How many Levels of Betrayal?


"Ow! OW! Fuck, Itachi was not fucking kidding about the Susanno hurting-"

Sasuke continued to roll around on his back on the mostly destroyed Tenchi bridge.

Naruto, knowing full well his teammate could be on his feet in an instant, completely ignored him, turning to Yamato. "So, to recap. We didn't kill Orochimaru, Kabuto got away, Sasuke's ruined his eyes some more cleaning up my mess, we're no closer to finding Hinata, and Sai defected."

"Yeah we kinda screwed this one up." Sasuke admitted.

"Not quite." Yamato corrected them.

He got confused glances in return.

"Are you both aware of Sai's penchant for lying almost constantly?"

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other, and nodded.

"Yeah."

"Yep."

"Uh-huh."

"He once lied about his favourite colour. Who does that."

"Quite." Yamato surmised. "But in this case, it works in our favour."

"You mean he hasn't betrayed us horrribly?" Naruto asked, hopefully.

"No." Yamato smiled. "You both know of his association with Danzo, and of Danzo's association with Orochimaru. A treacherous one, but not one we can call him out on openly."

"That about sums it up." Sasuke nodded.

"Well, before the mission, Sai and I came up with a plan." Yamato explained. "If the situation arose, he would 'defect' to Orochimaru's side, claiming to have information from Danzo. And then lead us straight to their hideout." The ANBU Captain held out a handful of seeds. "He swallowed one of these before leaving. I can track him to the ends of fire country if I have to."

"That maniac..." Sasuke chuckled. "When he gets back, Haku is gonna...actually let's not go there. But you know where he is?"

Yamato nodded. "He hasn't moved in the last thirty minutes."

"How long were we out?" Naruto checked.

"As long as the author needed you to be."

"Alright then. Let's go get our teammate."


As long as the author needs it to be later


Sai wriggled in his restraints.

Orochimaru, after bringing him to the base and hearing out his message from Danzo (it had been a real message, one of the secondary objectives) had said something along the lines of "nothing personal, but" and immediately had him tied up and sat in a room on his own. Fair enough, he supposed. You don't want your ally of dubious allyitude running freely around the base. Especially not when there might be other attackers on their way...

There was a distant boom, and shouting, and Sai smiled. A paper snake slithered out from one sleeve, and began biting its way through the ropes.

A few minutes later saw Sai running stealthily through the hideout. Naruto and co were certainly causing one hell of a distraction; nobody appeared to molest him as he traversed the long, dimly lit corridors. It took him a few tries to find what he was looking for, but eventually he came upon a door that was signed 'Don't announce yourself. If you are wanted, I will invite you in.' and figured he was in the right place. Slowly, soundlessly, he opened the door.

The bedroom was impeccably maintained. The floor was perfectly clean, as was the modest desk set against one wall, and the bookshelf stood next to it. The bed, admittedly, was a total mess. The thing was king sized and had two seperate duvets and five pillows strewn about it. There was one lump in the bed that could not be accounted for with blankets, however. And it moved. There was a shuffling, and then a head of navy blue hair appeared, followed by a bare back and two arms that stretched over the head.

Sai saw half a smile on the turned away face. "Hello again, future Hokage." The girl said.

"Hello Miss Hinata." Sai replied, politely.

She froze. "You...are not Naruto."

"No."

"Ah. Uh...Sai, right? The one with the dark master?"

Sai winced. "Yes, that's me."

"Okay. Well, I'll just go ahead and die of embarrassment." Hinata, still not turning to look at him, put one hand to her head and massaged her temples. "This is why I should always lead with the Byakugan...are you here to rescue me?"

"I'm afraid not." I'm sorry, Haku. Hating every moment, he directed a group of paper snakes to slither forwards and wrap her up. "Master Danzo has ordered your execution. Please die in such a way that your DNA is salvageable."

"Oh for-" Hinata sighed. "Alright, looks like we're doing this. Ahem." She stood up fully.

Sai was able to view a lot more backside than he really should have for a brief moment, before Hinata inhaled deeply.

Paused.

Opened her mouth.

"SOME-"


There was a catastrophic Boom in the distance, rubble raining from the ceiling to accompany the distant hollering of "-BODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL ME, I-"

"HINATA!" Naruto and Sasuke shouted, both dropping a limp sound-nin and chasing towards the sound. Yamato put up a wood release wall between them and a few other guards, and ran off after them.

It didn't take them long to find a massive crater, which was pretty obviously the right place. Stood in the centre of the crater was Sai, scroll out and eyes narrowed. The rest of the team immediately grouped up with him, and looked up to follow his gaze.

