Forgotten

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Naruto (Shippuden). This is a story inspired by the original made up for entertainment purposes only. - Krystal

Chapter 55: Reckless Behavior

Just like Yuki, Naruto was instructed to push further in his training. He had just left with Fukasaku to Mount Myoboku. He was surprisingly calm despite being crushed at the news of Jiraiya's death. He remained strong for the people around him. Yuki admired him for his constant optimism. It wasn't easy for someone like him to be such a cheerful character, yet he managed. Meanwhile, the deciphering team was working without sparing any efforts to find out what Jiraiya was trying to warn them about.

Yuki spent her time training her with Kakashi to help improve her usage of the Sharingan. He was quite impressed at how much she had improved. She was a natural. It was perhaps because they truly belonged to her. As they were training, she had entered her sage mode. It was the first time Kakashi had seen her in that state. He looked at her with a fatherly smile, realizing how far along she had gone. She had surpassed most of her seniors, including himself, at least, that was what he believed. As they were exchanging blows, she realized that there was something off about the surrounding area. As soon as she stopped, she realized someone had broken into the barrier that was set up around the village. She looked at Kakashi and they nodded at each other and headed out in different areas.

Yuki flashed herself to Tsunade's office. Tsunade had just received news that someone had attacked their borders. She rushed to the roof as she instructed everyone to take the civilians to the bunkers. Yuki quickly rushed to the Team 8's members as she was still in charge of them and gave out the instructions and told them to spread the word. As the village began moving the civilians away from danger, the attacks on the village began. Buildings were being destroyed, people began getting killed. Tsunade was sending out Katsuyu to heal and protect the people in the village. One of them attached itself to Yuki, telling her that she would be a messenger and a healer to Yuki as she ran around the village trying to protect as many people as possible. She encountered one of the Pain she had heard about. She turned on her Sharingan immediately. She knew she needed them. She was facing someone who defeated Jiraiya. He wasn't alone. Another one was behind and had grabbed onto a civilian asking him where Naruto was. The man refused to answer despite not knowing where Naruto was. He was scared, but he seemingly remained calm. He, then, had a terrified look on his face. Yuki tried to rush over, but she was stopped by the first Pain that was present. Before she could do anything, that man died. He was thrown to side like he was trash. Yuki caught him in his flight. She attracted their attention. The two of them went after her. She led them to an area with no civilian left. She wanted to make sure nobody else would get hurt for no reason.

"You seem to know a few things." Pain told her.

As he said those things, she felt herself getting pulled towards him as if he was the gravitational center. She flashed outside of range to escape the gravitational pull.

"Not bad." He then told her.

She then summoned Kiku to assist her as she knew that the battle wasn't going to be short. Kiku drew in the Nature's energy for her as she rested on Yuki's head.

"Senjutsu? At your age? Impressive." He said. "Seems like this is going to take too much time and you probably won't say much. Animal path will take care of you."

He disappeared along with the one that previously questioned the innocent civilian as another one came along with a monstrous looking bird and a mean looking dog with multiple heads who shared the same eyes as all of them. There were other animals around, but they focused on attacking the village instead of Yuki. She bit her lip. Despite not having to fight all of them at once, there were enough eyes around to make her feel uncomfortable. They were after all the Rinnegan. The more eyes present, the harder it would be for her to defeat them. As she attacked them, she realized that there was no blind spot she could find. With all their eyes interconnected and sharing information within their brain, they could see from everywhere and anywhere. She had to blind them somehow. It was going to take time, but she knew she could do it. In reality, it was more that she had to do it. There wasn't really a choice.

"Katsuyu, this might take a while." Yuki said. "How is the village doing right now? I can't sense people's chakra properly throughout the chaos."

"Tsunade-sama is still safe. She's consistently providing chakra to everyone in order to heal their injuries. A lot of people are being brought to the bunkers. They are safe. Sakura-san is in charge of the hospital right now. A lot of our shinobis are sent there right now. Many, as soon as they are minimally healed, are heading back into the battlefield. Team 8 is currently fighting off some of the animals that are wreaking havoc. Kakashi just engaged in a battle against two of the Pain. He's not letting them go anywhere right now. And..."

