And you're always lazy," she retorted, smiling softly. "Osamu, can you send Tsugumi to help them track the caravan."

"Of course. As for this mysterious presence, I advise considerable caution. There is no telling what its true intentions are, or what it is to begin with. Best we keep our distance, if at all possible."

"Right."

"Take a breather, 'Risu," Shikamaru said, patting her on the shoulder. "We'll handle this."

"Be careful, Shika. His direct subordinates all wield a Stone of Gelel."

"Never expected it to be easy. This is a Team Seven mission, after all."

"Sorry. We're a bad luck charm."

"Eh, it isn't your fault. Probably," he added with a shrug.

"Thanks, Shika," she drawled.

"Chōji, Ino, you ready?"

"Ready when you are, Shikamaru," his best friend replied.

"Ready to go," Ino confirmed, looking refreshed.

"All right. Team Ten is moving out."

---

"What the heck happened here?"

Sakura was wondering the same thing. She stared in awe at the scene of destruction before them, listening to the bitter wind howl across the coastal sand dunes, to the tiny specks of sand bounce off and batter broken steel, and the rended metal groan and wail ghoulishly as gusts funneled through portholes and gaping breaches in the vessels hull.

Metal ships lay buried among the dunes. The largest—a mostly intact battleship of steel—angled its bow towards the sky, while tilting towards port; it appeared to have run aground, and looked ready to fall over at any moment.

At its center, halfway down from the deck, a hull breach sat at the peak of a sand dune. The oblong hole was so massive an elephant probably could've marched through it.

With the stern sunken—buried—beneath the sand, coastal waves lapped against the deck.

The entire coastline, even along the dune she and Naruto stood upon several meters off from it, was decorated in metal debris. Pieces of broken hulls and bulkheads, support beams and even an anchor, protruded from the earth like the metal skeleton of an ancient sea monster.

Annihilated was right, Sakura thought, threading her fingers into her whipping hair and brushing the strands out of her face. There's nothing left of their fleet. I only know of one person who can move this amount of sand. But…

She cast her gaze across the golden dunes, but saw nothing except sand in all directions. Compared to the Land of Fire, the desert was so…empty. She'd call it lifeless if she hadn't studied the dangerous fauna and flora of the Land of Wind while in the Academy; there were creatures here she never wanted to see in person.

There aren't any signs of the Sand shinobi anywhere. This is their home turf, though. If they're here, they already have eyes on us.

What would they be waiting for, then? Sakura wondered. Or have they already pulled out since they destroyed the fleet?

A black shadow wheeled across the golden sands. Searching. Scouting. Gathering Intel.

Ahead, Temujin stalked across the dunes with the aim of entering the massive hull breach. His white armor glinted in the afternoon sunlight, his cape flapped, caught by a harsh gust of wind.

"Let's see where he's going," Sakura suggested.

"Yeah." Naruto flattened his poncho against his chest, kicked up by the shrieking gust. "Beats standing out here getting kicked around by this wind."

They crossed the dunes, stepping lightly to avoid potential metal hazards.

The hull breach was even bigger up close. Sakura wagered at least two full-grown elephants could've squeezed through it, or been responsible for blowing open the hull.

Ahead of them was Temujin, who ignored their presence entirely. He turned left at the end of a dimly lit hall, the gentle and calm clank-clank-clank of his greaves on the metal flooring echoing his every step.

Sakura and Naruto hurried up the incline, sandals clapping dully against the metal, and turned the corner to follow after him.

The interior, like the exterior, was a disaster. Metal walls and flooring were uprooted; some walls blocked off halls entirely, burying dormant metal soldiers beneath them. Broken pipes dangled from the ceiling. Valve wheels lay amid the debris.

Bang!

Sakura felt herself nearly jump out of her skin at a sudden crash of metal.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Uh, that was me. I kicked a rivet by accident," Naruto admitted sheepishly.

"Geez." Sakura pressed a hand to her pounding chest and exhaled a deep breath. "You scared me half to death."

"Sorry about that."

They pressed on.

Howling wind haunted the halls. Metal moaned in agony.

No one spoke, though. Despite being mere steps behind Temujin, they didn't say a word to one another. He kept pushing ahead, searching for survivors. Searching for any sign of life.

At the end of the hall, where an open door awaited, the walls were nearly flattened together. Temujin slipped in.

Naruto climbed over a collapsed metal pipe, its metal ends flared out and ready to claim flesh. Once he was over, he offered Sakura a hand and helped her over, then they slowly, carefully, followed Temujin into the next room. Squeezing through the narrow gap, as he had.

It led into another hall, descending at a mild angle and sunken towards port.

Sakura spotted Temujin standing utterly still before another door. As soon as they were within arms reach he entered.

Peering in, Sakura gasped. Naruto sucked in a sharp breath.

It wasn't the uprooted flooring, through which pipes ran in every direction, like a complex root system belonging to a colossal tree, or all the strange machinery waiting inside to stir their reactions. It wasn't the grinding of broken glass beneath Temujin's greaves.

"What…What are all these children doing here?" Sakura whispered, hand to mouth and pulse trembling.

Lying inside of broken spheres across the entire room, some appearing to be seated, others sprawled out belly first on solid stones within, were children in white gowns. Boys, girls, maybe between the ages of eight and ten, all lying motionless inside the shattered spheres.

Driven by instinct, Sakura hurried into the room, clambering across a metal pipe to check the pulse of the closest child.

"Sakura…" Naruto was behind her somewhere. By the drop in his voice he knew what she found.

Nothing. The body was already cold. As were the other bodies, scattered throughout the damaged room along the walls, some even dangling from the ceiling by pipes, tubes and wires, like insects caught in a spider's web.

Temujin's greaves grated against glass again. He was moving on. Deeper into the ship.

Sakura grit her teeth. She dug her fingers into her dress.

He hadn't even bothered to check them for life. Was he truly so cold to walk through this mass grave of children and feel nothing?

"Hold up!" Naruto's shout reverberated unpleasantly through the silent tomb of metal.

Temujin halted.

"What the hell is this all about, huh?" he growled. "What are these kids doing here?"

"They're all soldiers dedicated to our cause," he replied flatly.

"No way," Sakura gasped, horror washing over her. "Those soldiers patrolling your ship, and the scouts we fought, they're being controlled by children!"

"What's the big idea?" Naruto clenched his hands into fists. "You're telling me kids like these are controlling your soldiers remotely or something?"

"They're not all children."

"Look around you!" Naruto boomed. "These all look like kids to me!"

"They're devoted followers. No different than you."

"Don't compare us to this," her teammate bit out. "How many of them actually had a choice, huh? How many actually had homes to go back to?"

Temujin said nothing.

Naruto's fists were trembling. Sakura maneuvered back across the pipe to the debris covered walkway.

"Of course they threw themselves in with you," Naruto's voice trembled in rage. "What else did they have! Devoted followers? Get real! They were hungry and scared children with nowhere to go! And your Master, that bastard, he twisted them into his pawns!"

"Do not speak ill of Master Haido." Temujin shot a harsh look over his shoulder. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't know what I'm talking about? Wake up and look around you, Temujin!" Naruto threw his arm out. "Haido sent these kids to pillage and destroy people's homes, to kill innocent people who were just trying to live their lives!"

"Necessary sacrifices for the greater good."

"Greater good?" Sakura recoiled at his calm and self-assured statement. "You're doing exactly what someone else did to you! How can you justify that?"

"I don't have to explain myself to either of you."

"That's where you're wrong." Naruto stepped forward, fists clenched. "You're going to explain yourself right here. Right no—"

The rapid clickity-clack of wood caught them all by surprise. Before they could blink Temujin was wrapped in the tight bear hug of a wooden puppet bearing wild short hair, three eyes and multiple arms. A tattered brown cape was draped over its wooden body.

