Disclaimer: I own nothing
Chapter 32: "Two Brothers"
(Year: X784)
"What a bunch of pathetic fights," Zancrow snorted before throwing a wrapper at the images of the defeated women of Fairy Tail. "Hulking up only to lose? Winning only to die? That really sucks."
"They were completely outclassed," Utakata blew bubbles out of his pipe. "The Steam Bull could keep up with Bluenote. It's no wonder that Erza Scarlet ended up falling before him."
Bluenote nodded in agreement at the truth in the jinchūriki's words, "And the blonde did well despite her obvious lack of experience. There was no way for her to outrun her foe. She had no options besides trying to survive. Obviously, it didn't work out."
"It's a shame for magic blood to be lost like this," Hades noted. "She had a lot of potential, but I suppose that there's nothing we can do now."
"Meh, who cares?" Zancrow shrugged. "The preliminaries are over. Time to see the real reasons I wanted to watch the stupid tower. Let's see what the little Dragon Slayer can do."
"Hmm," Utakata rose. "I'll be right back."
"Oh?" Bluenote raised an eyebrow. "Did you lose interest?"
"No," Utakata shook his head. "I just remembered that Azuma was interested in the Bug Bomb. He'll probably want to see the next couple of fights, so I'm going to call him."
"Well, I am recording this, but I suppose that there's no harm in bringing him in to watch it live," Hades shrugged. "Just…Hmm? What's that?"
Zancrow looked to his master, "What's up?"
Hades eyee the images of Itachi and Natsu, "That magic…Something's wrong. It's bubbling below the surface, but I've never felt anything like it. It's making me sweat, and we're nowhere close to the tower. It reminds me of…Zeref."
Itachi stared up in fear at the massive dragon. He tried to use his will in order to change the landscape around him, "Your son?"
Igneel growled, "Yes. My son. Why are you here?"
"I—"
"That was rhetorical, human," Igneel grunted. "I'm aware of what's going on outside of here. You're an enemy trying to beat my son by crushing his mind. Bet you didn't expect to see me, did you?"
Obviously not. Itachi surged his chakra in an attempt to cancel his genjustu but found that nothing changed. This was very bad.
"Lucky for you, I let my son finish his own fights. He wouldn't get any stronger if I crushed you here," Igneel noted. "Not that you would be much of a threat in your current state. I smell death on you. This is your last day of life."
Itachi had no way to argue the dragon's claims. It would be pointless to lie in this situation anyway.
"It's a little sad. A true invader from the rabbit lady's world, and he's about to fall over dead," Igneel examined the young man. "How far has that world fallen?"
"It's in a worse state than I am," Itachi told the truth.
"Truly a shame. I supposed that's the fox piece of Kaguya is responsible for at least a part of this," Igneel sighed. "But then again, a world which willingly tortures children should expect decay of that magnitude."
Once again, Itachi had nothing to say in response to Igneel's comments.
"You've been in here long enough. Good luck dealing with my son in your current state," Igneel raised his arm. "Go in peace, descendant of Kaguya. I hope the afterlife is kinder to you than your short lifespan has been."
Before Itachi could reach, Igneel's clawed hand came smashing down upon him. The Uchiha was disintegrated into nothingness instantly. Lifting up his hand, Igneel examined the space where the invader used to occupy. The kid would probably one hell of a headache once he got back to his own body. Turning around, the dragon stepped back to the cave which he occupied.
"Things are picking up quickly," Igneel noted. He was well aware that his son was about to go through a lot of pain and suffering. Despite his first instinct to shelter Natsu from the agony which he was about to witness, he knew that he had to let his boy experience reality in order to grow up to be a good man. "Natsu…I wish you knew that I'm always looking out for you. Don't give up, son."
"Hey!"
Jellal stopped his stomping on the bloody form of Naruto to look to Han. The once again armored Steam Bull carried a still unconscious Erza into the throne room. He put the woman to the side and stepped up to his contractor, "I brought the girl. All of my mages are down. All the enemies are either down or properly distracted. My job is done."
"You're leaving?" Jellal questioned.
"I did what you paid me for," Han shrugged. "I'm going to collect my soldiers and get out of here."
"Hmm," Jellal nodded. "Fair enough."
Han moved to turn but paused to look down at Naruto, "Number Nine."
Naruto grunted, "Number Five."
Turning, Han began to walk away, "As thanks for the payday, I'll give you some advice. You're not going to keep him down like that."
Jellal frowned, "Huh?"
