Some people might have seen something that looks a lot like this if they came early last week. I published the wrong document and didn't notice for thirty minutes, my bad. Make sure to check #2 if you haven't read it already!
Family Matters #3
"Get up."
Hinata blinked, and awoke. Everything hurt like hell, but there was a revitalising stream of chakra pouring into her that had roused her from her exhausted slumber.
It cut off far sooner than she'd have liked. "That's all I've got, and it will have to do. Get up, Hinata, you're not done yet."
She groaned, and stumbled to her feet, looking up to try and place the voice that had...wait, what. "Itachi?"
Sasuke's brother was stood there staring at her with a very controlled expression.
"How did you-"
"I suppose congratulations are in order." He mused. "You have successfully killed Neji Hyuuga. You'll forgive me if I can't bring myself to pull out the confetti."
"Wait, you were the ninja disguised in the wall?" Hinata looked at him, narrowing her eyes. "What were you-"
"Shut up and listen." He said, flatly. "Your Gokei's passive is working, right? Great. Alright, I've been working with Neji for the last ten years."
Hinata's jaw dropped, it was true-
"What do you-"
"I helped him massacre your family, and I helped him escape the village." Itachi continued, steamrolling over her, "And there was a very, very good reason for that that I'm certain you will want to know. But you're talking to a shadow clone, and it's not going to tell you. The only way you'll find out is by coming to the real Itachi in the Uchiha section of the forest outside of Konoha, at which point I have every intention of explaining everything you've ever wanted to know about Neji."
Hinata's head swam, she had literally no idea how to process what was going on. "Neji was- Wait, hold on, why are you-"
"But you'd better be quick." He told her. "I'm currently under attack by Sasuke and my father. I'm stalling for as long as possible, but if you aren't here in a few minutes, I'm going to die, and you'll never find out what you want to know.
Ciao."
He put his hands together.
"Wait, no!" Hinata reached out, but the Itachi clone had already vanished in a puff of smoke.
She almost sank to her knees again, but grit her teeth, forcing herself to stay upright and start stretching unwilling limbs, using what little chakra she'd been gifted to apply some self-healing jutsu.
"So I'm not finished." She muttered. "Of course. I'm never fucking finished..."
She turned around. A lot of the owls were still there, watching her curiously. "FORSOOOOTH!"She yelled.
One of the owls vanished, and a second later, the first owl Hinata had ever summoned appeared in it's stead, floating over to her with a concerned expression. "My lady, are yooou alright? Kuuudos returned tooo us, and we heard yooou had won, but then-"
"Konoha." Hinata told him, walking up. "I need you to get me there as fast as you possibly can."
Itachi slumped backwards against one of the few trees that had survived the encounter, and wheezed. "This...has not been the best day for me...oh, perfect, I'm blind now, wonderful..."
Sasuke dropped down in front, and launched another glare, not that Itachi could see it. The man's chakra was completely exhausted, his eyes were gone, but Sasuke still intended to treat him like a live bomb that might go off any second.
"We can't imprison him." Fugaku said, limping up behind Sasuke. "Not after that display, there's-"
"Okay I need you to Shut. The fuck. Up." Sasuke hissed, turning back to his father for a moment. "I'll deal with you when I'm done with him, considering you didn't even bother to deny trying to take over the village one time."
"I-"
"Itachi." Sasuke turned to his brother. "You get one last chance. Tell me, right now, why you betrayed us. Why you betrayed me. Or I set you on fire."
Itachi sighed. "Alright. What you need to understand is who I really am. I was born into war, Sasuke. A prodigy apart from his peers. My Sharingan awakened when I was four, alongside my first kill. I met only one who ever truly understood me, and together we went places no man on earth has ever seen. I gave away the truth to enemies, and lied to my friends. I am a brother, a son, a friend, and a teammate. I am Itachi Uchiha. And, uh, I am running out of cool things to say-"
He's STALLING-
Sasuke heard something above him and didn't hesitate; his eyes flashed with the intent to burn and the black flames flowered up...but not on Itachi.
Something white blitzed down from the skies and crashed into the dirt, catching the attack on its own body.
It stood up, and shards of opal clattered to the floor from where the flames had landed.
Neji? Was Sasuke's first thought, remembering the Sharingan recording Itachi had shown him from four years ago, but it wasn't.
Hinata Hyuuga looked up at him, smiled apologetically, and said "What's up, Uchiha. If you could just give me a second-"
She turned around and grabbed Itachi by his lapels, slamming him into the tree and muttering at him too quietly for Sasuke to hear.
