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 81: A Hero Stand with Others

The moment he appeared, he sent rods flying at Hashirama. Madara managed to restrict the First's movement within seconds as though he had been waiting for this moment this whole entire battle. They had fallen into his trap. Madara headed towards Hashirama, but Yuki stopped him before he could reach the First Hokage. It seemed like his Rinnegan was lost as he came back to life. However, he had experience in battle and was a great sensor during his prime. He knew right away that Yuki had stopped him. From afar, Sasuke sent an Amaterasu arrow to engulf Madara in the eternal flames. It was wasted effort as he was able to absorb ninjutsus. He removed his armor that was still being slowly turned into ashes.

"I would try to convince you again to join my side, but, from what I've observed, you won't abandon these pathetic lives."

Yuki frowned and began using her Wood Jutsu to attack him. She knew her taijutsu was not good enough to go head to head with Madara. She also knew she had to keep her distances from him as he would certainly try to get her Rinnegans. She was knew it and Obito reminded her despite being severely weakened. Madara managed to slip past her and got to Hashirama. He placed his hand on the First's forehead and began taking his Sage chakra to allow him to sense the battlefield even more.

Sasuke, out of nowhere, managed to stab Madara in the arm. The reincarnated Uchiha grabbed the sword with his other hand, stopping Sasuke from pulling away unless he let go of his sword.

"You too, you have good eyes. If I can't get hers, yours will do until my eyes are restored."

Yuki quickly attacked Madara from the back with her Katana. Although he dodged her attack, it allowed for Sasuke to pull his sword out and escape from Madara's grasp. The both of them were starting to feel tired from the extended fighting. Madara then formed seals with his hands. She recognized it as his signature fire jutsu, a technique so powerful that it could burn the whole battlefield down to ashes. She took a deep breath and tried to remember how it was that Madara was able to absorb any ninjutsus with his Rinnegan. It was the only way to stop this fire.

"I'll help with you with a Water Jutsu." The Second Hokage said as he arrived next to her.

He created a large wave that acted as a wall protecting the Alliance, while Yuki did her best to absorb the ninjutsu with the help of her Rinnegan. Tips of her hair still got burnt, but the damage was minimal compared to what would have happened had she not used her Rinnegan. Madara grinned as, with the distraction of the fire, was able to get closer to Yuki. He extended his arms towards her eyes, but Yuki flashed herself away from harm at the last second. She arrived next to Naruto, panting. Her Rinnegans disappeared from her eyes, leaving place for her Sharingans to reappear. It was perhaps because she just gained them recently, but using the Rinnegan's powers still felt unfamiliar and they required a lot of energy from her.

Madara, for the time being, seemed like he was no longer interested in her or Sasuke. Instead, he was heading towards the Tailed Beasts. This was a battle mere humans couldn't enter. The battlefield was physically about to change.

"Ino, tell everyone to get away." Yuki told her.

"I'm going to fight by their side." Naruto said as Kurama granted him more chakra. He touched Yuki's shoulder allowing Kurama's chakra to also be shared to her. She didn't refuse it this time. She knew she needed it. The Rinnegans appeared in both her eyes. She flashed herself to Gaara.

"I'm assuming you and Shukaku will seal him?" She said as she arrived by him side.

He nodded as Shukaku looked at her. He recognized her chakra. He remembered how Gaara felt about her. He also recognized that her warmth was no longer as present as it used to be about two years ago.

"I know it's probably bad timing right now, but are you…" Gaara started.

"Like you said, it's bad timing right now. I'll help with the sealing with my Wood Release. He's no longer just reincarnation. It won't be easy to keep him still."

Gaara nodded as his heart was wrenching for her. When she rescued him with Naruto back then, there was much more he wanted to tell her, but was unable to. He always felt like he was too late. When he finally had the courage to ask her to stay in Sunagakure, she had already left. When he was finally sure of how he felt about her and knew he needed her by his side, she had already found someone who felt like home. He was always a step behind her, but he was alright knowing that she was happy. But now… Now, she was in pain. It was no time to think about his feelings at the moment, but they just came flooding in. He closed his eyes for a second before focusing once again on taking down Madara.

