Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter Four

Sunrise109

"Well done, Itachi," Pain said, from his blurry hologram, "for your assessment of Deidara. I agree with your methods. The best way of getting him to join us is through "invitation". When you and Kisame go to officially recruit him into the Akatsuki organisation, allow him to gauge the benefits and downfalls of joining us first."

"Understood, Leader." Itachi and Kisame both uttered in unison.

Pain continued. "I want you both to lay low for the next month or so. Train and take on minor work requiring the Akatsuki's involvement. We need to focus on raising funds to increase our organisation's reputation and power. Soon enough, I will have greater tasks requiring both of your assistance." Pain said, without giving them any further details.

With a dismissive nod of his spiked head, Pain's projection disappeared.

Kisame immediately made a sound of victory. "Well I guess Leader Pain isn't so unrewarding after all. It almost sounds like he's just given us time off to go on vacation." Kisame suggested.

For all his enthusiasm, Kisame had not done the majority of the work in the Deidara reconnaissance mission, due to getting injured early on, although Itachi supposed a vacation could benefit him in the short term.

"A vacation is probably not what our Leader meant." Itachi commented. "But I'm not stopping you."

The Akatsuki base was currently deserted. All the other members were out on missions, or absent for other reasons. Even Pain was not there and hence the need to communicate to them via hologram.

"Try to be more enthusiastic in life, Itachi. Vacations are rare here. I hate to lecture you because you're supposed to be the genius here, but with your good looks, you could make any woman you want fall in love with you. Don't be such a party pooper, Itachi! Enjoy your time. Do you get what I mean?" Kisame quipped, or perhaps joked, Itachi could never tell the difference.

An icy chrome glare was all he got from the Uchiha in response.

It was a known fact that Itachi did not dwindle his spare time away in the pursuit of pleasure or wasting money on unnecessary things like sake.

In an attempt to change the subject, as Itachi did not want the crazy idea to segment in Kisame's mind and recur in their future conversations, he objected, "I'll spend most of my vacation training. If you need an opponent to spar with, you know where to find me." And with that, Itachi left, in the midst of Kisame's hearty, shark-toothed laughter.

"Then again, I think you would scare most women away with your aura of lethality." Kisame muttered, as he looked at the space, now vacant, which Itachi had just occupied moments earlier, to his right.

Soon Itachi had stepped outside of the Akatsuki base, cloak billowing behind him. The twilight sky was captivating; there was still a bit of light in the sky, partially illuminating the clouds which hung over elegant valleys and winding hills in the distance. His ears were filled with the sounds of grasshoppers, tree leaves crinkling against the force of the wind and the occasional wild animal, but very soon it would be neither totally dark nor completely lit. Closing his eyes, Itachi wondered what it would be like to be as free as the creatures of the earth.

A vacation, huh? Itachi mused, shaking his head. I'll never get used to how things are run here.

In a different life, perhaps Itachi would have eventually found love, married and raised a family, but now the notion was laughable and untenable.

The only thing that mattered to him nowadays was the welfare of his foolish little brother, Sasuke.

~.~

It was evening. Hinata remained crouched on the ground before Danzo's feet, her eyes trained intently on the ground. She tried not to let her nerves or fear get the better of her.

Finally, Danzo spoke, his only uncovered eye boring down on her.

"You have been under my training for almost two years now, my prized Hyuuga. It's time to test whether or not you're ready to face Itachi."

Hinata remained silent.

"You will now have two tests. Take care not to disappoint me. I am not very forgiving when people waste my time, efforts and discipline."

Feeling the pressure of his eyes finally leaving her, Hinata chanced looking up.

Danzo was gone.

Instantly, the whole room was plunged into a dim blood-red glow as her assailants silently descended upon her, catching her off guard only momentarily.

Hinata unfroze from her shock and jumped into the air, twisting around to catch her nearest assailant square in the forehead with the heel of a perfectly outstretched leg, in complete control of her movements and with shocking precision. The female Hyuuga calmly lowered her leg back to the ground and a moment later, her opponent crumpled to the ground like a sack of fallen potatoes. He didn't get up. The residue tendrils of azure chakra on her heel attested to the impact behind her blow, which had likely affected the chakra flows in the shinobi's brain. He was in a deep state of unconsciousness.