"The traitor." Fugaku hissed, drawing a kunai from his belt. "She's here to extract him-"
"No!" Sasuke yelled, holding a hand up to forestall his father. He had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on, but "She's my teammate. We wait to see what she says."
"Are you insane? She-"
Sasuke tuned him out, walking forwards.
Hinata had dropped Itachi, apparently having heard what she'd needed to, and turned round to look at him.
They stood there, awkwardly, for a moment.
"Your eyes are bleeding." She remarked, after a moment.
"Yeah." Sasuke replied, wiping at them. "My dojutsu's a bitch."
"Same." Hinata agreed. "Please don't Amaterasu me again? I only just found out I could use the Vishnu, and I already can't feel my fingers or toes. And I don't even get the extra limbs, Neji must be cheating..."
"Is Neji..." Sasuke trailed off.
"Dead." She nodded. Her face went funny. Some strange mixture of pain and relief. "Finally."
"And you know Itachi was working with him."
"I do." She took in a breath. "Sasuke. Do you trust me?"
He tilted his head at her. "Do I..." he thought about it. "You left the village."
"I did."
"You wouldn't come back."
"I wouldn't."
"It's been four years."
"It has."
Sasuke took a deep breath. "But your here now."
"I am." She nodded.
Sasuke took a second, and then ran forwards and wrapped her up in a hug. She responded in kind, gripping him like her life depended on it.
"I am going to give you hell for this." He said, quietly. "Do you have any idea how much shit I've gone through..."
"I know." She muttered back. "I'm so, so sorry."
"I know you are. Alright then, Hyuuga. What's the plan?"
She extricated herself, sighed, and said "We keep fighting."
And she turned, entered stance, and faced Fugaku.
After a moment, Sasuke joined her.
"You-" Sasuke's father stared at him. "You're insane. She's a traitor. She worked with Orochimaru, attacked you and the ANBU! You're going to attack me at her word?"
"She's my teammate." Sasuke shrugged.
"Teammate isn't enough for that!" Fugaku howled. "That can't be all she is to you!"
"Or maybe," Itachi spoke up from the floor behind them. "you've forgotten what the word means."
Fugaku grimaced. And then his eyes flashed into the Mangekyo pattern.
Just like how we freed Kakashi! Sasuke genjutsu'd across at Hinata, and immediately flashed through the hand seals to "Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A wall of flame caught up Fugaku's Amaterasu, and though the black fire fed on the flames, it was still pushed backwards towards it's caster, who was forced to dive out of the way and right into-
"Eight Trigrams, Sixty Four Palms!" Hianta declared, and peppered him with tenketsu strikes.
He let out a strangled noise, and fell paralysed to the floor.
"Okay, so, now that's out of the way..." Sasuke wiped off his hands and turned to the clearing in general. "Would somebody please tell me what the actual Fuck is going on?"
Haku sprinted through the village, trying to drown out the screams of the people as he rushed past. You can't help them. There's too many. You have to stop it at it's source!
His head was on a swivel, looking desperately for-There! Black cloaks, red clouds!
The two orange haired targets, stood in the middle of a veritable pile of Leaf-nin corpses, looked up at Haku, just in time for a hurricane of ice senbon to bombard their location.
A cloud of smoke erupted around them, and Haku landed just outside, on guard with his ears more than his eyes for their possible survival.
Unsurprisingly, both were still standing, unharmed. What was surprising was that neither of them tried to do anything, just turning to look at Haku like they were only half paying attention to him. He mentally named them Spike-ears and Pig-face.
"Mist." Pig-face said, out loud, reading his headband. "Just visiting, I assume? You can leave, our fight is with this village and it's Kyuubi."
"Mist and Leaf." Haku countered. "And if you have a problem with Naruto, you have a prob-"
The moment he said Naruto's name, Spike-ears charged at him. He'd been prepared, however, and hurled himself backwards, simultaneously conjuring a much more substantial spear of ice to hurl forwards.
Spike...caught it. The ice didn't melt, didn't shatter, just sort of vanished into his hand. Haku was so shocked he was almost unable to avoid the followup grab at his face. Almost.
He rolled to one side, then backflipped up over a grapple from Pig-face, before slamming his hands onto the floor. "Hidden Mist! Hiding in the mist jutsu!" He shouted, using the hidden mist technique to summon mist he could be hidden in.
Spike swept his arms around in a circle, and again seemed to be absorbing Haku's jutsu. However, he was the known quantity, and so not the current target. Haku passed him entirely, moving over with an ice dagger to behind Pig's back, and swiftly digging it into the back of his head.