"Naruto, Sakura, what are you two doing here?" a familiar voice called from above.

Kankurō dropped down onto one of the protruding pipes, arms crossed over his chest. His black garbs were somewhat frayed and stained by what appeared to be dirt, as if seared into the fabric.

She couldn't make out any visible signs of severe injuries, but the dim-lighting made it difficult to see.

"Kankurō?" Naruto gasped.

"You got it." He glanced to Temujin. "Thought you could sneak up on us, huh? You shouldn't underestimate the shinobi of the Hidden Sand."

"Are you all right? What happened here?" Sakura asked.

"Man, you don't know about this?" Kankurō glared at Temujin. "These people invaded the Land of Wind from the sea; the Hokage was the one that warned us about their approach. We thought we were prepared, but their long-range capabilities outmatched the known weaponry of the shinobi world.

"We didn't stand a chance," he stated grimly. Coldly. Sakura could sense his burning scorn for the invaders in every word. "How could we when they were raining volleys of cannon fire on our position from the sea. Their shells broke right through Gaara's sand. I've only ever seen a few bodies so mangled before. But what they did to our unit…"

"How bad?" Sakura dared to ask.

"Our unit was decimated. Countless injured and KIA. The worst of the injured won't ever fight again. Only a small group of us—about nine—got lucky. If Hikari wasn't there, a lot more of us would be vulture food. Including me."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I was. It hasn't stopped there, though. We've lost a lot of Sand shinobi trying to stop their rampages. Entire villages have been wiped off the map through the course of these battles," he explained, lowering his arms and stuffing his left hand into his pocket.

His right, attached with chakra threads, remained out.

"Temujin, is this carnage what you call a utopia?" Naruto demanded.

"Noble sacrifices for the greater good," he repeated.

"Oh please!" Naruto growled. "What you say and do are two different things!"

"Look," Kankurō extended his right arm, "sorry to butt in, but I'm gonna take him out now."

"You'll have to get in line," Naruto retorted, stepping forward. "If anyone's gonna pummel him, it's gonna be me!"

Temujin shoved his arms out, breaking free of the puppet's bear hug. He pivoted then kicked it; it whistled by the two Leaf shinobi and crashed against the wall beside the doorway they entered.

"What?" Kankurō's eyes went wide.

He must have used that power to enhance his strength, Sakura noted.

His short sword sang from its scabbard. It did not gleam amid the dark corridor, but reflected the shadows as Temujin pointed it towards Naruto, half-turned to monitor them and Kankurō simultaneously.

"Those who would stand in our way will be eliminated!" Temujin declared.

"Heh! Yeah, whatever," Kankurō brushed off his threat with a cruel grin.

Clank-clank, clank-clank, clank-clank.

"Huh?" The Sand shinobi turned around, drawn by the out-of-rhythm echo of footsteps closing in from the doorway behind him.

A stout, womanly silhouette emerged from the shadows, stepping an armored foot onto the uprooted floor panel. She placed a hand on her hip. Even in the dim lighting the irritated pout of her lips was noticeable.

"Temujin!" she chastised. "How did you get yourself cornered, you idiot. This is why your primary duty is scouting."

"Ranke?" Temujin sounded surprised to see her.

Another silhouette took shape, more slender than her partner. She stood with her arms crossed and an arrogant smile on her lips.

"Looks like Master Haido was right to send us as backup. You should know, this one here," she gestured to Kankurō with her chin, "is just acting as a lookout. There's another unit of natives waiting nearby."

"Yes, but—"

"What's got you so worked up?" the slender woman interrupted coquettishly. "You should run along now. There's no reason to stay here and fight."

"But Kamira, there may yet be survivors," he argued.

"Wakiko is somewhere around here. I can sense her. Like a bat drawn to the delicious scent of a peach, hmmmm," the slender woman—Kamira—purred. "But all of the loyalists perished, I'm afraid. Such a shame."

"Utterly useless," Ranke dismissed.

"How can you be so callous? Those are kids you're talking about!" Sakura growled.

"My, my, what a temper you have, my dear," Kamira mocked. "They sacrificed their lives for a noble cause. What greater honor is there than to die for utopia?"

Bang!

The loud crash shuddered through the ship. Sakura jumped again. Naruto gasped. Temujin flinched, but kept his sword aligned with them.

As all of their eyes lifted towards the ceiling, another series of vibrations thundered in their chests.

Bang!

Bang-bang-bang-bang!

The ship heaved and groaned in apparent agony. Sakura could feel the vibrations of whatever was responsible for such solid impacts rattling up through her legs.

"That sounds bad…" Naruto murmured.

"Looks like she finally found the invader," Kankurō said, smirking nervously at the ceiling. "Naruto, Sakura, you should get out of here. Things are about to get messy."

"Messy?"

"Oh yeah." Kankurō attached his chakra threads to his puppet. The crashes were growing even louder. And closer. "You invaders sure act high and mighty, but you made a fatal error blasting our position from the sea."

"Is that right—"

The sudden eruption of metal drowned out Kamira.

The ceiling between Temujin and the Leaf shinobi burst open, and through it plummeted another woman in knight armor.

She crashed with such force the floor itself caved around her. Groaning then coughing, she turned her trembling form over, trying to rise onto all-fours. And failing as her hands, and then forearms, refused to bear her weight.

"Yeah," Kankurō chuckled darkly. "Hikari and Gaara took it personally. Can't say I blame them. I want to settle the score, too."

"Wakiko!" Kamira gasped.

"You little wretch…" the woman groaned. "I'll… I'll…"

Two titanic tan walls of sand suddenly slammed through the ship, crashing together over Kamira's and Ranke's position.

Everything shuddered and shook. Metal shrieked grotesquely, and Sakura felt the ship drop beneath them, sinking towards port. She stumbled and collapsed to the floor. Naruto, letting out an uncertain cry, was thrown onto his back. Temujin fell to a knee.

Raising her eyes to regather her bearings and her enemy's positions on the battlefield, she saw Kamira and Ranke escape unharmed, leaping towards a breach in the ceiling.

Their expressions twisted into annoyance and awe as they looked upon their previous position. This was clearly their first time fighting shinobi.

From behind the walls of Sand, Gaara attired in his red garbs leapt into view onto his sand walls, then immediately sprang after the two women.

"Not so fast!" he bellowed.

"Nice of you to finally show up," Kankurō muttered, leaping after his younger brother and the women.

Ranke landed on top of a pipe above, crouching like a predator observing its prey. Kamira clutched a pipe and hung from it by one hand.

"Oh, all right, I guess we can play," Ranke said.

"You fellas should learn when to walk away."

A violent stream of sand nearly crushed them both as they vanished up into the guts of the ship, destroying the pipes they once perched and hung from in a harrowing screech of rending metal.

Gaara and Kankurō gave chase.

Concerned for his comrade, Temujin steadied his feet and stalked towards Wakiko, leveling his sword with Sakura and Naruto as a threat to stay back. The pair slowly rose from the floor.

Sounds of battle, that of destructive sand crashing against walls, lightning surging, and the clickity-clack of a puppet echoed down into the room. Yet Sakura caught the sound of something else. Something like a train plowing through the center of the ship.

Temujin glanced around. He glanced up the breach in the ceiling, but saw nothing.

"Wakiko, are you all right?" he asked, finally kneeling beside her.

Crashing metal crescendoed. Sakura felt her hairs stand on end and her heart jump. Naruto's arm suddenly wrapped around her waist.

"Get back!" Naruto said, tugging her off her feet and diving back.

"Get…away!" Wakiko yelled, tackling Temujin.