Returning to her 'ready' stance, one palm outstretched, the other close to her body in a tight fist, Hinata activated Byakugan and only had a moment's warning before she envisaged another assailant coming up from behind, trying to catch her off guard with his katana.

Spinning around, and simultaneously weaving through the hand seals, Hinata quickly summoned a katana of her own and readily deflected his blow just as he tried to blindside her.

Their blades remained locked as they faced each other in silence, both of them wearing their animal masks, a fox and tiger respectively.

A moment of relief flooded over Hinata, as she realised that Usagi didn't appear to be among any of her opponents.

Usagi's mask was that of a rabbit's.

She didn't have much time to dwell on that thought, however, as her opponent suddenly broke away from their locked blades and ruthlessly attempted to swipe at her abdomen.

Reacting instinctively, Hinata brought down her blade against theirs before it could slice into her skin.

Danzo must've ordered them not to hold back… They are not afraid of hurting me.

With a grunt of effort, Hinata's chakra immediately pulsed along her blade, making it razor-sharp and much stronger, capable of slicing through steel.

The tiger-masked shinobi's katana instantly broke in half and clattered to the ground uselessly.

Hinata almost smiled as she tossed her blade aside and switched into an offensive Hyuuga style stance. Although Danzo's intense training had made sure that she was competent in all forms of hand-to-hand combat and weaponry wielding, her favoured weapons were her fists, of course, and her favourite form was Gentle Fist.

Her opponent's face stiffened underneath their mask, but their body remained poised and ready to strike.

Hinata wasn't sure who moved first, all she knew was that through her Byakugan she envisaged a flare in the chakra levels concentrated in their hands and Hinata was suddenly upon them, her multiple strikes to their chest and arms not fully registering in her mind until she heard a strangled gasp leave their mouth and they collapsed loudly on the ground, their body curling in. If her father had been watching her, Hinata wondered whether he wouldn't approved of her recent performance.

"Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms." Hinata breathed.

"End of second test… You blocked all the chakra points in his arms because you sensed he was going to use a jutsu. Impressive."

Hinata registered the sudden reappearance of Danzo directly behind her through her Byakugan, and turned to face him, politely deactivating her bloodline limit.

His solemn expression belied that he was pleased by her performance so far.

"Wear this." Danzo ordered, without revealing to her what was to come next, as he passed her a blindfold. Hinata obediently removed her fox mask and handed it over to her master. Wrapping the blindfold around her eyes, Hinata tied it securely around the back of her head with a tight knot. Her hands trembled slightly as they went back to her sides.

There was a beat of silence, and then—

Hinata abruptly registered multiple new chakra signatures entering the room. And the sound of the shoji doors clicking shut.

Danzo's harsh voice returned. "So far, you have been avoiding using Koryoku. Well, you will use it on every opponent in your final test now. You may activate Byakugan and begin."

Hinata's eyes snapped open behind her blindfolds, and at the same time, the pulsing veins of her bloodline limit appeared.

Through her Byakugan, she only saw dozens of chakra networks, each belonging to the ninjas. She distantly registered their differing builds, heights and statures.

Wait…

Ordinarily, even through a blindfold, Hinata could still make out people's features thanks to her bloodline limit being able to see past solid objects; however, all the ninjas in front of her looked similar, and they were wearing various types of unknown animal masks. Something was wrong…

I have to use Koryoku.

For a moment, Hinata couldn't breathe anymore and her body wouldn't move.

Then one of the ninjas shifted.

And that was all it took.

Striking fast like a viper, Hinata's poised hand shot out to strike them straight against their heart. She took a moment to watch the supernova explosion inside their Chakra Network before all the life suddenly seemed to disappear from their body, the pulsing blue channels that filled their chakra pathways suddenly vanishing to be replaced with harsh darkness and emptiness.

"Koryoku!"

Hinata's body flipped backwards to dodge her other attackers, as they closed in on her. She used the wall to kick off and propel herself right in the middle of them before extending both her arms forward and sending the two ninjas in front of her flying through the air, their lights swiftly extinguishing like flames smothered by an unyielding fist.

In mere seconds, five more of them were on the ground, and those who still dared to come near her and face her, were like mere targets through her blazing eyes. There was a single nanoscopic region in their entire body, which even Hyuuga's who were self-proclaimed masters of the Byakugan couldn't see, that was as blindingly bright and dazzling to Hinata as if it were the beaming sun.