"I know his abilities. With every factor you've established, you're going to lose badly," Han noted.
"Really?" Jellal scoffed. "What makes you say that?"
Han's eyes flickered to Wendy for a brief moment, "You took the hostage route, so I'm assuming that you don't think that you can beat him on your own. That sounds like giving up to me."
"Then why don't you stay?" Jellal questioned. "I'll double your pay."
Han let out a laugh, "You can't pay me enough to directly fight another Number like this. Don't worry, though. I'm not the type to help family out of their own fights, so I'm going to stay out of this. I would suggest you tread very carefully, because all you're doing right now is pissing him off."
"I think that I'll be fine," Jellal hissed.
"Whatever you say," Han began to walk back to the exit. He paused after a few steps to pull at his collar. "Strange. I'm hot. I never get hot."
Jellal looked around, "You're right. The tower's oddly warm. Something must be wrong."
Itachi hissed in agony as his mind returned to his body. He moved his hands to clutch his pulsing head. The familiar feeling of blood appeared as life-giving liquid oozed down his face. Instead of his eyes bleeding from overexertion of his eyes like normal, the blood originated from his nose. The mental backlash from being shoved out of his target's mind was terrible. With his brain spinning, he fell to one knee.
"Huh?" Natsu blinked. "What happened? I don't remember punching him in the face?"
"Maybe he's a pervert," Happy suggested.
"Pervert?" Natsu blinked before freaking out. "Woah! Hey, I don't roll that way! It's flattering but…"
Itachi glared hatefully at the Dragon Slayer. Was all this a joke to him? He had to be playing dumb. There was no way someone could be such a fool yet counter everything that Itachi threw at him. The Uchiha tried to say something, but a coughing fit stopped him. His mind flipped in pain as a result of the heavy coughs. He couldn't even see straight at this point.
"Woah," Natsu muttered. "This guy seems sick as hell. I'd feel bad kicking the crap out of a person that should be in the hospital."
There was no more time. Itachi knew that he had to finish this fight right now if he wanted to confront Uzumaki. Taking a deep breath, he began to gather his chakra for his ace. Orange energy gathered around him to active Susanoo.
"Natsu!" Happy warned. "He's doing something!"
"I'm on it!" Natsu rushed forward at top speed.
Curses left Itachi's lips as the pinkette approached far more quickly than anticipated. With his mind in this current state, he would never be able to properly summon Susanoo. His mind spun. His stomach churned. His natural instincts activated in a desperate attempt to keep Natsu from finishing this fight, "Amaterasu!"
Black flames burst from his right eye. Natsu shouted out in shock as he was covered in the black fire. The Dragon Slayer tried to consume the flames but found that they wouldn't obey his commands. Screaming in pain, Natsu fell to the floor and began to roll in a desperate attempt to put out the fire. Nothing he did managed to stop the burning, though.
"Natsu!" Happy cried out in shock at seeing his best friend not able to eat a type of fire. "I'll—Ah!"
Itachi silenced the cat with a swift kick. The feline went flying to the far wall. It crashed into the brick head first before collapsing to the ground unconsciously. With the pest dealt with, the Uchiha carefully watched as Natsu struggled against Amaterasu. Nothing the mage did stopped the fire from burning his body. After a few moments, he stopped moving which allowed the fire to cover his entire body.
"Guess the dragon miscalculated," the shinobi couldn't hold back his sigh of relief. He had avoided using that out of fear that Dragneel would eat Amaterasu. It seemed the flames of hell were too much from even a Dragon Slayer. Shaking his head, Itachi turned from the downed bodies. His senses were quickly returning to him. Wiping the blood from his nose, Itachi took a deep breath. He was almost out of chakra. To beat Uzumaki like this, he would have to...
"Hehehehehehe."
Alarmed, Itachi whipped around to see Natsu standing up. The dark flames around him slowly slithered into his mouth. As the Dragon Slayer consumed the fire, pink scales began to form on his body. His nails extended into claws. Sharp horns popped out of his head.
"Thanks…" Natsu gained a wild grin as the last of the fire was consumed. "For the meal!"
Itachi was thrown back by a massive wave of fire and energy. More magic than he ever thought possible flowed off the Dragon Slayer. The entire tower instantly became a sauna. Outside, the water began to boil. Everything seemed to tremble in fear as Natsu's eyes glazed over with blackened energy.
"You shouldn't have done that, shinobi," Natsu chuckled. "Evil fire like that is just what I've been waiting for to come out."