The mist cleared entirely.
And then Pig turned round and grabbed Haku by the throat.
WHAT-
"That would have worked." Pig-face acknowledged, ice still sticking out the back of his head. "If I was using this brain to do anything other than register what the eyes told me."
Inner Zabuzza, what do I do?
Kill the Mizukage!
WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE?
"You know, that is the second time I have whiffed that technique against the Akatsuki..." Haku coughed. "What are you, some kind of puppet?"
"Uzumaki Naruto." Pig-face said, ignoring him. Behind appeared...Haku's brain did a bit of a double take as a Giant Demon Head appeared out of the ground. "Where. Is He."
"You want me to rat out my first crush?" Haku spat in his face. "How about you go-"
An arm emerged from the demon mouth, and grabbed Haku's tongue. And it pulled.
"Oh, wait, Human's learned that Naruto will be here soon." Spike remarked, calmly, as Haku felt the most excruciating pain he had ever felt in his life, his insides being torn outside. "Guess this is a waste of time. Alright, time for Deva to nuke this place and then we'll wait."
Haku Yuki died, and the Naraka path dropped him as it and the Preta path moved to get out of the blast zone.
"Alright." Said Itachi. "Sure, lengthy explanations, I'm only blind and dying from a deadly illness-"
"You're still on Amaterasu watch, asshole." Sasuke warned him.
"Please don't use that anymore," Itachi winced, "your eyes will be bad enough already."
Sasuke grimaced. It was true. Even with his Sharingan active, it felt more like he had the vision of an ordinary ninja at this point, and he dreaded to think what his sight was like without his dojutsu. "Noted. But keep talking."
Hinata stood off to one side, looking between them.
"Right. So, wind the clock back just over a decade." Itachi began. "Six or seven years since the demon fox attack, and the Uchiha are fucking pissed. You need to understand that plenty of people thought Madara should have been first Hokage rather than Hashirama, but then the latter killed the former and that was that. Second Hokage was Tobirama, and he just hated our entire clan. Shoved us into our own little zone on the edge of the village, you know the drill. And Sarutobi was next, and he didn't do anything about any of it."
"Skip to the important bit."
"Alright, Kami. So the third is getting old and the Uchiha go 'alright, it's about time the next one is one of us.' But nope, Minato comes along. And then after he dies, Hiruzen gets the job back. The clan feels neglected, wronged, mistreated, yadda yadda. And people start to plan for a coup."
"You mentioned Dad was heading it." Sasuke asked, and Itachi nodded.
"They were going to rock up and kill the Hokage, declare themselves in charge. Now, me and Shisui disagreed, blew the whistle on them. The plan was for Shisui to use his mangekyo ability, Kotoamatsukami, to control Fugaku and make him cancel the plan."
"It wouldn't have worked." Everyone turned to see Fugaku, laying flat on his back. He was paralysed completely from Hinata's attack, but she'd left him in control of his voice. "I never wanted the coup. I tried to stop it at every turn. But if I'd really put my foot down they'd have killed me and put a maniac in charge. At least as clan head I could try and mediate the damage."
"Sounds like being a bitch but alright." Itachi groused.
"Oh, you're going to accuse me of being morally dubious?"
"Kiddies, behave." Sasuke bit out.
"Right. Well, that plan obviously didn't pan out, because Shisui killed himself." Itachi continued.
"Oh, sure he did-" Fugaku muttered-
"Fuck Off, Dad, that part at least was true. Except that when I found him, he was already bleeding half to death and only had one eye left." Itachi shook, rage present on his face. "He said he'd been attacked by Shimura Danzo. And then he killed himself in front of me; and I had to go up to the Hokage's tower that evening and report to that scheming Root bastard. The original backup plan was...was for me to kill the Uchiha."
"What?" Sasuke gaped.
"Go out and kill everyone except you." Itachi nodded, smiling fakely. "Put down the rebellion before it even starts, run off to become a missing-nin, job done."
"So why didn't you?" Hinata asked him, desperately. "What the hell did the Hyuuga have to do with any of this? Why did my family have to die?"
"Pragmatism." Itachi spat the word out like it was a curse, and then actually spat on the floor for good measure. "Danzo knew about the Mangekyo, and he didn't know that the Hyuuga had an alternative, neither did anyone. He couldn't bring himself to give up a clan that has such a powerful ability. So he...appeased them. He proposed that the Uchiha should be given the political power they desire by removing their greatest rival." He exhaled, shakily. "By killing the Hyuuga."