A block of Iron Sand the size of a refrigerator crashed on top of the knight's previous position, rupturing through the metal flooring with the ease of a needle through silk.

Metal folded around the block, debris jumped and crashed against the floor. Dead bodies fell from their spheres.

Sakura, sheltered beneath Naruto's body, stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.

Hikari is furious, the dumb thought crossed her mind.

As she and Naruto began to rise to their feet, she glimpsed Temujin's bewildered face as he moved into a seated position. His ruby eyes were so wide behind his visor she had no difficulty seeing the shock and fear in them at a distance.

Before his comrade could rise off the floor, gravity seemed to cease to exist.

She began to float, tugged legs first by an ankle bracelet of Iron Sand. In an act of desperate and futile defiance, Wakiko scratched at the floor in search of something to grab ahold of. The first wire she grabbed snapped. The piping she latched onto began to tug out of the floor.

"Wakiko!" Temujin called out, trying to reach for his comrade.

Wakiko reached out, and then the piping snapped. Gravity seemed to reverse as she and the block of Iron Sand soared like arrows back through the hole in the ceiling.

"What sort of power—"

Reverberations of her body and the block crashing through walls and ceilings drowned out Temujin.

The ship shuddered again, knocking him off his feet. As he crashed to the floor, a chorus of metallic moans and groans of protest echoed around them in response to the deliberate and harsh abuse.

With his comrades separated, Sakura rose and steadied herself, lowering her hand towards her ninja tool box. Things were heating up fast.

Seeing as their allies from the Sand had taken the other three on, that left Temujin to them.

This will be tough. I'm not at one hundred percent yet. And if he unleashes his full power, I'm not sure we'll be able to stop him. But… Her fingers brushed along the cold ring of a kunai. I'm not going to back down here. If we don't stop them, who knows how many other children will lose their lives for Haido's ambition.

They had to act. They had to stop these invaders before they set their whole continent ablaze with a war.

Their fleets were annihilated here and in the Land of Water, so all that's left to do is eliminate their remaining lieutenants, Haido, and destroy that land-ship. But first things first. She hooked her finger into the ring. We'll handle Temujin.

"This insanity has to stop," Sakura stated firmly. "Naruto was right. Haido twisted these poor children into pawns, and though you may be able to harden your heart and write off their lives as necessary sacrifices, I can't. You twisted vulnerable children with nothing left into soldiers. I may not be able to save them. But I—no, we won't let you hurt anyone else."

Temujin grunted. On his feet again, he leveled his sword with the Leaf shinobi. Red rubies burned beneath the shadow of his steel visor.

"What on earth are you thinking?" Naruto growled.

"I already told you, didn't I? If one hopes to achieve a higher goal, certain sacrifices must be made."

"What th— Look around you!" her teammate threw his hand out to a nearby corpse. "Aren't these your friends lying here!"

"They are. And like me they were willing to sacrifice everything to bring about a utop—"

"Spare me that crap, will ya! If they are your friends, you sure don't act like it!"

Temujin's eyes twitched.

They all stood there, silent and still as the corpses, echoes of battle reverberating through the metal skeleton.

Naruto's hand leapt into his pouch. Sakura yanked her kunai free. Temujin jolted forward.

The whistle of shurikens sang through the air, then twisted into metallic cries as they were deflected.

Rapid and piercing collisions of kunai and sword followed as Sakura reached the knight.

Lines in the sand had finally been drawn, and their truce had reached its end.

As Naruto darted in around the kunoichi, kunai in hand, Temujin parried aside the shorter blade and caught the kunoichi with a kick.

Sakura felt the air eject from her lungs twice, first upon impact as the greave struck her stomach, and then for a second time when she bulleted straight through the entranceway into the wall outside of the corridor.

Then the wall collapsed behind her.

Carried by the force of his attack, Sakura crashed and tumbled into a darkened room, the crashing of pipes drowning out her groan of pain.

Instinct moved her from sliding along the floor to standing on her own two feet once more. A good thing, too. Temujin was already leaping through the new opening.

He slashed at a collection of hanging pipes as he passed beneath them. More clanging resonated through the ship, and the opening he leapt through became impassable.

Temujin was upon her a moment later. She raised her blade and red sparks leapt through the darkness. Sakura's feet carried her in a retreat towards the unknown on displaced flooring.

"Hang on, Sakura!" Naruto called from somewhere beyond the room.

He's separated us. He know's I'm weakened, so he's trying to get rid of me first.

Planting her back foot, the kunoichi clenched her free hand into a fist and prepared a block she knew wouldn't hold against his superior technique.

Clang!

The kunai flew from her hand and battered against the walls somewhere in the darkness.

Sakura, against his expectations, advanced instead of stumbled back; his sword arm was vulnerable at the end of his strike.

But you're still injured, too!

Her chakra-powered fist found its home—a gap in the armor at his shoulder.

Temujin's eyes went wide behind his visor. Sakura swore she felt the bone break or the shoulder dislodge beneath her fist.

The stiff blow resounded in the cramped room, and the knight whirled lopsided through the air, crashing noisily against the pipes he knocked down. Metal conformed around him.

Through the pain he saw the flicker of a red dress. Temujin grunted and threw himself aside as Sakura flew in. The pipe bent and moaned beneath the sole of her foot.

Fluidly, she pushed off the rattling pipe at a diagonal, spun through the air, drawing a kunai as she did, and slashed. The sharp cry of their blades stung her eardrums.

Temujin, wielding his sword in his opposite hand, kicked with the speed and force of a bucking horse. She couldn't counter.

There was little air left to breathe before Sakura crashed against unbending steel, and then there was none at all when she collapsed to the ground, gasping like a fish suffocating in a dry lake.

Spasms attacked her back. Terrible aches sapped away her strength and stamina.

Grimacing, one eye shut, Sakura lifted her quivering head and saw Temujin gripping his injured shoulder from his knees; she'd dislocated it from the socket, and now he seemed determined to put it back in.

She didn't have much time. She had to move. She had to regroup with Naruto. On her own, in her current condition, she didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

Sakura scanned the room for an exit, some means to escape Temujin's impromptu prison.

An entryway with two ruptured pipes crossing in front of it caught her eye.

Have… Sakura pressed her trembling hands against the cold floor. To keep…moving…

Temujin let out a loud grunt. He squeezed his eyes shut and threw his head back as he felt the ball of the humerus reenter the socket of the scapula, aided by the passive healing of the Stone of Gelel.

When he opened his eyes he saw the tail end of a red dress slipping out of sight into the adjacent hall.

The kunoichi could scarcely breathe. She cupped an arm around her abdomen as she staggered down the narrow hall over disjointed floors, tubings, pipes, and motionless armored bodies.

Keep…moving, she commanded her body, taking the first left turn. Have to…regroup.

She gasped for air. She climbed over the bulbous armored shell of a puppet soldier, towards another hall running, to her mind, as the top of a T-junction.

The clank-clank-clank of greaves pursued her.

At the T-junction, she looked left and saw a door with a wheel on it—it was sealed shut tighter than the Leaf Village's coffers. To her right the hall continued on, breaking off left and right into other halls.

This place is a maze. Of all the luck…

Sakura turned right and began to stagger quickly, quicker, towards the maze. Why couldn't they have put signs up somewhere? Hell, she half-expected to hear Naruto shouting her name, but he was oddly quie—

"Sakura!" Naruto shouted, voice muffled.

Spinning around, she saw Naruto's head of blond hair and cerulean eyes through the glass porthole in the sealed door.

"Naruto," she rasped.

Right on time.

As she stepped forward, white armor and a red cape flashed before her. It took all she had to leap back, and even then the fabric of her shawl split apart. She felt no pain.