The Gate of Life….

It was only when the entire room had been plunged into darkness, except for the prudently bright and pulsing chakra of her master, Danzo, who had remained in the room the whole time, that she could finally breathe.

The extra precision required to remove their chakra irreversibly almost came like second nature to her now, didn't even require much thinking…

"End of the final test… Well done. I have high aspirations for you, my Hinata."

It was only that tiny, miniscule, barely-there pinprick of light near their hearts which she had eyes for.

It was then that Hinata realised she felt almost sad it was all over.

Snapping herself out of it, she realised the gravity of what she had done. The pulsing veins of her bloodline limit quickly receded. Carefully lowering her blindfold, Hinata surveyed the fallout.

Bodies littered the ground. All their animal masks had been ditched. Those who were still conscious… their eyes had lost their colour and life, completely empty and filled with nothingness as they stared back at her in compete silence.

She wanted to vomit.

Moments later, Hinata's heart froze as she recognised Usagi among them, unsteadily getting to his feet as he clutched his chest. He was barely able to meet her eyes, the fear of what she had done to him clearly potent.

"U-Usagi… no." Hinata whispered in horror.

What have I done?

"You're a monster… I thought I knew you, but… what I saw just now was barbaric." He spat.

Hinata couldn't take it anymore.

He was right.

She was a monster.

Before she could fall to pieces in shame, Danzo came forward and braced his hands against her shoulders.

"Now, now, my Hinata." He said, smirking as he shook his head. "It's just a genjutsu."

Surely enough, Hinata turned back and suddenly Usagi wasn't Usagi anymore; a completely different shinobi stood in his place, one she had never seen before. But that still didn't take away the guilt of what she had done.

To all of them…

Hinata tried to keep it together, ignoring how disturbingly powerful Danzo's genjutsu had been for someone who supposedly didn't possess the Sharingan… when had he cast it on her? Was it when she took off her fox mask in exchange for his blindfold?

He had been trying to get under her skin, in order to finally teach her a lesson… That she would only ever end up hurting those she loved the most. Human attachments were dangerous. A liability.

His voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

"You're ready." Danzo said.

At that moment, a new Root member entered the room, carrying a small box in his hands.

It was Usagi.

His warm honey-brown eyes fixed on Hinata as he smiled at her, completely maskless, without batting an eyelash at the multiple unconscious and semi-conscious bodies littering the room.

He looked back at her knowingly, just as the traumatising image of him, completely drained of all charka, filled her eyes.

"Inside this box contains all that you will need to complete your mission, Hyuuga. Or should I say, Kimiko Yuhei, now."

Hinata's translucent eyes widened as Usagi gently pushed the box forward towards her, and opened the top of the lid. At that moment, Hinata realised that her name would not only change, but her appearance too.

She would have a completely new identify for this mission.

Inside the box was a jar of dark-brown contact lenses, black hair dye and a pair of scissors. There was also an outfit neatly folded underneath; it was a long-sleeved purple cloak with a hood, and a white undershirt competed with baggy black trousers.

"As promised, I'm now going to explain to you how to counter Itachi's genjutsu."

Hinata looked up at Danzo, momentarily distracted from her thoughts.

"Disrupt the chakra flows in your brain by applying Gentle Fist in its weakest output to your temples. You can only do this for a minimum of sixty seconds though, before it causes you to damage yourself by shutting off the charka follows in your head. If you exceed the sixty-seconds, you will become unconscious."

"Danzo-sama…" Hinata understood the mechanism behind it, and it was a known fact that disrupting one's own chakra flows could break a genjutsu you were already caught in.

It was another thing entirely to do so before being caught in a genjutsu in the first place. It sounded risky…

"Only someone with excellent chakra control should attempt this, and I'm very sure that you can, Hinata." Danzo said, turning away from her gaze to look up at the full moon shining from the window ahead of them.

"It's the only way to defeat him. Use that sixty second window carefully, and end the fight with Koryoku."

"Yes, Danzo-sama." Hinata replied obediently, turning to look at Usagi unsurely, who looked back at her silently with a sad smile, his short, curly brown hair on end.

"Spend the next month preparing yourself mentally and physically for your mission. Then, I expect you to bring Itachi back to me chakraless. My spies have already pinpointed his most recent location for you."

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A/N: The next chapter is the one you have all been waiting for… :)