Itachi stared in fear at the demon in front of him. This was not the same man that he was fighting before, "What…are you?"
"Me? I'm a lot of things. A demon. A dragon. Your executioner," Natsu gave an evil grin. "But you can refer to me as your E.N.D.!"
Gray scowled as he stood on shaky legs in the smoldering tower. He had no idea what was happening, but it felt like the tower had been teleported to the center of a volcano. Yet at the same time, it was far worse than that. The only thing he could compare it to was when Master grew angry and spiked his magic. This was hundreds of times worse than that. It felt like thousands of demonic needles were stabbing down on him to the point that he couldn't even move. He was the one dealing with the situation the best, though.
Juvia was trembling uncontrollably in his arms. She seemed to pass out beneath the intensity of the hateful atmosphere. The weakened Gaara had fallen to his knee and looked sick. They weren't even the worst reactions, though. They had just run into Erza's old friends when the atmosphere hit. While the big guy and the card dude had already been unconscious when they were being carried down the tower, but now they were spasming uncontrollably. Both the block dude and cat girl weren't much better. The cat girl was even vomiting.
"What…the…hell…" Gray gasped.
"Gray-sama," Juvia mumbled weakly. "What…is…this…"
"Demon," Gaara hissed. He was sweating uncontrollably. The weight of the killing intent was great, but it wasn't something that he hadn't experienced before. If he was at full strength, he wouldn't be on his knees.
'Shukaku, where's this coming from?'
'I don't know. I've never felt something like this before. It's like one of us Biju but with magic.'
'It's that strong? How did it get into the tower without us noticing?'
'No clue. From what the Kurama and Chōmei are telling me, it's not around them.'
'So they're safe,' Gaara sighed in relief. 'We better recover quickly in case whatever that thing catches up to us. This isn't something that any normal human could deal with.'
Itachi immediately realized that he could no longer follow Natsu's movements. The Dragon Slayer disappeared in a blur. With his eyes weakened from years of abusing the Mangekyō Sharingan, there was no way for him to keep up with a speed which Itachi wouldn't expect from even the most elite shinobi of his world. Out of instinct, he turned around to face the most likely location from which his foe would attack. As he moved, he pulled out a kunai to stab the demonic man.
His eyes widened in shock as his weapon melted before it could touch its target. Natsu grinned to show his sharpened teeth, "Steel weapons are useless."
"Gah!" Itachi gasped as he was sent flying back from a simple punch to the torso from the mage. He tried to find his balance but couldn't stop his momentum until he bounced a few times. Once he finally landed into a kneeling position, he tried to ready himself for the next attack. Before he could stand again, though, his body rebelled as it realized that all of his ribs had been shattered from the last blow.
The Uchiha forced his head up just in time to see the kick aimed for his head. The blow which followed barely registered as his body went into emergency shock mode. Now numb, Itachi could only blink as he noticed strange white rocks lying in front of him. Brushing his tongue over his heavily bleeding gums, the shinobi realized that the previous kick had knocked out most of his teeth.
"That's it, huh?" the demonic Natsu seemed disappointed. "I can smell the death on you, but I thought that you might be able to give me a bit of a workout if I didn't use magic behind my punches. I've been asleep ever since my bastard brother decided that he didn't like my new personality. I even held back those punches to about a fifth of my strength, but…"
Itachi silenced Natsu by unleashing an electric ninjustu attack. Natsu didn't even try to block the attack. The electricity was quickly absorbed by the black flames which randomly burst from his skin.
"But you can't seem to keep up," Natsu continued speaking as if the electrical attack had been a light breeze. "Too bad. Good thing there seems to be some strong people in this stupid tower. This is definitely Zeref's design. Wonder if it actually works. His other stuff worked fine, so…"
Natsu's words were lost on Itachi. The sheer amount of raw power rolling off the Dragon Slayer was unbelievable. No human should be able to contain such abilities. He was too injured and exhausted after that last Raiton attack to focus on anything more than collapsing.
"Oi!" Natsu's magic flared. "Don't ignore me."
Once again, Itachi was sent flying back. He landed into a roll until he came to a stop lying on his stomach. The clothes covering his body had melted before the intense heat of the demon's fire. His skin held dozens of deep red burns just from being close to the mage. He closed his eyes in defeat. There was no way for him to defeat such a foe in this state. Even in his prime, he would have wondered if he could do anything he could do in front of such an unholy enemy.
'Well shit. You messed up bad, didn't you?'