"Temujin, you coward!" Naruto shouted from the other side. "Hang in there, Sakura! I'll get this door open in a second!"

I don't know if you can, she evaded back, then tripped on the uneven flooring. She caught herself with one hand, and then caught his sword with her unsteady kunai. I think its locked on my side!

Leaning her head back as the edge shook above her neck, a violent shudder suddenly rocked the ship.

With a blade trembling dangerously close to her throat, Sakura watched as a heavy panel directly above Temujin came loose. She watched it swing on one connected end in the blindspot his helmet created, and then, with relief, watched it bulldoze straight into Temujin's shoulder.

It had happened so quickly, he hadn't even sensed it coming. Temujin bounced off the steel panel, and was thrown into the wall with a metallic thud.

I'll have to thank Gaara or Hikari for the save later, Sakura thought, quickly rolling along her aching back, onto her feet and into a defensive position. Even if it was unintentional.

At the opposite end of the hall, several Naruto's were slamming themselves against the door, yelling, "On three! One, two, three! Again! One, two, three! Again!"

The chant continued. She could hear them throwing themselves against steel over her pounding heart.

It was futile, she wanted to chide him. A lock on a ship like this wouldn't be capable of being broken by such simple brute force. However, in his position, she'd probably be doing the same thing.

Recovered, Temujin bounded up onto the uneven floor. Sakura lifted her kunai, and red-hot sparks rained onto the floor; the kunai nearly flew from her hand.

She ducked beneath a slash of his sword, and it clanged against the walls of the narrow hallway they were crammed within.

She parried away his follow-up, a result of timing, luck, and his frustration obscuring his technique; a metallic thud struck the corridor as the cross-guard took the brunt of the wall head-on.

He slashed again. Gripping both hands on her kunai, she blocked, but the overwhelming power sent her stumbling left shoulder first into the wall. The harsh jolt made her grimace.

A desperate duck saved her neck, literally. But as she rose his sword came flying in again.

The sharp cry of metal made them both wince. However, again, the power behind his strikes was too much. Sakura was thrown into the opposite wall—now both of her shoulders were thrumming.

Great.

Instinct again was enough to keep her in the fight. Body and blade acted on their own to narrowly deflect Temujin's thrusting follow-up and step back.

Directly into a gauntlet-covered backhand.

Sakura didn't remember crying out. She didn't remember the blow throwing her back five paces or the jolt of pain as she crashed first on top of a decommissioned puppet soldier, and then rolled off onto its other side.

A piercing whine of white-noise filled her ears. She blinked in a daze, left eyelid feeling wet and warm. Something dark and strange in shape filled her field of view.

After what could've been several seconds or a minute she realized she was on her side staring at the bulbous armor shell of a puppet soldier.

Then a white greave stepped on top of the armored stomach. Ruby eyes pierced down at her from behind the shadow of a visor.

Move, what battle instinct she had left commanded.

"You shouldn't have stood in our way," Temujin said.

Move, dammit. Her fingertips flinched.

"Rasengan!"

The bellow of Naruto's furious voice was drowned out by the roar of shearing metal. Not a moment later a large, oval-shaped missile crashed into Temujin, and then he vanished out of her line of sight.

Sakura blinked. That's certainly a way to breach a locked door.

Naruto, joined by Shadow Clones, slid over the bulbous armor and into a kneel beside her.

"Sakura, Sakura! Hey! Talk to me! Are you all right?"

"I'd be a lot worse without you. Sorry," she grunted, grimacing as she tried to sit up. The floor felt like it was spinning.

Naruto immediately took a gentle hold of her arm and braced her back to help.

"Seems like I'll be slowing you down this time," Sakura said, annoyed and frustrated by her own weakness.

"Nah, don't even think like that, Sakura," he dismissed. "You're not at a hundred percent, that's all. My healing abilities aren't exactly normal, you know? Neither are Temujin's. So don't even worry about something like that. I mean, we took on Kasai and Arashi together, and we watched each other's back then. And that's what we'll do now."

Sakura smiled softly. "Thanks, Naruto. Where is Temujin, anyway."

"Down there somewhere," he gestured with his chin deeper down the corridor. "Don't worry, it'll be a little while before he gets back up. Do you think you'll be able to heal? Even a little bit? Your forehead is bleeding where he hit you."

Sakura pressed her hand to her forehead. Sure enough her palm grew wet and a stitch of pain pierced her skull, coaxing out a grunt and twisting her face in a grimace.

It certainly wasn't a hard target to hit. Why'd I have to be born with such a large forehead?

Sakura felt herself pause. It'd been a while since she even thought something like that. How strange.

"I should be able to do a little bit," she replied, trying to focus her scrambled thoughts. "Enough to get back on my feet and in the fight."

"All right," Naruto nodded. "Let's do it, then. If you need chakra, I'm right here."

"Thank you, Naruto."

"Of course. We're teammates and friends. And we're gonna stop them together, that's a promise."

She believed him.

---

That power…

Temujin groaned while shoving the bulky steel door off of his torso. It slammed dully against the floor beside him.

Arms and body trembling, he tried to rise, and immediately collapsed onto all-fours, sweat dripping through his visor. It'd taken all of his strength to get out from under the door, but now… Now he felt injuries on par to his most recent.

What on earth is that power!

He grunted, whimpered, and slammed his eyes shut. He wanted to scream out the question, to demand answers from the native soldiers—for that's all they were now—but that would've be a drastic waste of energy.

He had to focus. He had to channel the power of the Stone to heal as much as he could before the natives were upon him again.

I will not…fail here… We're too close. Utopia is right before us. All of the sacrifices made… He tightened his hands into fists. I will ensure my friends did not give their lives in vain.

I will bring forth Master Haido's dream! And once utopia is in our grasps, you will see—you will all see—how wrong your doubt was.

You kids and Amaririsu, your way will never work. You're not willing to make the necessary sacrifices. You're too afraid. You just want to maintain your version of peace, even if it costs others their chance at living in a utopia.

My friends made their choices. They were willing to give everything for a utopia, unlike all of you. And soon a peaceful future will belong to this whole world, and you, all of you, will see how wrong you were.

"What the hell do you think a utopia is?"

Temujin's eyes twitched. You don't know anything. We'll seize the power necessary to build a utopia.

"If they are your friends, you sure don't act like it!"

Jaw clenched, Temujin tried to shove aside their annoying voices.

Their sacrifices won't be in vain. That's all that matters.

And if you stand in our way, I won't hesitate to eliminate all of you.

---

Wakiko panted while staggering unevenly through the disaster that was now her starboard battery. She'd never permitted such disarray before.

The floor was uprooted. Bulkheads were dented, punctured through and through, or hung from the ceiling alongside ventilation ducts and depressurized pipes; they'd be taking on water if they weren't stranded in a sea of sand. Cannonballs and armored shells lay strewn across the floor, clogging the walkways.

She applied pressure to the slow-healing wound on her abdomen. Cold pricked the sole of her bare right foot, yet warm liquid dripped down her ankle—blood from another healing wound.

It'd been a near thing, escaping the savage attacks of the native. The coil of black iron certainly would have been her undoing, if its grasp around her greave didn't provide a means of freedom.

Unbuckling and slipping out of the boot wasn't painless or smooth. But she managed.

This native's power is strange, Wakiko thought, climbing over an armored shell, boot clanking against the floor every other step. She possesses the ability to control some manner of black powder, shaping it into savage weapons. I cannot get close enough to strike. Not without drawing more power from the Stone.

Wakiko clenched her jaw. Such gall from the native, destroying her powerful fleet, and now forcing her to transform into something so hideous—she felt her skin burn in fury and shame.