Before Katsuyu could finish, Yuki started making her move against the Animal Path Pain. No matter how fast their eyes could process the information, Yuki believed that she could defeat them with her teleportation technique, as she was constantly reminded that she's the fastest ninja since the Fourth Hokage. Everytime she appeared, she would throw a kunai into at least two of the dog's eyes in order to lessen its field of vision. She might not have the Rinnegan, but with her Sage Mode, she could sense and prepare for attacks almost just as well. Just as the dog was mostly blinded and Yuki was about to finish him off with her newly learnt Amaterasu, another Pain appeared and absorbed all of her jutsu. He tried to grab onto her to suck out most of her chakra, but she flashed herself from his grasp just in time.

"I told you this was going to take a while." Yuki told Katsuyu as she was catching her breath. "Kiku, are you still okay up there?"

"Don't worry about me." Kiku replied still focused on the task at hand.

"Yuki-san..." Katsuyu began as her voice trembled as if something no one could imagine had happened.

Yuki bit her lip as she had sensed it too. Before she could mourn, more animals were summoned around her and she was kept busy now by two of the Pains. She barely managed to dodge every single attack. She was distracted now that she found out what had happened. Her movements were not as fluid as they could be.

"Yuki-san! I know this is a bad time, but Konohamaru is fighting off against one them by himself right now."

He was the only family she had left. She couldn't ignore him. He was too young to succumb to death as well. She had lost enough people by that time. Konohamaru couldn't be the next one. She summoned the largest snow rabbit to have ever existed to fight off the two Pain for the time being.

"Kiku, this child is crazy!" The rabbit said as it arrived on scene.

"Toki-sama, sorry. I'm going to have to get you to fight this one for me. Don't risk you life though." Yuki said as she heard the comment about her craziness.

"Don't risk my life, you say. It's already a risk to be here." Toki replied as she readied herself for the fight.

Yuki didn't stay any longer as she flashed herself to where Konohamaru was. He seemingly had landed an attack on the Pain that was present. However, it wasn't enough for it to die. As he started to move again, he quickly headed towards Konohamaru who was exhausted on the ground. Yuki had arrived just in time to block the attack and strike back. As she stabbed Pain with her lightning, he held onto her arm not allowing for her to move. Out of nowhere, another Pain arrived and tried to stab her with this saw-like weapon. Because she was unable to form anymore seals, she could only dodge the attack to the best of her abilities. She was cut minimally at the waist in comparison to what could have happened if she remained in the same position. In her attempt to dodge the attack, she also broke the arms of the Pain that was holding her there. He finally let go and retreated alongside with the other one for some reason. Katsuyu quickly tended to Yuki's wound. Konohamaru crawled over and kept asking if she was going to be okay. Yuki smiled and nodded.

"You really should be heading to the bunkers, Konohamaru." She told him.

"I was on my way, but I got caught by him. Ebisu-sensei..."

"He's alive. Take him and Katsuyu and go now. If not, everybody's efforts to keep you all alive will be for nothing."

"Yuki-san, they've found out about Naruto's absence from the village." Katsuyu told her. "Shizune-san..."

"Konohamaru, go." Yuki said not wanting to hear about somebody else's death that day.

As Konohamaru stood up, Yuki looked towards the sky, praying that no one else would die. She truly had had it. As she looked to sky, the sun was being hidden by some kind of mass. As the mass grew bigger and bigger, it was only then that she realized why the two Pains they were fighting had retreated. The mass was heading right to the middle of the village. Yuki flashed herself to the highest point of the village and opened up her mangekyo sharingan. She had to teleport that thing elsewhere that was not in this dimension as it would just cause damage elsewhere. Kamui was her only option. However, she wasn't as proficient as Kakashi would have been. She could, at the very least, reduce the impact by reducing the size of that thing that was about to drop down onto the village. She did the best she could at that point. At least sixty percent of the mass had vanished. It drained a lot of her chakra despite using the Nature chakra Kiku had accumulated for her to maintain the Sage mode. She fell onto her knees as she saw the rest of the mass hit Konohagakure. Had she not reduced the size of the mass, there would be no village left. However, it still created a large crater in the village. As the dust rose from the ground and covered the view of the village from where Yuki was, she then heard a voice from behind saying:

"We should have gotten rid of you first."