Itachi's eyes snapped open upon hearing Igneel's voice in his head.
'After your intrusion, I can connect to your mind now. Don't worry, I won't mess with anything. I just wanted you to know how stupid you are for using demonic flames against Natsu.'
'I…just reacted.'
'Yeah. That fixes things. Look, part of the reason I'm in here is to keep that personality and power at bay. I can reel it back in, but it will take some time. Distract it for me, so the E.N.D. doesn't end up killing my son's friends.'
'You can stop it?'
'Yep. Here. Let me give you a boost.'
Itachi felt energy surge through his body.
'It seems like your body responds well to magic. Just what I thought. Stupid rabbit woman couldn't keep it in her pants. You're not used to it, though. The backlash from this is going to suck.'
'Not like I was going to win anyway,' Itachi began to push himself up for the final time. 'Alright. Might as well do one good thing before I die.'
Kisame was not a man who felt fear. He rushed into battle without hesitation against fully transformed jinchūriki before they disappeared. Not many things gave him pause, especially when he was in the middle of battle. The sudden ungodly pressure within the Tower of Heaven did however make him freeze because Samehada began to groan uncomfortably. It would normally thrive under killing intent, but something about this burning magic made it…afraid.
Fortunately for him, Fu paused as well. They both looked around the destroyed hallway to pinpoint the enemy. Obviously, the energy didn't originate from either of them, but it was too close for comfort.
'Chōmei…'
'They're okay, Fu-girl. Focus on this guy. If you take your eyes off him, you're dead.'
'Right,' Fu eyed the blue skinned man. "Hey. I don't know what that is, and I don't plan to find out. You want to fight? Let's go someplace cooler!"
Fu kicked down a wall to expose the outside. She jumped out to escape the tower. Kisame moved to follow her but stopped for a brief moment. It wasn't the energy which was giving him pause. His gut was grumbling uncomfortably that something was very wrong. He knew what it was. It wasn't something he allowed himself to feel in a long time. Growing up in the Mist hardened him. Growing close to people wasn't something he did since he first killed his own teammate.
Years of traveling around with one person was bound to make being distant difficult, though. Whether he liked it or not, he had grown to know his partner. It was damn near impossible to not grow fond of someone after all that. He knew this was coming. Itachi had been ill for a long time, after all. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't stop the ping of sadness at knowing that once he left this tower, he would never see his partner again.
"See ya, Itachi," Kisame moved to the new hole. Before he jumped out, he finished his sentence. "It was an honor. I hope you got what you were looking for."
Natsu lifted an eyebrow, "Oh? That's odd. You shouldn't be getting up. I thought that last bit was good enough to put you down."
Itachi glared at the demon. The magic in his body was the only thing keeping him standing. Fortunately, his body was numb, or he would probably feel intense burning on his insides. Right now though, his body was being held by strings.
"Well, I can fix this," Natsu lifted up an arm oozing with the flames of Amaterasu. "Fire Devil Dragon's—Urk!"
The E.N.D.'s other hand reached to grasp at his throbbing head. Igneel seemed to interfere. Itachi was thankful for that as a cylinder of fire rushed past him. The flames flew faster than he could see at this point. His burns intensified just from being close to the attack. A glance to the side revealed that the burst of black fire easily burned through the wall behind him. In fact, it burned through every wall in its path. The flames continued to fly out far into the horizon where it would eventually slam into a mountain which would be burned to the ground. Itachi knew that if that attack was even slightly closer to him, then he would have died.
Grunting, Itachi clutched his eyes shut and focused on the last of his chakra. Orange energy surged around him to form a skeleton. Now protected by his final ace, he opened his eyes to be greeted by only darkness. So it happened. After years of abuse, his vision finally gave out on him. That was fine. He knew which direction to attack. Natsu was right ahead of him.
Shaking his head, Natsu blinked as Susanoo fired a chakra arrow from its wrist crossbow. Just like the kunai from before, the arrow melted as it drew close to the Dragon Slayer. Itachi couldn't see this but wouldn't care anyway. He swung his protector's left arm down to try to crush the mage. Natsu punched up to unleash an arc of fire which immediately burned through the weakened Susanoo.
"Okay. I'm sick of this," Natsu took a deep breath. "Fire Devil Dragon's Roar!"
Itachi could not see what was coming. It was only his burned in instinct from an entire life of training which allowed him to avoid instant death. He moved his head to the side right in time to avoid having his skull burned to ash. The entire right side of his body was not so fortunate. He tumbled to the ground face first with his right arm and leg. His already halfway disintegrated Susanoo faded away for the final time.