Ten years ago.
Neji sat in silence. He had listened to Itachi the explaining the mission just as wordlessly, and continued to do nothing but look at the floor.
"Well?" Itachi asked, "Nothing to say?"
"Hinata." Neji said.
"She's safe." Itachi reassured him. "I have the Hokage's word. Shouldn't be too hard to orchestrate it so that she's out of the compound and everyone else is in."
"The Branch family?" Neji continued. "Will I have to kill my mom?"
Itachi winced, but answered "No. As far as the rules go, the branch family has about as much political power as the main family's dog. They'll be Hinata's carers until she hits chunin."
"Hn." Neji nodded. Went quiet again.
Itachi waited for a whole minute, didn't get a response, and then snapped "Oh come on man, give me something. I know this is fucked, I know, but what, are you in? Out? Do we tear apart the establishment, do you want me to do it myself?" No response. "Say something, Neji." Itachi begged, eventually. "I...I don't know what to do."
After another moment, Neji looked up, and Itachi almost jumped out of his skin.
"What in the fucking-"
"Uncle Hiashi did this to me." Said Neji, with his blank, white eyes. "I can see lies now. I can see further. You any idea what it is?"
Itachi paused. "No, but..." He let his sharingan flick out, then let it spin into his Mangekyo pattern. "I got this yesterday."
Neji just tilted his head. "Not to be overly philosophical-"
"You're always overly philosophical-"
"But do you think it might be a sign?"
"I think this is way too big of a deal to be deciding based on 'signs'." Itachi replied, flatly.
"Point." Neji stood up. "We do it."
Itachi nodded. "Good Jonin follow orders, right-"
"Fuck the orders." Neji snarled, showing more emotion in those three words than he had in the last two months, at least in front of Itachi. "I want to keep my village safe. And my family...they can't...do this." He pointed to his own forehead, and the seal that lay there.
Itachi nodded. "Alright. Let's plan this thing. Because we've got about as much chance of sneaking in to the Hyuuga compound as we do of sneaking onto the moon, and the branch aren't exactly going to just let us through..."
"And that was it?" Sasuke shot. "You just...went along with it?"
"Our other choices were worse." Itachi sighed. "Go after the Uchiha anyway and Danzo would have gone after us. Kill Danzo (which might have gotten us killed) and the village falls into just as much chaos. Take no action and Konoha suffers a civil war; and Kami knows what the other nations would do about that."
"They were innocent people-" Hinata began, but Itachi appeared on his feet so suddenly Sasuke almost killed him on reflex.
"No. They were barbarians. They used traditions from hundreds of years ago as an excuse to enslave over 80% of their family, all out of nothing but fear. Do you have any idea what I heard from Neji about them? And he was innocent too, up until then."
"That doesn't justify a massacre!" Hinata shouted.
"We are ninja." Itachi emphasised. "Did they deserve it? No. But we had to do what we thought would spare the most lives overall."
He slumped to the floor again. "And besides. It didn't go to plan anyways..."
Blood hit the floor, and the Hyuuga compound was in uproar.
Sometimes the simplest option was the best, and in this case, walking through the front door had worked just fine. Itachi and Neji together wasn't an uncommon sight, and while Neji wasn't supposed to be returning to the compound, most of the family members were Branch anyway. Out of respect, or fear, they waited and watched.
And then the pair spotted Neji's grandfather.
Hiashi and his wife, Hiashi's father and his wife, her mother; three generations of targets, five individuals, no reason to delay. Neji had struck, and a ten year charade had begun.
"What the fuck-" Itachi shouted, putting on his best impossibly horrified voice, only to be punched into the stomach so hard he was thrown into a wall and totally damaged his chakra points, you guys, which was why he wouldn't be fast enough to catch up in time as Neji raced forwards up the stairs, and the Branch would still be trying to wrap their heads around what the hell had just happened, giving Neji time to crash through into Hiashi's bedroom and-
"Caged Bird, Clipped Wings."
Goddamit Neji we said if your uncle was still awake we'd wait to go for him first-
He heard Neji screaming from within the room and decided that, tactically, the best way to stop this evil intruder was to set the entire room on fire.
The jutsu blasted from his mouth and through the doorway, and now he couldn't see, but the screams stopped which was good because they'd agreed that Neji would only be that loud when he'd been caught in one of the clan's fucked up techniques-
He crashed through the doorway, and saw both Hiashi and Neji stood on opposite sides of the room, facing each other. Hiashi's wife was a ninja in her own right, but she was stood in the corner clutching a kunai, with a look very much like someone who knew the child in front of her had surpassed her by age eight.