As Madara approached them, Gaara sent thousands of sand projectiles strong enough to pierce through Madara's flesh. The Uchiha complimented the Kazekage on his technique though also criticizing it for lacking the ability to finish the opponent. To his surprise, the sand remained in his bloodstream and he was momentarily immobilized. The other Tailed Beasts then joined force to attack Madara who couldn't dodge their attacks. Gaara then used his Grand Sand Mausoleum Seal to lock in Madara. Yuki then jumped to the ground and used her Wood Jutsu to wrap up the mausoleum with interlacing branches of magnolias as a second layer of sealing. Her hands were to the ground and she sensed something was wrong. Before the seal could be fully completed, Madara used his Susanoo to break free.

"I'm going to put you beasts on a leash soon enough." He said.

What he didn't know was that their plan had multiple steps to it. They had a feeling sealing him wouldn't be so easy. Yuki had placed a seal in her magnolia branches allowing the battlefield to be marked in all directions. She then teleported Naruto and Kurama right above Madara allowing them to directly hit him and the others joined in as well. However, thanks to his stolen Sage Mode, Madara was able to narrowly avoid a fatal hit. He still lost an arm in the surprise attack.

"Almost had him." Naruto said as he arrived by Gaara and Yuki.

Before they could come up with a new plan, a White Zetsu appeared from the ground and was seemingly handing something to Madara. His arm was cut off and placed instead of Madara's lost arm. He then inserted whatever it was that Zetsu was handing him into his eye socket. As his hand moved away from his face, Yuki could see, to her horror, that he had recovered the Rinnegan in one eye.

"Now the fun truly begins." He then said as he tasted his own blood.

He had been wanting to feel alive again. He wanted to feel the thrill of fighting once again. The pain his body was feeling meant that the opponent was worth his time. He then dipped his thumb in the blood of his wounds and started the seal for summoning. Yuki bit her lower lip and prepared herself for the worst. She wasn't too sure what he was planning, but with the Rinnegan, any summoning could become deadly to them. She then heard a loud noise where Kakashi and Obito were. She directed her attention to that area for a short while. It seemed like the Fourth Hokage was also there now. The Gedo statue reappeared there. She noticed that Kakashi tried to use his Kamui to make it disappear. For a quick second, it looked like it worked, but she quickly realized it didn't as the statue was now where they were.

"Naruto… Get away from here right now!" Yuki told him finally realizing what Madara was planning as he headed to the top of the statue's head.

"What?! No!"

"If you…"

At that moment, chains came out of the statue and grabbed hold of all the Tailed Beasts. They began getting dragged towards the Gedo statue. Kurama's cloak around Yuki disappeared as he started to get pulled in as well. Gaara tried his best to stop Shukaku from being trapped once again. Naruto tried to recall Kurama into himself in vain. Yuki prepared her own Kamui as it seemed to have worked partially when Kakashi did it earlier. She wasn't as proficient as him, but it was still worth the try. The chains that were pulling Kurama and Gyuki snapped from her work, but the statue simply sent more chains out to trap the two before they could do anything else. In her frustration, roots with thorns grew between her and the statue wrapping themselves around the chains, slowing down the whole extraction process. She felt terrible headache as it happened. Her eyes began to lose any trace of humanity as she tried to destroy the Gedo Statue. She was losing herself, but if it meant that the world could be saved, she was willing to let the power surging inside her take over.

Having witness her personality throughout the battle, Madara knew what he had to do to stop her from preventing the extraction. He did wonder if she would still react as she usually would seeing how she was starting to act differently. He sent an Amaterasu arrow towards Gaara. Yuki regained control of herself and chose to save Gaara by using her Rinnegan to push away the black flaming arrow. As she calmed down, the roots became less thorny and, instead, magnolia trees grew from the ground, creating a blooming forest between her and the statue now.

"You should save your energy for later." Madara told her. "You might need to fight all by yourself in a few minutes."

He burned down the whole forest as the chains kept dragging the Tailed Beasts. There was nothing left but ashes on the ground as she used a water jutsu to stop the fire from harming the beasts who had now entered that dangerous zone. Their efforts became futile. One after the other, they were sucked into the Gedo Statue. Yuki looked back at Naruto as she realized what this meant. She flashed herself to Naruto, grabbed hold of him before he hit the ground, got to Gaara and teleported all three of the them to Sakura. She reappeared panting. Sakura looked at them in horror as she began trying to reanimate Naruto immediately.