But the knight reviled failure above all else. Even more than abandoning delicate beauty for hideous power.

They were too close now to bend to these natives, no matter what power they wielded. Soon it would be they who bent the knee to Master Haido.

No. Soon they'd simply be dead.

The ship suddenly heaved beneath her, as though a rogue wave saw fit to capsize them, throwing the knight to the ground as tremors unfurled through its damaged hull.

Seven paces ahead a broad, black spear had pierced the hull.

From the ground, Wakiko watched the piercing end of the spear reshape into a four pronged grappling hook—it reminded her of a fisher's lure sized for massive sea monsters. Then the grotesque shriek of metal being stripped from the ship ruptured her ears.

Wakiko stared in awe and horror, grinding her teeth together. The native was peeling back the hull of the battleship—her battleship—like she was peeling the skin from a potato.

Soon after sunlight poured into the starboard battery. Gusting wind howled and whistled through its halls.

And the culprit floated upon a stone just outside, veiled in streams of floating black powder, contrasting the ponytailed white hair flowing like a streamlined cloud to her waist.

The howling wind made her ponytail whip with uncharacteristic violence.

Wakiko dissected the bandaged and braced left knee and the small gourd hung from her hip. She felt a hint of self-satisfaction at the tattered and stained condition of her clothes and sun-kissed skin, peppered by sand and grime, some of which, at a glance, seemed branded by the hot cannonballs to pound their shores.

It was now or never.

Drawing power from the Stone, Wakiko underwent a rapid transformation. Her jaw and cheekbones became sharper, more angular; her head, too, became more triangular, similar to the venomous vipers of their continent. Scales formed on her luxurious soft skin. The tip of her tongue forked, her frame slimmed and streamlined, leaving naught of her curves behind.

As her straight hair twisted into coils resembling snakes, Wakiko opened her mouth and spat a toxic stream of poison at the girl, like water shooting from a punctured pipe, or venom from one of those spitting snakes she'd heard about.

Grains of the black powder coalesced into a shield and blocked the poison. It sizzled and smoked. However, its corrosive nature failed to burn away the strange substance.

As free grains shaped into sharp needles, wings sprouted from Wakiko's back.

"None who have seen this form have ever lived to tell of it," she hissed, forked tongue licking at the air. "All my prey have been petrified by the sight of me," she added in a sing-song voice.

The native girl said nothing.

Black needles bulleted for the knight. Wakiko darted through the hull breach, gliding along the air with the same motions of a snake gliding through water.

As the needles were just pelting her previous position, she move into position behind the native girl.

Mouth open, another spray of poison whistled at the native's exposed back. Black powder suddenly coalesced, leaving it to sizzle and burn harmlessly.

Wakiko was already beneath the stone before she countered with another spray of needles.

In her transformed state, streamlined for speed and bursts of power, she would be far too quick for the native girl to oppose. At least she would be once she removed her one source of mobility.

She crumbled and cracked the floating rock with a series of rapid kicks, then, laughing, dove down and swooped up as a black orb formed around the native.

"Aren't you the clever one. But I bet maintaining something like that takes a lot of power. I wonder how long it will take before it starts to collapse. I have plenty of time, now that my fleet is destroyed. I'm patient. I can wait for my next snack," she hissed, flicking her forked tongue. "That's the difference between us. Your power is finite, while ours is endless!"

"You talk too much."

Long spears loosed from the black orb. Wakiko evaded up, then slithered left, down, and rolled through the air as she evaded.

"Missed me!" she jeered, floating back towards the peeled open hull. "Aw, what's the matter, little native? Is this the best you can do?"

The spears realigned and launched again. With a laugh in her throat, Wakiko slithered into the ship and darted through its halls.

Spears of iron crashed into the bulkheads, pierced through the hull, and chased her as she zipped around the ships outer halls.

That's right, she coaxed. Chase me with your spears. Like your power, you only possess a finite amount of this strange substance—enough to carry in that small gourd. It takes you time to recall it, though, doesn't it?

Metal sheared. Wakiko ascended through a hole in the ceiling, slithering into the darkness. She evaded left when a spear shot through the ceiling. Then right and into a rapid, slithering descent as another followed.

She knew the layout of her broken down ship better than the native, she hadn't wasted time twiddling her thumbs while waiting for reinforcements.

Through another hole in the halls ceiling she descended, chased by spears and a coiling mass of black powder that ground against itself and created a rain of red sparks as it drilled through the bulkheads.

I'll force you to separate yourself from it. Then, before you can recall it, I'll strike you down.

The spears and the coiling streams pursued her to the port-side battery, as intended. Wakiko quickly escaped the ship through another gaping hole punctured through her vessel.

Turning around as she ascended to the upper deck, she saw the coiling streams drilling through the hull. The spears were pierced through it, too, but appeared to be caught.

"Now how do you expect to get all that sand back in time," she jeered.

Laughing, she spun herself around as she arced over the deck of her battleship, satisfied by her plan and ready to finish off the pesky native.

A black hammer and a whipping white ponytail were there to greet her when she turned around.

Wakiko's eyes went wide, but she couldn't scream out in pain. The hammer buried itself into her chest, knocking the air from her lungs. The native released her weapon, yet the hammer remained connected to her chest.

Carried by an invisible force, Wakiko plummeted from the sky, shot through the deck of her ship, and crashed into the upper cargo hold. The agony and shame were nearly unbearable.

As the din of crashing and groaning metal died out, only the howling breeze echoed into the upper cargo hold.

Inside, the knight lay motionless on the floor as the hammer collapsed into grains of sand and streamed through the hole above to its wielder. Blood pooled around her from fresh wounds gouged through armor and flesh.

From the halo of light punched through the deck, the native descended silently upon a black disk into the cramped close-quarters. She clicked her tongue, waited for the echoes to finish, then altered her trajectory to the knight.

When she was two paces from the still body, Wakiko tilted her head and sprayed toxic poison, dousing the native girl's shirt in it.

Immediately the fabric began to tear apart. Her delightfully agonizing screams followed.

A second later Wakiko was behind her, arm wrapped around the girl's throat as she expelled a fountain of poison over her head.

"I possess a natural immunity to the poison the Stone gifts me. How unfortunate for you to die like this. Shhh, shhh, quiet now," she hissed to the screaming girl. "Soon it'll all be over."

The girl struggled and writhed. Then Wakiko felt her skin begin to warm. It grew warmer. Warmer. Hotter. Unnaturally hot.

Suddenly the skin of the native girl began to melt over her forearm, the solid body became steadily more jelly-like. Wakiko gasped.

"What?!"

At that moment the colors of magma illuminated the cargo hold.

It was Wakiko's turn to scream as the child's body transformed into lava.

The viscous liquid latched onto her armor and skin, melting through both with the ease of hydrochloric acid through toilet paper. Skin and fabric not directly touched by it caught fire.

Wakiko stumbled and staggered out of the puddle, trying to brush and kick the lava off of her burning flesh, trying to tear the pieces of clothes and armor as the flames spread.

"Did you think me so foolish to fall for such a simple trick?" the native girl's voice rang from above.

Wakiko turned.

All she saw before her world became absent of light and shape was a fountain of lava cascading towards her. Then her sight was gone. But she felt the searing agony. She felt the lava covering her from head to toe.

Wakiko let out a horrid scream, for a moment. She would've kept screaming had her vocal cords and the inner lining of her throat not been scorched as lava flowed into her mouth and across the outside of her neck.

"Where is your infinite power now, invader? 'Twas your hand which commanded the pointless slaughter, no? Now 'tis my 'finite' power which will end it all."

Wakiko collapsed. She could no longer feel her legs. She was losing feeling everywhere as skin, neurons, hair, and armor burned and melted beneath the lava.