"Neji what are you-" Itachi tried to sound desperate, and then turned to Hiashi, "Sir, I think he's under a genjutsu, you have to-"
It wouldn't have been visible through the Byakugan, to all the others in the compound currently rushing towards the bedroom, but something on Itachi's face must have tipped Hiashi off.
The elder glared down at the two of them.
"You're here to kill me, is that it? Both of you? Is this some delusional revenge? How many of the Branch are scheming against me?"
"Sir, I-" Itachi tried, but Hiashi ignored him, turning to his wife. "Do it, dear. All of them. I'll protect you."
The woman (Itachi had never even bothered to learn her name) nodded, and began weaving a series of hand seals that Neji had shown him in advance.
His heart skipped a beat.
"No!" Abandoning all pretense, he and Neji rushed her at the same time, but were blocked by Hiashi, who used his greater size and strength to repel both for just long enough.
"Caged Bird: Unlatched Flock." The woman said.
Itachi didn't hesitate, "Amaterasu!" And his eyes flashed. The woman, screaming, was engulfed entirely in black fire, but it was too late.
Neji howled and collapsed to his knees, as did a branch member who had made it to the doorway, as did, in horrific tandem, every single member of the branch family in the entire clan.
'Caged Bird: Unlatched' kills the member it's directed at. But the flock variants of those abilities...
Itachi roared and threw himself at Hiashi, and for a few seconds they engaged in a blistering taijutsu bout that ended with the man's hands about Itachi's neck, slamming him into the wall.
Right, clan head, very strong-
"You killed my WIFE!" Hiashi howled.
"You killed my friend." Itachi spat, preparing to use his painful new power one more time, but before he could, Hiashi was knocked sideways, struck in the side by a palm and thrown into a far wall.
Itachi looked up in shock to see Neji stood over him, one hand reaching down to help him up. Neji's eyes were pure white, and his other hand came down from his forehead.
A blank forehead.
"That's not possible." Hiashi muttered. "That can't be possible..."
"Go." Neji instructed. "Take out the others. The ruse is up; the only ones who can see us now are on the hit list."
"You sure you can take this guy?" Itachi asked, taking the hand.
"I'm sure." Neji turned to face his uncle. "I'm not his prisoner anymore."
Itachi didn't ask twice, turning and bolting out of the room.
"We finished the job." Itachi explained, dully. "I sent a shadow clone back to the Uchiha compound to solidify my alibi."
"I remember that night." Sasuke gaped. "Your eyes were bleeding. That was why?"
Itachi nodded, with a wry smile. "And you were so damn happy to see me...the clone waited until news of the massacre came about, put on an amazing performance about how Neji 'couldn't have possibly' etcetera, and then said it was going after him. I'd already met back up with Neji in the Hyuuga gardens, and we both took off. Spent a week making preparations, tying up loose ends, and then I headed back to the village to proclaim Neji a traitor to Konoha, vowing an oath of vengeance to hunt him down and kill him. He joined the Akatsuki, reported on their plans and movements. I stayed here, and hurt."
Sasuke turned to Hinata. "Is he telling the truth?"
Slowly, she nodded. "Every word."
Sasuke looked at his brother, mouth opening and closing.
...He had absolutely no idea what to do.
"You could have told me." Everyone turned to look at Fugaku, still lying paralysed on his back. "Son, if you'd only explained-"
"You hated me." Itachi accused.
"Because I thought you a traitor!" Fugaku replied. "But if this is the truth, and you were only following orders-"
"I thought I made my 'fuck orders' philosophy very clear."
"You were trying to save your clan." Fugaku emphasised. "While I imagine you will try stubbornly to deny it; you were always doing what you could to protect us."
"My loyalties were always to the village first, and the clan second." Itachi told him, flatly. "We were at odds because yours were the other way around."
"And if I had only realised that sooner; perhaps this could have been prevented." The father mused. "Perhaps I would not have torn my own family apart." He paused. "During the third ninja war, a dear friend of mine lay dying in my arms. I wanted to take him back to the medics at our camp, they would likely have been able to save him, but he begged me not to, begged me to finish the mission, because if I did not more would die. So I slit his throat, my mangekyo awakened, and I went on. It was the next day that I decided to take you out to see the warfront. I wanted you to see what the ninja world does to us, Itachi. But it seems you learned that for yourself quite well."