She was then stabbed in the back by a black rod. She didn't sense him. As she had exited her sage mode after using Kamui, she lost the sensibility she previously had in that state. She coughed up some blood as he removed the rod from her and kicked her down onto the ground. Kiku was injured from the fall and was teleported back to her village. Yuki lied on the ground as she struggled to stand back up. She kept bleeding. She had fallen onto what used to be the Hokage's tower roof.

"You are quite resilient." He said as he rose his hand up to stab her second time.

She coughed up more blood as had blocked off his second attack. He was standing over her with the black rod hanging right over her chest. As the dust cleared, Tsunade was just a few meters away, witnessing the scene. She looked drained from sending out her chakra to every villagers in order to protect them from the impact of that mass. Yuki knew then that there were no casualties from that mass. She was relieved. She couldn't help but smile despite sensing her death being just around the corner. Tsunade tried to come over to Yuki to save her. As she made her way there, another Pain, the one who had injured her previously made his way to her, pointing his saw-like weapon towards her. Yuki, at that moment, unleashed her mangekyo again to send him elsewhere. As the space around him warped, Yuki lost strength to block the black rod from entering her body. As the pain spread throughout her body, she managed to maintain the warping and, at the very least, destroyed half of the Pain that was about to harm Tsunade. As he was about to hit the Hokage, it was punched out of the way and the remaining half was completely destroyed, creating a great amount of dust once again. Tsunade collapsed to ground as she was depleted from most of her chakra.

The dust finally cleared up. He was standing there, seemingly stronger than ever. He was also angry that his home was destroyed. He quickly took Tsunade to safety by Sakura. He rushed back to Yuki who was barely breathing. She was bathing in her own blood at this point. Her usually snow white hair was almost all red. As he kneeled next to her, she smiled at him, grateful that he was here now. One of the many Katsuyu came over as well and started trying to heal Yuki's wounds.

"You were reckless again, weren't you?" Naruto asked her.

She shook her head as she coughed up more blood. Katsuyu, then, gave him the rundown of the situation.

"What about Kakashi-sensei? Is he on a mission right now? I don't sense his chakra anywhere."

Neither of them could bear to tell Naruto the truth. He had already lost Jiraiya just a little earlier. It would be too much to tell him that his other mentor had now died as well. Naruto, however, seemed to have been answered through their silence.

"I'll destroy him." Naruto said as he stood up.

"Take part of Katsuyu with you." Yuki managed to say. "She'll help you through the battle."

He nodded and headed off. Yuki watched him leave. She felt useless at that moment despite knowing she had already done her best. Her body started going cold despite Katsuyu trying her best to make sure the bleeding would stop. She could hear the sound from the battle that was happening a little further, but she could no longer see it. Her vision had gone blurry. Her breathing slowed down quite a bit.

"Yuki-san, hang in there!" Katsuyu cried out.

"Don't waste your energy." Yuki said as she closed her eyes. "No human being could possibly survive this much blood loss. I've also pretty much drained all my chakra."

Katsuyu stopped after hearing that reality. It wasn't something she was unaware of, she was just denying it. Yuki had accepted her death at that point. The only thing she regretted was not being able to say goodbye to everyone. She was going to die there, all by herself. It was fine in the current situation, but she wished she could see a few people before she closed her eyes forever. At the same time, she didn't want anyone to be aware of her death as she knew that knowledge only brought more pain to the living.

"Katsuyu, keep updating me on the current situation over there." Yuki told Katsuyu.

It was the only she wanted. She knew she wouldn't live for much longer, but the inability to know what was happening killed her even more. Naruto was doing fine. However, it did not last for too long as Katsuyu told Yuki that he just got pinned down to the ground. His life was not in danger as they needed him alive to extract the Nine-tailed Beast.

"Hinata-san just rushed into the battle!" Katsuyu said.

Hinata was someone Yuki felt responsible for as Team 8's captain. Yuki bit her lip and closed her eyes wondering how much chakra she had left. It didn't matter. She managed to form a seal with her hand and flashed herself to where the battle was. It seemed she arrived just in time to switch place with Hinata before the fatal blow.

"You were still alive." Pain told her.

"Konohagakure's shinobis aren't that weak." Yuki replied softly as her eyes closed and her hands dropped to the ground.

She heard Naruto cry out her name before completely losing consciousness. Everything was black afterwards and soundless. It was over.

End of Chapter 55

Thank you for reading this chapter!

I hope you enjoyed it.

Let me know in the reviews!

xox

Krystal