"Alright, there we go." Hinata smiled down at them. "We're all here, finally. Hi guys!"

The two other members of team seven shared a glance, not entirely sure what to say.

Naruto started. "Hey, Hinata. You've..." his gaze dipped below her face for a split second, "...grown."

She had. Three years and Hinata had improved significantly in terms of height and in...other places. Naruto briefly made a note that she was the perfect size between Sakura and Tsunade before mentally kicking himself and telling himself to focus.

Hinata's hair had grown out a little, now reaching just below her shoulders, and she had apparently borrowed Sasuke's penchant for black clothing. She wore a pair of black slacks over her legs, and a vest-thing that left her arms and back entirely bare (oh right, yeah, wings.)

Signs of Orochimaru's influence were visible too; the curse mark was still there on one shoulder, and one of the rope-belt things (in navy blue, of course, and not purple) was tied around her waist.

She was observing both of them, too, and frowned slightly. "Naruto, did you work fur from my old jacket into your clothes?"

"I mean, yeah?" Naruto shifted. "Is that bad? I get it if you wanted-"

"No no no, it's fine, it looks good," She placated, "the fur gives it the whole 'beastmaster' vibe, I like it."

There was another awkward silence.

"This is awkward." Sasuke remarked.

"I know!" Hinata sighed. "I had this one opening line I'd been planning for a while to break the ice, but then Sai tried to kill me."

"Sai what-"

Sai took that moment to throw a brace of paper shuriken at her, which she dodged with minimal effort. Sai tried again, but this set were caught by Sasuke, who glared at him. "Sai what the fuck are you-"

Then his eyes widened as a thick vine sprouts from the ground beneath him and hurled him away.

"Yamato?" Naruto span on their captain. "What-why-"

"Danzo has ordered her execution." Yamato replied, impassively, before conjuring more wooden structures.

"Oh for the love of-" Sasuke freed himself and charged at Yamato, and Naruto was forced to dive between another set of kunai thrown by Sai. Moments later, there was an all-out-brawl going on in the crater.

Hinata held up a hand. "Would...you two like some help, or..."

"No we're good!" Naruto slammed a fist into a giant ink crab. "Just-ngh-give us a few minutes, okay?" He turned to his opponent and glared. "Sai what in the actual fuck? What does this make you, a triple or a quadruple agent?"

"I'm sorry." Sai replied, genuine anguish on his face. "But Danzo-"

"Really? Your dark master-"

"Can you stop calling him that!" It was the first time Sai had shouted in Naruto's presence. A herd of ink zebra stampeded towards Naruto, who summoned a squad of shadow clones to restrain them with chakra chains.

"I don't want to do this! It hurts! But I don't have a choice!" There were genuine tears on Sai's face.

Naruto glowered. "There's always a-"

"No, you don't understand. I don't have a choice." Sai's voice was strained. Desperate. Like there was some deeper meaning to his words he didn't quite know how to convey. Like...

Naruto gasped. "Sasuke! Genjutsu!"

Having heard the whole conversation, the Uchiha immediately caught on. He launched a great fireball that set all of Yamato's wooden structures alight, then ran across to switch places with Naruto. The Uzumaki fired off a wind jutsu the fanned the flames, disintegrating everything that had been set alight, as Sasuke immediately closed into sword fighting range with Sai. His intention wasn't a duel, however. Sai was ANBU good at genjutsu, but not Uchiha good, and all it took was a few seconds of eye contact to pull Sai right out of the fight and into his own mind.

The boy hardly even resisted, falling to his knees in the blank mindscape Sasuke constructed. "Please. Just kill m-"

"You know team seven once made an official pact to never listen if someone says that." Sasuke remarked, idly, ignoring Sai entirely. "Now then..." images flew in front of his face. "Tragic childhood, okay, romantic moments, all well and good, Root secrets-oh, now your brain's resisting me. And entirely without your conscious input, may I add."

"I'm not in control." Sai sobbed. "I wouldn't be doing this if I could stop myself. Haku made me promise."

"Oh yeah?" Sasuke replied, still browsing through memories. "What'd he-" his eyes widened as he reached Sai's last conversation with Haku, and the images Sai's imagination had immediately conjured.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"With...On the Hokage monument?"

"S'what he said."