"And now look at us." Itachi snorted. "Two blind idiots lying in a pool of our own mistakes."
Sasuke looked between them, and sighed. "Alright. I'm taking both your asses back to the Uchiha compound, and we're letting out Izumi, and then we're all going to sit down and have a very long talk."
He was trying to decide whether there was any point in handcuffing either ninja when a quiet voice spoke up from beside him.
"Don't think you're off the hook." Said Hinata, looking between them. "Don't think for a fucking second that you're off the hook just because you've had your 'happy family reunion'. There's one thing you're forgetting."
Itachi frowned, then let out a quiet "ah." of understanding.
"The Branch was only your fault indirectly." Hinata told him, walking towards him. "I'll accept that. And my father, mother, grandparents...they were Shinobi. The ninja world is fucked; shit like this happens. But there was one person in that compound who wasn't a Shinobi. Who wasn't even five years old!"
She grabbed him by his lapels, shoving him back into the tree so that it splintered. "You spared me?" She yelled in his face.
"Well what about my sister?
WHAT ABOUT HANABI?"
Itachi looked down, and was silent.
Hinata gave him a few seconds, then nodded. "Okay. Fugaku made it necessary, Danzo made the call, Sarutobi stood by, and you and Neji did the deed. That's the complete list, right?"
She brought one hand back, and summoned a chidori.
"Hinata no!" Sasuke shouted, darting towards her, and she threw the technique forwards-
BOOM.
Everyone froze as the noise hit them, followed by a shockwave that would have thrown civilians off their feet, followed by a hurricane of dust that had all of them coughing.
"What the fuck..." Sasuke grimaced and forced his smarting eyes open, trying to see in the direction of the noise.
"Oh no." Itachi said quietly.
Hinata dropped him and turned as well, Byakugan activating fully as she let her field of vision spread the ten kilometres or so to the sound's source. What she saw made her freeze. "What...who-"
"Pain." Itachi answered. "Oh, Kami, why did we have to do this now..."
"What happened? Hinata, what happened?" Sasuke grabbed his teammate's shoulder.
"Konoha." She choked out. "It's...gone."
Pain looked out over the damage that the chaotic Shinra Tensei had wrought. The heads of the past Hokage, up on the great cliff wall, were basically all that was left of Konohagakure. The current Hokage was still alive, it seemed, off by the cliffside. Other than that though, there was pretty much nothing except a single, enormous, perfectly circular hole in the ground.
All except for one incredibly conspicuous orange dot.
The Deva path floated down, landed, and walked slowly forwards, as the other five paths reassembled themselves behind it. Once he moved closer, the dot resolved itself into a person. A young boy, maybe sixteen, seventeen, with bright blond hair and blue eyes. The boy stood there, watching him.
"Uzumaki Naruto." Said Pain. It wasn't a question.
"Uzumaki Nagato." Naruto replied.
"You know me?"
"The toads filled a lot in."
Naruto looked around. "Right where I'm stood, or maybe, I dunno, about twenty meters up? There used to be this really great ramen shop." He began. "This guy, Ichiraku, he ran it, and he was a total legend, right? Now imma tell you a secret I've never told anyone else: I don't really like ramen as much as I make out to everyone. Like it's nice, I'll eat it, but there are other foods, you know?"
Pain tilted his head.
"But the thing about Ichiraku." Naruto continued. "Is that out of every food stall and restaurant and shop in this village, he was the only vendor who'd treat me like any other kid. I'd hop up on the stool, he'd go 'Naruto!' like he was so glad to see me, and I'd go 'give me the big bowl special!', and he'd make it while asking me about my day, and I'd laugh and tell him about all the pranks I'd pulled..." He breathed in, swallowed, and kept going. "So then ramen was my favourite food. 'Course there isn't an Ichiraku ramen shop anymore, because you just blew it up."
There was silence. A gust of wind whipped up some dust.
"You." Naruto said, slowly. "Are my least favourite person. And I don't usually go around disliking people for being bad to me, because if I did then I would have trashed Konoha myself a long time ago. But you killed Jiraiya, you destroyed my village, you, Nagato, have hurt me."
"I have shown you Pain." Nagato told him.
"Ehehe, I get it, it's your name, that's clever..." Naruto laughed, weakly. "Yeah...you've hurt me. So I'm going to tear your Paths apart, and then I'm going to find you, and then I'm going to kill you."
"Very well." The Deva path shifted back into stance. "Try."
No, I'm taking no prisoners with this. Next chapter is when everything comes to a head. Be ready.