"I'm taking you all to the Fourth Hokage." She then said. Her knees then hit the floor. She was out of chakra. She hated that Madara was right. She should have saved up some chakra. Gaara looked at her, gave her a nod and took Sakura away with Naruto on his sand in direction of the Fourth Hokage.

Tsunade quickly helped Yuki up and allowed her to lean against a rock as she used the last of her chakra to help Yuki recover. Yuki closed her eyes for a second. She wanted to close her eyes forever. She wanted everything to end. They kept fighting, but things were going from bad to worst. She wanted to cry, but she had told herself and others that this wasn't the time. Then, she sensed Sasuke's presence slowly disappearing. She stood up abruptly causing Tsunade to jump. Without another word, she headed to where Sasuke was. She couldn't teleport as she was still very weak, but she had enough in her to make it to him within seconds.

Sasuke had a stab wound right through his heart. The Second Hokage was pinned down by the same black rods that had stopped the First Hokage a little further. He looked at her. He shook his head as Yuki tried to feel for Sasuke's pulse. There was still some, but barely.

She looked around for Karin. She had sensed Orochimaru's arrival with Karin on the battlefield a little while back. She was a proficient medical ninja and would be able to save Sasuke. She then saw that Orochimaru had engaged in a fight with the Gedo Statue. She never thought he would be helping them out. She sensed the strong chakra of Karin in that area as well. She was heading their way. The moment Karin arrived, Yuki started leaving as she wanted to head to where Kakashi was. While she was waiting, she had gathered some Nature Energy to enter her Sage Mode. Karin held her back for a second:

"Bite onto my arm, it will fully recover your chakra."

"Just take care of Sasuke…"

"Don't be stubborn. Right now… you know it well. You are the only one who could possibly go head to head with Madara." Karin said as she forced Yuki to bite down.

"I owe you one…" Yuki said as she teleported herself to Kakashi.

As she appeared to their side, she was faced with a Madara who had just become the Ten-Tails Jinchuurinki and an Obito who said the words that they had been wanting to hear from him:

"I am now the one who wanted to become Hokage, the leader who will be protecting our future, Obito Uchiha."

His arm had reached into Madara. He began pulling out the Bijuus' chakra. Obito was still heavily weakened from their previous battle. Yuki headed over to help him. The only way to extract the chakra was through Senjutsu. However, Madara wasn't going to let them get away with it so easily. He got away from them.

"Will that be enough to save Naruto?" Yuki asked Obito.

"Yes, but I will need time."

"I can get you time."

Kakashi used his Kamui to send Naruto and Sakura into the other dimension. With their chakras gone from this dimension, Yuki rushed towards Madara to stop him from preventing Obito from joining them there. He nodded as he left the battlefield as well.

"Do you realize what your weakness is?"

"As my senior, why don't you teach me?"

All that was going through her head right now was that they needed time. If talking allowed for them to stretch the time, she was willing to hear him out, even the insanities that he was spewing out.

"Your so-called friends. You fail every time they get involved. You get distracted and you are not as strong. You are not willing to give them up for power."

"That's a weakness?" She asked him. "I thought that was my only strength. If it weren't for my friends, I would be nothing but another shinobi. I would never seek to improve myself. I wouldn't be fighting this hard. I seem stronger when I lose my connection with them? You're wrong. I'm weaker at that moment, because I'm defenseless. I'm only strong because I have people by my side. As someone who helped the First build Konohagakure, I'm surprised you couldn't tell all of this."

"You've truly been brainwashed by the village." He replied as he shook his head before sending two black orbs in their direction.

She flashed herself to Kakashi. She knew he was targeting the people around her rather than herself. She managed to teleport the two of them away from the orbs at the last minute. At that moment, Gai arrived by their side as well. As the smoke cleared, it was now time for them to stand together against Madara and to prove to him that their weakness wasn't to care for each other. Yuki grabbed onto the necklace Neji had given her as a promise for a future together. "Neji… Have you been looking at this blood bath? Did you see myself losing sight of myself for a while there? I promise that tomorrow will exist. As long as our token is with me, I will keep that promise… for you and for myself."

End of Chapter 81

Thank you for reading!

I hope you are enjoying it so far. Don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the reviews.

xox

Krystal