The E.N.D growled as he looked past the downed form of Itachi to see the second massive whole he created in the tower. His fire littered the hallway but seemed to naturally avoid the still downed Happy. Pissed off, the devil mage stomped up next to the defeated shinobi. Bringing a hand up, Natsu readied himself to finish of his foe and everything below him when his body suddenly froze.
"Ah damn it. I'm not ready to go back. Stupid dragon," the E.N.D. hissed. "Oh well. This wakeup call reestablished my foothold. You're not going to be able to erase me now. I'll be back. Hopefully next time, I get a victim that's better than a walking corpse."
The E.N.D. then let out a groan. His eyes flickered closed as his arms drooped. Smoke lifted off of him as his demonic features slowly faded away until only the original body was left. Natsu then blinked open his normal eyes, "Huh?"
He looked around rapidly to the destroyed section of the tower, "What the hell happened here? Happy!"
Natsu rushed to the downed cat. He sighed in relief when he found that the cat was still breathing. Picking up the unconscious feline, he stepped back up to the corpse of Itachi, "Woah. Did he blow up or something? Is that why I blacked out?"
Itachi scared him by proving that he was not yet dead with a cough, "Gah…"
"Hey," putting Happy safely to the side, Natsu gently flipped the ninja over to see his burnt form. Every inch of the Uchiha's skin was covered in severe burns and blisters. His unfocussed red eyes stared up unseeingly. "I…I don't think that I can help you."
"You can't," Itachi gasped. "I was doomed from the start, but I never thought that I would meet such an untouchable foe."
"Jeeze," Natsu gently lifted Itachi's head. "I, uh, never did anything like this. Do…you have any last words or something? I mean, I think that I'm supposed to ask that."
"I…" Itachi looked in the direction which he heard Natsu's voice originated. "I guess that I want to say that I was a fool."
"A fool,"
"Yes," Itachi coughed painfully. "I always secretly knew that it was stupid to blame Uzumaki, but my hatred got the best of me. My little brother…he died. I watched as he was torn to pieces in a war which never should have been started."
Natsu had no response for the dying man.
Itachi continued to talk. He wanted someone, anyone, to remember this. Tears of blood began to roll down from his eyes, "His name was Sasuke Uchiha. I loved him…more than anything. I sacrificed everything so that he could live, but life disappoints. It was my job to protect him, but in the end I couldn't save him. I'm a terrible big brother."
Natsu's voice hitched in his throat, "Y-You tried."
"Tried wasn't good enough. He died while I lived," Itachi weakly shook his head. "In the end, I ended up just like the rest of my family. A hateful idiot. I blamed Uzumaki on the outside, but I kept thinking about what I would do if my little brother was treated like that. I probably would have doomed the world too for him."
"T-That's just how big brothers think…I guess," Natsu felt his head hurt for some reason. His eyes began to sting.
"Y-Yeah," Itachi closed his blind eyes. He took one final breath. "Remember…him…Sasuke…He was…good."
Itachi said no more. Natsu began to shake him, "Hey! Don't go yet! I…I think that you're a great brother! You need to know that! HEY! DON'T DIE YET, YOU BASTARD! YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT YOU'RE A GOOD BIG BROTHER! YOU ARE!"
Natsu couldn't stop the tears rolling down his face. The drops fell down onto Itachi's now pale features. He tried to say more but his words came out as sobs. Why? Why did this story cut into his heart so much? For some reason, the thought of an older brother mourning his sibling pulled at his soul. The story couldn't just end like this. It couldn't!
"Nii-san? Why are you crying?" a tiny Natsu stared up to the blurry figure.
"I…I'm just happy that you're alive, Natsu."
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Natsu screamed in pain. Tears rolled uncontrollably from his eyes. This was wrong! It was so wrong! Itachi loved his brother! They should be happy and alive! Natsu's cries of mourning echoed through the halls of the Tower of Heaven. Despite not understanding it all, he somehow knew that this was a great loss. Two brothers shouldn't be separated by death and war like this.
I know. Natsu didn't have any secret E.N.D. personality in canon, but I wanted him to. Plus, this is my story...so he gets a secret personality and powers which would give Acnologia at least a slight pause.
Happy Single Awareness Day, I guess. I honestly don't care about Valentines, but enjoy it if you have some kind of significant other.
Night Times is once more the amazing Beta for this chapter.
Thank you all for reading and please remember to…
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