No, no, no, no. She didn't want to die. She wasn't meant to be a sacrifice for the greater good. They were all meant to rule the coming utopia.

Wakiko's lava covered form began to crawl blindly across the floor. Trying to scream. Trying to live.

Where is Master Haido? He promised we'd all see utopia. He promised.

Where is everyone?

Am I alone?

I don't want to die.

Mother, help me…

"You petrified your so-called prey before they died. 'Tis your fate to die the same way. I will petrify you in stone and leave the pebbles for nature to erode, forgotten in this graveyard of sand and metal."

All feeling and pain vanished.

---

Ranke's agonizing screams dragged Kamira from her hunt.

First she heard Wakiko screaming like a dying animal somewhere deep within the guts of the ship. Then a violent sea of sand had slammed into the ship, punching holes through the sunken stern.

Now Ranke was screaming, too? She could still sense the Stone's they wielded, so they weren't dead. Not yet, at least.

Leaping out of a hull breach onto the promenade deck, she hurried to the railing and looked out past the stern, where she made out the gorilla-like transformation of Ranke amid a pit of sand. She had her block-shaped head gripped in her massive hands.

Trails of bluish-purple lightning were streaming into or out of her comrade and flowing into the sand, it appeared.

Is that boy drawing the lightning out of her?

A second later a swirling, savage whirlpool of sand awoke beneath Ranke. Simultaneously entire sand dunes began to shoot into the air and converge upon the transformed knight.

Kamira watched on, eyes going wide, as Ranke was crushed beneath violent rivers of sand; her screams carried across the desert. And then the whirlpool and streams of sand flattened into a series of new, perfect ring-shaped dunes.

All went silent.

The power of the Stone vanished in the same instant.

"Rrgh," Kamira grunted. "I don't believe it."

A sudden shudder worked its way up the ship.

The noise of a panel snapping off below drew her gaze downwards, where a boy in orange tumbled and rolled across his back and onto his feet, lifting a short blade as Temujin leapt after and slashed his sword.

Sparks flew in their exchange of two strikes, the native boy causing her comrade to leap back with a slash at his chest.

Temujin landed and spun as the native girl flew into view, sparks once again flying as their blades collided. He utilized the momentum against her and sent the girl tumbling into the sand, but she, too, rolled through and, joined by the native boy, lunged at Temujin once again.

"Heh! Found ya!"

Kamira whirled around, but the short blades were already whistling towards her. She sprang higher up the inclined promenade, evading the ambush.

As she landed the boy with the puppet doll emerged from the hull breach, a cruel grin on his lips.

"You're not leaving, are ya?" he jeered, revealing three more of his short blades gripped between the gaps of his gloved fingers.

Kamira smirked. "Should've walked when you had the chance, sweetie."

Bang!

The crash of a heavy object on the promenade startled the native boy and the knight.

Ruby eyes flicking to her left, at first Kamira believed it to be a dull stone falling from god-knows-where. But as it rolled closer, and stopped, Kamira drew in a sharp breath.

Wakiko's severed and petrified head, rendered bald and frozen in the throes of a scream, stared lifelessly at her.

Floating above the promenade on a black disk was the white-haired one. She held a glowing turquoise stone just larger than an egg in her left hand, a veil of black powder streamed and undulated around her.

Wakiko's Stone!

How had the native done it? How was someone blind capable of removing the Stone so deftly?

"Heh," the native boy exhaled a dark, uneasy chuckle. "Looks like you're running out of comrades."

"Surrender," commanded the girl.

"Not a chance."

The native boy threw his short blades. Kamira leapt up and off the promenade, flipping backwards and summoning the power of the Stone to rapidly transform.

When she righted herself the metamorphoses was complete. Bat-like features, including a winged membrane growing from her arms, pointed ears, sharpened teeth, and even an oddly shaped nose, were now prominent.

Chest expanding, Kamira opened her mouth and expelled a purple haze at the two natives, the force of the expelled smoke aided her escape by repelling her from the ship and providing momentum for flight.

The native girl, sight unaffected by the haze, broke free of the purple haze to give chase.

Kamira swept down and expelled another plume of smoke upon Temujin and the other natives.

"Temujin, withdraw!" she called as she descended.

---

Temujin leapt from the haze and latched onto his comrade's ankle, but the native girl on the black disk was chasing them. A series of black spears were forming around her, while two were already whistling towards them.

"Temujin, I won't be able to evade these with you holding onto me!" his comrade called over the wind howling by his ears. "You'll have to defend us! Use the Stone!"

"Right."

I won't allow you to stop us. Even if that means I have to eliminate you…

Summoning the power of the stone, an aurora-like veil swirled around his sword, which he then shoved towards the native girl.

I will!

"Rising Thunder!"

The aurora-like veil shot forward, struck the spears, and disassembled them into clouds of useless black dust.

The aurora-like veil did not halt there. It rushed onwards, straight for the native girl, who's spears suddenly formed a black wall in front of her.

Temujin felt his chest begin to burn again. The strange feeling he felt in Master Haido's chamber, it was returning. Burning. Searing with an even greater intensity than before.

His Rising Thunder smashed through the wall. Though the native girl had begun to alter course, it was too vast to escape.

He wouldn't let her escape. If these natives were so inclined to kill his comrades and stop utopia, then he'd end their violent nature. One by one if he had to.

Despite her eyes being hidden behind one of those headbands, its insignia different from Naruto's and Sakura's, despite knowing she couldn't see a thing, the expression of shock on her face made it clear she could see everything.

Temujin grimaced, the searing pain in his chest feeling as though his skin and heart were bubbling and boiling around the Stone. All the same he watched as the energy of the Stone came upon the native girl.

At that moment, green energy cloaked the girl. Temujin had to shut his eyes, the light suddenly burgeoning from the white-haired one too bright to stare at.

Yet even with his eyes shut he could see the envelope of energy. And time itself seemed to bend around it, slowing—stopping—as something beyond their understanding reached through.

Within the envelope the silhouette of a person—or rather a figure mirroring an adult took shape, standing defiantly before the cascade of frozen energy. They lifted a single hand and held it out.

He couldn't truly see the face of the apparition, yet, deep within the safety and shelter of his own mind, he felt its expression. He felt it in the very fabric of his being.

Wrath. Unmitigated wrath.

"You brainwashed fool!" bellowed a frightening disembodied voice within his mind.

Time rushed ahead. Yet Temujin perceived it all vividly through shut eyes, in near slow motion, as his Rising Thunder split around the apparition.

The energy of the Stone flickered outwards in a useless aurora.

The native girl was left unharmed, and thus unpunished for killing his comrades.

Temujin felt the stone in his chest burning hotter and hotter. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, feeling nauseous, feeling as if his head was on the verge of splitting open. Through it all, though, he heard a terrible question rise within his mind.

Did a God just stand in our way?

If that was the case, was their path actually righteous?

The Stone ceased to burn once they were out of range of the native girl.

The natives did not pursue.

---

"Their souls have been bound by the Stones of Gelel."

Despite the disturbing nature of the revelation, Amari didn't feel surprised or stunned. She almost expected it, frankly. A forbidden soul binding technique fit the current conditions of the people they'd rescued from the spheres, and those still trapped in the brass chamber.

Their unresponsive states actually reminded the Nara of what occurred to a Yamanaka's body when they utilized the Mind Transfer Jutsu. Even though the body was still alive and well, the mind—the soul—was elsewhere.

"Bound? Like the Reanimation Jutsu?" Sasuke questioned, resting a hand on his hip. Like her, he didn't seem all that surprised either.

Shifting the tome to lay open in her left hand, Amari shook her head, pressed her thumb inside as a reference point, and turned the page to continue researching the contents within.