"Kami, you kinky little-" Sasuke shook his head, and focused. "Right. Anyway. It looks like Naruto was right on the money; this is genjutsu. But...wow." Spreading out in front of Sasuke was a growing network of red lines in the emptiness. A visualisation tool, but an effective one. "This thing is big. You're not just under some compulsion here, Sai, it's multilayered, multifaceted, complicated...and you don't remember anyone doing this to you?"

"I...don't remember a lot of things." Sai admitted, getting up to stand with Sasuke and watch the growing web. This was the most layers of lies anyone had ever penetrated with him; he felt incredibly exposed. "Sometimes I lose whole weeks, then get snippets back when I need them."

"Yeah, this things so deeply embedded it's probably been partly responsible for your day-to-day decision making process. I've blocked six different impulses for you to kill yourself while I've been in here. No wait, seven. Kurenai couldn't do this, Dad couldn't do this, I couldn't do this, the only one I know this good at genjutsu is...Itachi..." Sasuke took a step back. The pattern of red squiggles, when viewed as a whole, took the shape of a three tomoed Sharingan. He shook his head, and dismissed the image. "Doesn't matter. Point is you're fucked up bad."

"Can you...fix it?" Sai asked, hopefully.

"I'm currently the only thing allowing you to consider fixing it," Sasuke replied, wryly, "but no. I can't dispel this. The Sharingan is great at offensive genjutsu, not so special at removing them. The best I can do is layer something simpler on top that slams the brakes on its commands after you've already comprehended them. Of course I have no idea what the consequences would be, there might be delay time, you might find yourself confused, impulsive, you'll have to actively decide not to dispel mine even though you're fully aware of it-"

"Please." Sai begged. "Nothing could be worse than this."

Sasuke looked at him seriously, then nodded. "Alright. Brace yourself. These next few seconds are going to feel...weird."


Sasuke's focus emerged from Sai's mind, and into his senses faded the sound of "go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep-" along with a regular thwacking noise.

After clearing his vision, he saw Naruto crouched atop Yamato, punching the ANBU repeatedly in the face. After a few moments, when he was obviously unconscious, Naruto sat up with a groan. "Freakin wood release and its freakin sturdy users...oh Kami we're gonna have to explain this to Tsunade..."

"Danzo's being an ass. That's all we need." Sasuke turned to Sai. "You good?"

Sai's mouth worked. "Shimura Danzo...is the head of Root...and I hate him. Oh it is working." He looked up at Sasuke. "Do you accept lifedebts?"

"No, but I order you to henceforth follow the team Seven motto-"

"Always try not to be too much of an asshole." Hinata recited from above them, swinging her legs on the side of the crater. "I remember when we came up with that, we were very specific on the wording..." she paused. "oh are you guys done? Can we get on with the-?"

"Yeah we're done, we're done." Naruto stood up and stretched. "Aww, great, where were we?"

"I don't think we'd really started-"

"Yeah it's like-"

"Oh wait, no I got it." Naruto held a hand up. "Hinata?"

She tilted her head. "Yes?"

"Please come back to Konoha?"

"No."

"Fuck!"

Hinata winced. "I know, I'm sorry. I asked you to trust me and you came all this way-"

"How much longer?" Naruto asked, in a desperate tone. "Seriously! It's been almost four years are you not done?"

"You know very well what I have to finish here mister!" Hinata shot back, pointing a finger accusingly.

"Hinata, we will help kill your cousin!" Sasuke interceded. "Like, he's a criminal, you don't have to be a bad guy to do it, we'll go with you and-"

"Is this...a standard conversation between you guys?" Sai put up a hand, like a confused student watching the teachers talk.

"Sadly, very normal." Sasuke admitted, grimly.

"Alright, look." Hinata's pupils flicked to the corner of her eyes, an impulse Naruto and Sasuke recognised as her Byakugan spotting something. "Oh perfect, Rochi's coming back...tell you what, there's one last thing I need to finish up with him, then I'll kill him, then I'll come back and we'll go get Neji together. Sound good?"

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged glances.

"Fine."

"Fine."

"But it better be a quick thing!"

Hinata stood up, and made a little bow. "A week or so, tops. Thank you. Now, what to do about...screw it, attack me."

"Huh?"

"He still thinks I think Konoha is hell." She explained. "It needs to look like we're fighting when he shows up, so attack me."

Sasuke smirked a little. "Both of us? You know we've gotten a lot stronger, right?"

She gave them dead eyes. "Oh right. Egos. Tell you what, Naruto doesn't use the Kyuubi, Sasuke doesn't use the Mangekyo, and I won't use Kirin."

"How do you know about-"

"What's Kirin-"

"And if you win, I'll come home immediately." She incentivised.

