In My Way #3


Naruto landed perfectly on the water, striking a dramatic pose as Hinata fell over the edge.

Then he blinked. "Oh, wait, shit."

His eyes widened, and he ran as fast as he could to the edge of the waterfall. There the water was running fast and breaking into froth, and it was hard for him to keep his footing as he looked over the edge, trying to spot his friend. "Hinata!" He shouted. "I, uh, I'm really sorry!"

There was no response for a few seconds.

And then a shape rocketed up in front of him.

He fell back onto his ass, winced at how cold the water was, and scrambled away from the waterfall's edge, eyes tracking through the sky trying to spot the UFO that had just flown up past, which was when something fell over his eyes. Annoyed, he pulled whatever it was off himself, and recoiled in surprise when he saw it was Hinata's fur-lined jacket. He turned to see where it had come from...and came face to face with one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

It was Hinata, but not, stood atop the stone-dude's head. Most importantly, feathered wings emerged down and out from her arms, the fingers on which had extended somewhat into claws which she was flexing in front of herself in fascination. They were navy blue, of course, and the feathers seemed to form a spine going down her back, with a feathered tail reaching to the backs of her knees. More strangely, her normal hair was gone, the feathers forming a hood that came up over the crown of her head and had a small peak going down to between her eyebrows (Naruto couldn't help but compare it to the hoods from Shinobi's Creed). He carefully bundled up her coat and tied it about his waist, understanding why she'd relinquished it; there was no way she would have been able to fit those things under her sleeves. All she currently wore was the sleeveless vest she sometimes trained taijutsu in.

"An owl." Naruto deadpanned. "Of course. This is the curse mark thing, right?"

"Looks like it." Hinata remarked. She moved her wings out to either side, giving them a test beat which sent pebbles skittering away from beneath her. Then she lunged.

Naruto didn't have time to move out of the way as she blasted towards him; crashing into him in almost the same move as he had just pulled on her. Only this time, she went with him. Naruto locked his arms around her legs as they both went plummeting over the waterfall, wind whipping around both forms as they got faster and faster. Hinata angled her wings and they took on a diagonal route, hurtling over the lake at the bottom.

"Let go." Hinata snarled.

"Not a chance!" Naruto bit back.

"Then I'll make you." She decided. She expelled chakra from her legs, weakening his grip, then twisted them and kicked him again, sending him hurtling away even as she flattened her wings to slow herself down.

Naruto slammed full force into one of the stone cliffs, coughing up blood, before falling over ten metres to the ground below. Somehow he didn't stop at that, rolling on the rocks at the lake's edge and stumbling back up to his feet.

Hinata glided to a stop right in front of him, and put her hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"Eight trigrams." She said, sadly. "Sixty four palms."

Naruto tried, but he wasn't able to provide much resistance.

Hinata'd used the multi-palms on him before, during sparring, so he knew what to expect. The sharp pain from the first ten or so hits, followed by a complete numbness that spread throughout his entire body. Hinata finished, and released him, and he fell to his knees in front of her. He couldn't feel anything below his face, and she'd probably only spared that as a courtesy.

"I'm sorry." She said, quietly. "Please. Just wait here until the others arrive."

In answer, his body flopped completely onto its side. Hinata took on last look at him, and began to walk away.

"Zero."

She stopped, and tilted her head, not looking back.

Naruto worked his jaw and continued. "That's how many friends I used to have. Nought, nada, zilch. Sasuke came along and I had one. Then you came and I had two. But suddenly, after you showed? I had more. Haku, Kakashi, Gaara, Jiraiya, the kids from our class started being more friendly."

The first thing he felt was a brief flash of nostalgia, which he relished. But then the rage started to build, and he didn't even try to control it. "These last few months have been the best time of my life." He continued. "And you're here trying to tell me to give it up? Not. Happy." He grit his teeth. "But I'd do it. For you. I'd give my happiness up in a heartbeat for yours. But that's not what you're asking me to do, is it?"

His vision went red, and he wasn't sure if it was the anger or there was actually blood coloured chakra bubbling off his body.

"Because you are just like me."

That got a reaction. She turned around to look at him.

"You know damn well what it's like to be lonely." He growled, and oh good, he had fangs now. "To have nobody. But you want me to sit back, and let you throw yourself right back into that place. And that's something I'm never going to let you do." He looked up, and grinned ferally. "Call it my Ninja Way."

Are you finally going to let me loose on something? Asked the voice hovering in the back of his head.

We're not killing her. But she's not leaving.

...I'll take it.


Sasuke summoned a shadow clone, and handed it the real Raito. "Finish it."

The clone nodded, and walked forwards. "Sorry, asshole." Sasuke called over it's shoulder. "Hinata may be fine right now, but nobody kills my friend and gets away with it."

That was when the ground began to rumble. Sasuke looked with his Sharingan and gaped as Kimimaro's chakra spread out from him, down into the earth beneath, as his entire body became covered in bone and what the hell-

"Shit! Three stage bossfight!"

Sasuke and his clone jumped.

Just in time for the earth beneath them to erupt up into a landscape of bone spikes.