"Similar, but different. The Reanimation Jutsu works by binding a departed soul to that of a living sacrifice. In order to actually do that, though, the user of the technique requires a certain amount of DNA from the deceased they wish to reanimate.

"However, the Stone is sort of a reverse of that. A wielder of the Stone isn't binding souls of the departed to living bodies, instead it is absorbing the souls of a living subject and binding them to a puppet. Before it reaches the puppet, though, the soul is bound to another plane—The Beyond is what the tribe called it."

"The Beyond?" Miss Anbu repeated, narrowing her eyes behind the mask.

"They describe it as a space beyond time," she explained, slowly pacing off to the side. "Here, let me read this excerpt. 'Beyond Earth yet before Heaven, The Power inhabits The Beyond, where time has just been born, and where time died eons ago. Gelel granted us an opportunity to soar like birds in our purest form, but greedy hearts tainted this gift, for it is not enough to see the bird soar as it is born to do. Greedy hearts rather see them caged.

"'Thus a new practice began. In their search for further wealth they bound the souls of the least fortunate into husks designed for war, then dispatched the unfortunate souls to conquer more land. But we learned there was yet hope in this despair—so long as the host's body is cared for, the soul always has a home to return to. By the Power of Gelel, and only by The Power, can a bound soul be freed from The Beyond.'"

"So Haido binds their souls to The Beyond, then transfers them into those giant soldiers," Sasuke judged. "But in order to free them we'll need to capture a Stone. Otherwise they're as good as dead."

"Right," Amari nodded, turning and pacing towards the pair.

"Does it say what happens to souls with no body to return to?" Miss Anbu asked.

"Hmm." Amari flipped the page. "Um… There doesn't seem to be… Wait, here we go. 'When I took flight for the final time I saw the souls of those who lost their physical bodies, now eternally trapped in The Beyond. Unable to return to Earth, and unable to pass into Heaven. Many faces I recognized.'"

"What a cruel fate," Miss Anbu said, voice lowering in sorrow.

"Wait, that's not all. 'Many faces I recognized. However, as I neared the end of my flight, I chanced upon a woman I did not recognize. A woman with eyes like blazing fire, bearing an aura as soothing as a mother's lullaby.

"'She was gathering the lost, guiding them to a new destination. "Where," I asked, "do you guide them?" "Where they may once again know peace," she replied.

"'I told her I did not understand. Where could one ferry a soul while forever bound in The Beyond? Even now I can hear her voice, strong and wise, yet full of warmth and gentleness. "Your perspective of The Power and The Beyond is finite," she said. "Where you see time as a tapestry woven from start to finish, I see an ocean without any true beginning or end." I wonder to this day if she was a manifestation of Gelel. Or something more.'"

"At least someone was looking out for those souls," Sasuke said.

"Yeah."

"Let us know if you learn anything else, Haya."

"I will."

I need to figure out how to use the power of the Stone, Amari thought. If I can figure that out, we'll have a shot at saving everyone.

A woman with eyes like blazing fire… Could it be…

She sat down again and read on.

---

Shikamaru stared pensively at the broken debris, consisting of cartwheels, snapped off wood, discarded cans, and boxes the nomad tribe deemed non-essential. He batted away a fly—damn things were buzzing about, drawn by the fresh corpses of the rhinoceros and two ostriches slain in the conflict.

Acceptable losses overall. Beat the hell out of losing the whole herd and members of the tribe to an unforeseen ambush. Instead they'd managed to draw the enemy in and surprise them with a decoy, and he even managed to capture the lieutenant.

Would've been a nice story to tell. A neat one tied off with a big red ribbon. Then he could've been one step closer to heading back home to his bed.

I won't be getting back home for a while, Shikamaru concluded, flattening his lips and humming deep in his chest. That power she used, it was like a Second Stage Curse Mark. Hell, it was like those Idiot Brothers got an extra boost of strength from a Curse Mark.

Out of nowhere the lieutenant transformed into a bipedal wolf, almost like one of those stories about humans transforming into wolves beneath a full moon. Except she did it in broad daylight, and they hadn't been able to keep ahold of her.

One moment they had her in their grasps—mission accomplished. The next, her transformation took hold and she unleashed a powerful howl that shattered the boulder he'd stood upon. It bowled Chōji over and sent him careening into the cliffside wall enclosing their decoy caravan, and, upon hitting the peak of the howl, left Ino's ears bleeding.

Then the lieutenant took off. She was gone and out of sight before the Crows could act and before he could get his feet under him.

She retreated out of an abundance of caution, Shikamaru theorized. Even though she was incredibly strong, she doesn't know the limits or capabilities of our powers. Likewise, none of us knew they could transform like that. Now I do. Next time…

Next time his plan wouldn't be partially successful. It'd be a full completion of their mission.

Swatting his neck, Shikamaru exhaled a sigh and stuffed a hand into his pocket.

It wasn't all bad. They kept the nomad tribe safe and minimized the potential damage. Left unchecked, who knows how much carnage that woman would've unleashed.

They did good, but they needed to do better next time.

Man, this is all such a pain.

There was only one way they'd pull off a perfect counter against these invaders. They needed to stop them from getting their hands on whatever power encouraged them to cross the sea.

Shikamaru turned away from the carnage and maneuvered through the wreckage to his comrades, who were joined by the leader of the tribe and his granddaughter, and a ferret, of all things; the tribe elder and granddaughter were offering what little aid they could to Ino's and Chōji's injuries.

Once again he got away clean with a few bumps, while they…

"Hey, Gramps," Shikamaru spoke up as he neared. "You ever hear of a Book of Gelel?"

The old man flattened his lips but said nothing. Funnily enough, that alone said everything.

"They had the book," he said. "And they had it for a while. Everything it contains—all of those secrets—are in their hands."

"…That would certainly explain a great deal of what I've seen," the old man—Kahiko—said after a moment. "Including that woman's terrifying transformation."

"Listen, normally it wouldn't be my business to pry into your Clan's secrets, but these invaders are making it impossible not to. They're not going to leave you alone, either. She ran this time, but they'll come back. My guess: The book doesn't give an exact location to the power source. That secret was kept among your people, right?"

Kahiko didn't say a word.

Great. He was being difficult. Like this whole situation wasn't difficult enough already.

Sighing, Shikamaru kneeled next to the old man and looked him in the eye.

"We need to work together to stop them," he emphasized. "Their goon squad is made up of kids and adults they've shoved into containment spheres, and none of them are coming around now that we've freed them. And this might sound strange, but I think those Stone's are resonating with my cousin. They're speaking to her."

"Speaking… That shouldn't be possible. The mines were sealed long ago. None of the power should be seeping out, unless…"

"Unless what?" Shikamaru prompted.

"Unless that boy is of royal blood. His use of the Stone may be causing the mines to subconsciously awaken."

"Subconsciously?" Ino questioned, hand pressed to her right ear. "You say that like these mines have a mind of their own."

"You could say it does. The mines, where The Power coagulates, is a sort of well through which souls can enter The Beyond."

"Um, excuse me, but what is The Beyond exactly?" Chōji asked nervously.

Shikamaru couldn't blame him. Something about that name, about all this, was making his gut twist. He hated it when his gut twist. Bad omen.

"It is where the souls of those you saved currently reside. You can save them, as long as their bodies do not die. However, before the collapse of our kingdom, and before The Power was sealed, many souls were trapped within The Beyond. They, like the soldiers you've faced, were used as tools of war by greedy hearts, or so it was told."

"So history is repeating itself. Great," Shikamaru sighed.

"Grandpa, could it be one of the souls is speaking to Amaririsu?" Emina asked.