They both shut up, and attacked.

The two easily ANBU level ninja crashed into Hinata's position in a moment, but she darted out of the way, appearing in front of Sai and delivering a sharp strike to his head that put him immediately unconscious.

Then she turned around and caught a fist in one hand and a sword in the other, twisting both away. Naruto and Sasuke began a frenzied joint taijutsu assault. Hinata looked a little overwhelmed, for a moment, before with a flash of blue light her skin tone deepened and her hair flared outwards.

The first gate.

Now she was the one putting pressure on the two, and her issues from a few years ago had apparently vanished; implementing the gentle fist alongside the increased strength with zero difficulty. With nothing but a glance to communicate, Naruto shoved forwards with his arms up to bear the brunt of Hinata's palms as Sasuke jumped up and backwards. A few hand seals, and electricity raced forwards from his fingers.

Hinata paused from her repeated bludgeoning of Naruto's forearms to make some signs of her own, and the sparks caught on her palms and spun around her, then outwards. Naruto was blasted off his feet.

"You want to use lightning release? Against me?" Hinata asked, with an amused smile. Sasuke glared.

"Great fireball jutsu!"

"Well sure, for old times' sake. Heavenly spin." Hinata twisted, and the dome of wind appeared around her. The size of the resultin firewhirl was significantly larger than it had been in their early years. Larger, perhaps, than the one conjured in the fight between Itachi and Neji.

But here they weren't the only ones in the fight, Naruto summoned a sextet of shadow clones and surrounded Hinata's dome and launched adamantine chains at it.

Hinata, being Hinata, saw it and responded.

There was a sonic boom, and a concentrated blast of absolutely nothing shot out of the dome. Where it hit the flames, they winked out of existence, and the concussive force took Sasuke in the chest and knocked him to the ground.

"Eight trigrams, vacuum palm." She explained. "Keyword is vacuum. I could have put you unconscious with that."

Then the chains from the Naruto whipped in towards her.

Still in the first gate, she dodged, jumping up and grabbing the chains in an attempt to yank the Naruto off their feet, but they had learned some tricks in the last three years, sticking their feet to the floor with chakra. So instead, Hinata pulled herself towards them, earning startled cries as she lay into the doppelgängers. Sasuke jumped to his feet, scowling. "Alright then, you asked for this. Chidori!" A few hand seals, and the Lightning blade sprung to life in his hand.

Across the crater, Hinata was pummelling her way through the shadow clones, and at their end Naruto had had a similar idea to his teammate. Now capable of doing so without a clone's help, he conjured the rasengan in his palm. The two charged Hinata together.

She did not, as they anticipated, try to dodge. She didn't even make a chidori of her own. She stood there between them and held her arms out. "Lionfists." She called, calmly.

The two blue heads, blazing with chakra, appeared over her hands.

And when Naruto and Sasuke came in from either side, she caught the jutsu.

There was an explosion of force but she didn't budge, locking her fists around the two techniques as her hair whipped about in the resulting wind, and over a few seconds the rasengan slowed in its spin and disintegrated, and the chidori lost its glow.

Then, as the two boys stared at her open mouthed, she yanked both off balance. "Eight trigrams, 128 palms." She recited, and peppered both with strikes.


When Orochimaru walked up to the lip of the crater, it was to see Hinata stood over two unconscious and two paralysed bodies.

"Darling you have got to stop blowing our cover," Orochimaru sighed, "this is the second hideout we've had to move out of because of you."

"My bad." She apologised. "Should I kill them?"

"What?" Shouted Naruto from his position on the floor, wriggling a little.

"No, we need them to kill the Akatsuki." Orochimaru sighed.

"Should we be saying that right in front of them?" Hinata asked.

"Sure." Orochimaru shrugged. "Hey, Leaf ninja. Go kill the Akatsuki."

"Got it. Also go fuck yourself." Sasuke replied.

"Well, this was a fun adventure." Hinata jumped up to stand with Orochimaru. "I'll see you all later. Try not to die until we next meet, alright?"

Orochimaru touched her shoulder, and they both vanished into flame.

There was silence in the crater for a while.

"Shit." Sasuke summarised.

"Shit." Naruto agreed.


And that's that. Hinata doesn't smash them quite as badly as Sasuke smashed Naruto in canon, but it's close. Remember that nobody in that fight was going anywhere close to full power, but they were trying. Hinata retrieval arc 2: Electric Boogaloo comes to a close, leaving a bunch of really pissed off teenagers. How will they respond to this?

Well, about the same way they respond to most challenges. See you next week!