Sasuke was forced to jump from pillar to pillar as the bones just kept growing, blanking out the surroundings, uprooting trees, and causing avalanches of dirt to fall into and fill the abyss below.

"What in the name of..."

He stuck himself to one of the bones and gaped out at the Kage-Plus level feat that he'd just been caught up in.

Pebbles skittered down, echoing as they went, but the bones had stopped.

"Was...was that it?" He dared to ask.

That was a mistake.

"Look out!" Shouted his shadow clone, and Sasuke jumped off his pillar just before his location was stabbed. Looking back midair, he saw Kimimaro's upper body emerging from the bone, glaring at him. "Die." It said, before vanishing back into the bone.

Sasuke, quite reasonably terrified, landed on another spine, only to be forced to jump away again as Kimimaro emerged from beneath his feet, swiping at him with the massive death stick.

"Oh come on!" Sasuke yelled, moving to rejoin his shadow clone only to find said clone impaled from behind. "This is bullshit!"

He snatched up Raito as it fell, then used said blade to block as Kimimaro struck at him too, sending him flying backwards towards another bone.

I can't keep going like this. After all that he's going to kill me. His eye started bleeding again. No. Fuck this. Plans. He's as fast as he wants when he's in the bones, but he seems to slow down to normal when he pops out. So-

This time Kimimaro didn't wait for Sasuke to land before appearing, coming out to stab it him while he was still falling towards the pillar.

Sasuke hurled a kunai wrapped in razor wire lower down and yanked on his end, effectively tugging himself onto another trajectory then kicking back off.

-so whatever I do it has to be after I've baited him out. Ideally, I need to separate him from the bones.

The next bone was coming up, and Sasuke started making hand seals as fast as he could. When Kimimaro appeared, it was to see Sasuke held tight in the grip of a shadow clone of himself. The moment he saw Kimimaro appear, they both kicked hard off each other, sending the clone upwards and the real boy on a steeper downwards arc. That was when the real Sasuke finished his hand seals. "Chidori!" He shouted, gritting his teeth at the pain of feeling his chakra reserves almost completely run dry. He wasn't on a course to hit Kimimaro anymore, but that wasn't where he was aiming. With a yell of rage, he swept round his arm and sliced straight through the bone.

The following events would all occur within the next seven seconds.

Kimimaro's eyes widened as he realised what was going on.

With a loud rumble, the pillar disconnected from the rest of the boneyard, and began to fall.

Kimimaro immediately pulled his full body out of the bone, sprinting along it towards the clone, who had landed on the tip and now yanked his hands in midair. The razor wire linking the copy to the original went taut, and Sasuke was pulled up to land on the underside of the bone. That was when Kimimaro impaled the clone. Flinching at the memory that hit him a moment later, Sasuke moved to sprint around the circumference to try and get a good look, only to hear a roar and for the pillar to split in two.

He tried to maintain his footing but his now exhausted chakra reserves couldn't keep hold of the shifting ivory and he spiralled out of control through the air, and Kimimaro finished the swing that had cut through the bone and jumped up towards him, and Sasuke was completely out of movement, out of ideas, and this bastard who had just killed his friend was about to kill him too and he wasn't about to fucking stand for it-

The pain that had been building up in his eyes all day spiked.

There was a flash.

And then Kimimaro's body was wreathed in black flames.

There was screaming, Sasuke didn't know if it was him or Kimimaro, his eyes felt like they were on fire, and it was only his years of training that let him automatically turn and stab Raito into one of the intact bones, slowing his decent to a manageable 30 miles-per-hour crash.


It wasn't the first time Hinata had seen the Kyuubi chakra. That had been when Naruto had let it loose on the bridge of the Water Dragon, and she'd had a few horrified seconds to observe it then. Red. Powerful. Angry. And if anything, it seemed bigger now.

It emerged from the seal around his belly button that she'd been wondering about ever since she'd first seen it, years ago, and flowed around his body like a cloud. And Naruto got to his feet.

He probably thought he'd just found some new strength to overcome his blocked tenketsu, but her Byakugan could spot the chakra itself animating his body like a puppet, allowing him to move when he should be completely out of action.

So, fighting the nine tails jinchurikki. Was it possible?

"First gate; open." She declared, showing no other reaction to his words, nor to the pain of reopening the gate so soon after closing it.

Naruto roared, and charged.

The following battle could be accurately described as two kids with superhuman strength beating the shit out of each other.

Naruto punched and Hinata went flying back, skidding along the surface of the lake, then she turned away his next two hits and countered with a palm strike to his back that sent him sprawling across the water's surface.

The two had reached the point where their speed, strength and durability outstripped their mass by a considerable margin, and conservation of momentum dictated that they were going to be knocked around a lot.