"Yes. I believe it could be. I recall a story passed down from our forefathers, it told the tale of a soul from The Beyond who once guided the lost souls to a place where they could finally know peace," Kahiko replied. "This went against all we understood of The Beyond and The Power. It was said once a soul was trapped within The Beyond, it would remain there eternally. Lost from Earth, and unable to reach Heaven."

"That sounds pretty scary," Ino said.

"It is. For it means the soul will never truly know peace," Kahiko agreed, nodding grimly.

"But there was another soul who could guide them towards peace?" Shikamaru pressed.

"So it is said. Some suggest it was a manifestation of Gelel, ferrying the lost souls to Heaven. Some stories depict the being as a nurturing mother—a being beyond Gelel—granting solace and comfort to the lost. Others yet believe it was a soul who gained mastery over The Power. Perhaps there is even truth to all of these ideas. Who can say."

Sounded like a whole bunch of superstition and mythology, truthfully. But two things couldn't be denied—The Power existed, and something was using it to speak to 'Risu.

"Whatever the case may be, it could be that particular spirit—or another—sees in Amaririsu the ability to stop those who seek to unleash calamity once more."

He didn't like the sound of that, either. Made his gut even more uncomfortable. It meant something inexplicably powerful planned to use 'Risu as a conduit to stop these people, which would place her right in the center of a tornado.

As always.

"You said before that the power could be seeping out," Shikamaru redirected his thoughts. "What does that mean for us?"

"It means this world is in grave danger." Kahiko lowered his head slightly. "Please, I beg you, you're the only ones I can turn to. We must stop this before the world is destroyed!"

Shikamaru exhaled a long, arduous sigh.

The world is at stake. Great.

This whole mission was turning out to be a real pain in his ass.

---

Review Response to Guest: Glad to hear you enjoyed that last chapter! Though I'm sorry you've got a troublesome manager to deal with. Hopefully things smooth out and get better.

It's strange to think I used to be nervous about changing things. Adding my own little spin to canon arcs and now a movie has really made it a lot more fun from a writing perspective, and I hope it continues to be fun for readers as well. I liked the little bit of lore of Gelel and little glimpse of power we got to see in the movie, so I decided to try to expand on it, and even add my own little twist to that, too. Hopefully it ends up being enjoyable for everyone.

Of the original three movies I'd say Stone of Gelel is my second favorite, with Crescent Moon Kingdom being my favorite, and Land of Snow being third, though I still really like that one, too. We'll definitely see the other movies, too. Including Shippuden. I'd agree with the priestess one being one of the best of the Shippuden movies, with Bonds and Lost Tower being pretty close with it. Or above, depending on the day. Same thing with Will of Fire. I liked Blood Prison a lot, but I felt it was slow at some parts.

For Road to Ninja, I did like the movie; it was entertaining and fun, despite some of its absurdity. But I can already confirm it will be different when I do it. I intend to explore a different alternate world, and likely not as a result of a limited Tsukuyomi or whatever it was called.

I haven't seen The Last yet, actually. I'll probably like most of it, if I had to guess based on my overall love of the Naruto series. But I don't know if any Otsutsuki's will show up in this story, so I've got no idea what i'll do for it if I don't bring Kagyua or the others into it.

I also haven't seen Road to Boruto, but I do love the Spin and Burst song from it. If I do it, and that falls into my lack of future knowledge on if Kagyua and other Otsutsuki's will appear, it will be different because this story likely won't follow the same path as Shippuden anyway.

I do agree Pain should've been the height of power in Naruto. Things kind of got out of hand after that. The war arc kind of dragged at times. I had to hear someone say "I have to act now before this bad things happens" and then watch them stand there doing nothing too many times, it had me all but screaming at the screen "do something! Do anything except stand there!" To put it simply, it made smart shinobi look incredibly stupid at times.

I honestly think the final main antagonists should've been Obito and Kabuto. Much as I think Madara was cool, I think the battles should've ended with Obito vs Kakashi or Obito vs Naruto, and Sasuke and Itachi vs Kabuto, and then have Naruto vs Sasuke. Not in that specific order, though. Kabuto, to me, was the best antagonist at the end. Better than Obito, Madara and Sasuke, in my opinion. I loved his character arc, his growth from spy at the beginning to final boss in the Fourth Great Shinobi. Add in his tragic backstory, his search for an identity, his intellect, and just his voice in general, and he could've been the perfect final main antagonist, not including the inevitable Sasuke vs Naruto. But that's just me.

I'll have to check those videos out. Might be interesting to hear another perspective.

We'll have to wait and see what Amari's connection is.

I bet this chapter has likely left you with more questions than answers, or maybe even some theories have begun to emerge.

Anyway, thank you for the review!

Review Response to NarutoFan: I'm happy you enjoyed the last chapter! Though this arc turned out a bit longer than intended, I had a lot of fun with the climatic ending and another little secret I've been planning for a long while, but you'll have to wait for those.

As for if there are meant to be hints at Amari and Sakura as a ship, it isn't just your imagination. Back in the Land of Snow, on the ship as they were leaving, was when it sort of began. Sakura woke up because of her injury and noticed Amari was struggling through one of her more intense nightmares. She joined her on the bed and comforted her, then its hinted they almost shared a kiss before Naruto snored like a buzzsaw. It was said in a chapter afterwards they'd started sharing more gentle touches at times, like when they moved past each other or stood by each other, their hands would brush along their arms, or rest on their backs, even when it wasn't wholly necessary. In the Land of Tea, at its end, and on a ship again—I promise that it was a coincidence—they had another moment that hinted at it as Sakura was helping Amari with her injuries. But then, due to the circumstances that followed, they haven't had much time around each other, sort of cooling off that little spark in their relationship.

There is a closeness between Sakura and Amari still, as seen in the last chapter. Feelings as well that stem from how their relationship has built from after the Land of Waves until now. Now, does that mean their ship is sailing at the moment? No. Real intimate relationships between the main cast, across all of Leaf, Mist and Sand, besides the one exception of Yukiko, won't happen in this part of Naruto. But feel free to ship away with anyone you feel would make a good match for Amari or anyone else. It's a universe of infinite possibilities, after all.

Yes, it will continue to be a thing. Amari will always be the main character, this is her story, after all. But as she levels up, so will those around her. I don't want the others to fade into the background like they did in the actual show, so expect to see plenty more moments where the rest of the gang get to shine as brightly as Amari.

I have a few plans for Sakura having more than just super strength in Shippuden. As well as incorporating more combat based Medical Ninjutsu through our four Medic-nins—Mimi, Hinata, Ino and Sakura. But a lot of them are still getting their footing in it as of now, and given the time-frame between now and the finale, I don't expect them to show those particular traits off now. To put it into perspective, the three month time-span they've been given for Anbu training will bring us to the finale. Factor in at least a few timeskips ranging from a few weeks to a month at different times in there and the time for Sakura, Hinata, and Ino specifically to show off combat Medical Ninjutsu is slim in this portion of the story. Mimi might be doable, but it will depend on how the final battle of the final arc works out. I also think I have a different but what I think will be an equally cool way for her to show off her Medical Ninjutsu and combat prowess together.

I never imagined this story would have such a massive word count, but I seriously underestimated the size of this project and my own long-winded nature. I'm happy you always look forward to new updates.

Either way, thank you, and everyone else as well, for reading so much of this giant story! I hope it continues to be something that brings smiles, tears, or even a chuckle to you all. I hope it can brighten even a single person's day, even if only for a little while as you escape the world. I know its been a blast to write it, so I hope you, and everyone else, can find as much joy reading it as I've had in writing it.

Even if its monstrous length is a bit of a drag.

Anyway, thanks for the review!