Naruto thrust his hand under the water's surface and then yanked it out, creating a massive wave that swamped Hinata's location; she jumped and used the heavenly spin midair to send the attack swirling around her like a waterspout. Feeling the air pressures, she beat her wings and flew up the centre of the spout, then began to glide in an arc around him. He spotted her immediately and used the buffeting wind, which was supercharged into a hurricane by the nine-tails, whipping the surface of the lake into a frenzy. She was unable to fly with any control in the gale and was slammed back into the cliffside, so she pulled her wings in and dived, hitting the lake's surface and sprinting straight towards him. Her first fist rocked his chin upwards, her second was caught as he attempted to spin her around and throw her, but she got her back to him and flared her wings, breaking his grip, before turning around and hitting downwards, sending him plummeting below the water's surface.

It was silent for a solid two seconds before the lake began to bubble and glow. She jumped up just as Naruto exploded up out of the water in a massive geyser, turning and striking her right in the chest, launching her back towards the waterfall.

"Shadow shuriken jutsu!" He shouted, blasting thousands of shrapnel knives at her, and

"Heavenly spin!" She built up the blue dome that caused the projectiles to bounce off harmlessly, then "Wind blade!" She was forced to swerve to the side as a ten metre tall slash cut her defence neatly in two. "Lionfists!" She shouted, and caught the followup blade, skidding backwards on the water's surface as she absorbed it and why does he have so much chakra-

Then he was upon her again and kicking her, which she blocked, and she brought her other arm around and broke his leg at the knee, which only got him to roar angrily in response as he brought his other leg around to axe-kick the lake at her feet, causing a second geyser, while she jumped back and rose up into the air, making the hand signs and powering up the attack she'd last used against Sasuke in the chunin exams; "Thundershock jutsu!"

A sphere of lightning chakra blasted from her hands towards Naruto.

She watched as his damaged leg knit itself back together in a matter of seconds, and he used it to kick the ball of electricity.

It was batted away, causing another predictably massive explosion when it slammed into the cliff-side.

She grimaced. This was going to take more destructive power.

Maybe it was the curse mark acting up again, but she was pretty confident he'd at least survive this.

"Chidori!" She shouted, as the lightning began to flicker around her right arm. It glinted with an unusual onyx light. Across the lake, Naruto copied her. "Rasengan!" He shouted, and the blue ball (now shrouded in red) formed in his hand.

They charged. Hinata went for height, running up the waterfall to her left, while Naruto beelined straight for her across the lake's surface. At the centre she was directly above him, and blasted straight downwards, as he propelled himself up to meet her.

Their eyes met, for a brief moment. And she saw, she saw him holding back. Even now he was trying his hardest not to really hurt her.

And here she was, betraying him in the worst way she could think of. Tears in her eyes, she brought her Chidori down.

The two techniques clashed, a sphere of light manifesting around the explosion, which promptly fell in on itself, compressing into a tiny point. Then that exploded.


Sasuke gasped, trying to force oxygen through his quite reasonably upset lungs, and clambered to his knees. He had landed on the trunk of some tree or another, almost a hundred metres deep into the earth. The sky was bright and far off, while the bones extended downwards still further. Grimacing, he stood, gathered himself, and moved to confirm what he had just seen.

It didn't take him long; he only had to follow the sound of burning.

Kimimaro's corpse was already mostly ash by the time he got there, but the black flames were still alight. How the hell did I even do that? I don't know any fire release techniques that can...

He caught sight of himself in the reflective surface of a nearby bone. What he saw in his reflection was...not what he was used to.

"Huh." He remarked. "Looks like my bloodline limit is still more broken than yours. GG no re."

Kimimaro predictably didn't respond.

Sighing, Sasuke reached down and picked up Kimimaro's whip-sword, untouched by the fire. Then he looked up, and started plotting a path out.


It was the height that did it.

While Hinata was blown upwards towards the heavens, arm fractured into pieces, in incredible pain but ultimately intact, gravity slowed her down, and she was able to control herself until she hit a constant altitude.

Naruto wasn't so lucky. He was propelled directly downwards, hitting the surface of the water with a crack and falling straight through.

He wasn't moving.

Hinata briefly considered leaving, there was no knowing how long it would take Naruto to heal, or for the others to catch up.

But it wasn't even a real decision.

She tucked her wings and dove.


Twenty minutes later

Sasuke clambered up the bust of Senju Hashirama, and started looking around. He was a little too afraid to activate his Sharingan, but he could still spot signs of battle everywhere he looked. Not good.

"Hey, Sasuke! You alright?" He turned to see Shikimaru land behind him.

"Alive." Sasuke shrugged. "Bony's dead."

"We saw the boneyard," For once Shikimaru actually seemed shaken. "And heard the explosion. We took out our two without much trouble, I left the rest of the team to take them back to Konoha for interrogation."

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious what happened here." Sasuke sniffed, taking in the familiar scent of chakra and ozone. "Want to help me look?"

It took them fifteen minutes to find Naruto.

After slogging their way down the side of the waterfall, tracking the combat throughout the valley, they spotted him on one of the lake's beaches, and exchanged glances.

He was propped up against a rock, with Hinata's coat draped over him.


Dramaaaaaa...

For those of you who saw the Mangekyo coming, congratulations! You have at least a modicum of understanding of Checkov's gun!

Next chapter next week, and it's time to start the aftermaths.

Holy shit, how are we wrapping up part one already?