Night is a Nara

by Foy the Snooze Button

One day, after tucking him to bed, Shikamaru's older brother, Naruto, vanished into thin air. Gone for ten years. No one knew where he went, not even the Hokage. Now he's back but where has he been all these years? To the West, of course. It's the return of the Night...an assassin from the Nara clan.

6. Chapter 6

Thanks for all your wonderful, amazing reviews on this humble story; I really appreciate all the love :)

A review got to me a little and I can't help but answer the questions asked there, so pardon me; first Shikaku and Yoshino are Naruto's biological parents, the blonde in his black hair is a natural, genetic defect. I don't want to delve into family history and the fact there could be a blonde Nara ancestor somewhere along the Shukaku's lineage or Yoshino's lineage. No matter how I write a story, someone would always think I'm going too fast, even if I take time to write re-bonding over chess between brothers, interrogation from a father, lunch with family, shopping in a supermarket, etc. I don't do time skips more than four to twelve hours in this story. Nagato's death so soon has nothing to do with it; if I started this from Naruto's childhood it would have been close to chapter twenty he died, if I started as soon as Hidan and Kakuzu were killed then maybe chapter two or three. I'm just going at my own pace. But the last part (of your review) gave me an idea, which I will say in the next chapter (I guess). So thank you ij0nk for the fantastic review of your thoughts of my story.

Keep em coming.

Enjoy :)

CHAPTER SIX

Darkness of the Night

Two hours before the last chapter

Hidden Cave

The Valley of End

Fire country

Paranoia could not even begin to describe what the orange masked Uchiha was going through even hours after his encounter with the Night, Naruto Nara.

As he stalked back and forth in the dim main room of the hidden cave in the Valley of End he felt a pair of eyes on him as he moved, silent and ever so diligent in following him. His unspinning red eye looked at the surgical table he had been operated on when he was a teenager and they just barely caught sight of the shadow beneath the table shuffling, then he remembered that the lamps planted in the walls were ablaze and could be the cause of the moving shadows.

This didn't calm him down though, rather it increased his mental war on whether or not the elusive Night had found a way to tag along without him knowing. Every shadow was moving as he spiralled on the spot, voices began bouncing around his head, voices of those he once loved but those he had hand in killing. The Uchiha clasped his hands to his head and screamed as loud as his lungs would allow, a deep unearthly bellow that resonated through the room, passed the main corridor and filled the Valley with the yell of a tormented man.

Obito bashed his masked face against the wall and yelled again, even loud and more unsettling than the last, sending fearful chills down the back of the Zetsu as he observed Madara's protégé slowly lose his mind to fearful paranoia. Obito fell onto his knees and bellowed, clawing at his orange mask with savage fingers, enough to leave jagged marks winding down his forehead to his chin with his nails.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Zetsu had to cover his ear holes at the animalistic scream of the Uchiha.

"WHERE ARE YOU NIGHT! I KNOW YOU'RE HERE! COME OUT NOW!"

This was a lot worse than yesterday; immediately after Obito escaped the Night with a kamui his mental senses kept prodding that he was being watched. The prodding and poking became too much for the mentally fortified man and he crumbled close to the pits of insanity.

He was positive the Night was in the room.

Positive.

And no matter how hard he kept explaining it to Zetsu he always felt like he was losing grip on reality.

The thing was…Obito was right, the Night was with him in the room, specifically a small portion of his shadow that was much too small for him to teleport into but large enough to keep track of Obito's location by creating a single blue eye to watch the Uchiha lose his mind. It was when he had made a hasty retreat with his kamui that it happened; the shadow tendrils from Naruto's cloak that made to attack him were close enough to get sucked in but not close enough to physically reach Obito. Naruto was aware that his shadow was not complete after it had happened and decided that if Obito became a challenge to him then he would always know how to find him, no matter how far or how hard he ran, because Naruto's shadow merged with Obito's…and was also responsible for slowly destroying the Uchiha's mental shields from manipulation by scratching against the barrier shielding his memory and planting itself in influential phases of his life, like he had been watching Obito in the dark even as far back as when he was a child to when he was being trained by Madara.

The feeling terrified Obito, even though a small part of his still sane mind told him that those memories were false and planted. Obito could not say that when he was a shinobi of the leaf he was very close to Naruto; he was more of mutual friends with him through Rin and Kakashi, this was because no matter how hard he tried and no matter how welcoming Naruto made himself to be, a friend to all and the best son slash brother any living creature would ever ask for, he couldn't muster up the courage to meet Naruto and become his real friend for one reason and one reason only.

He was afraid of the Night.

Obito of the past was a loud and annoying boy that had questionable head gear fashion and an undying crush on his teammate; that Obito could not allow himself to be afraid of his own age mate. That Obito was not a complete idiot because his heritage as an Uchiha made it partly easy for him to master jutsu and fighting styles, he could even go as far as say that he would rank himself among the top five shinobi of his generation.

It was that a voice that constantly reverberated in his told him that Naruto wasn't all sleepy smiles and warm, friendly companionship. Naruto became a genin at age eight, despite the unambitious nature his clan had practically patented, he became a chunin at nine, a special jounin at ten and a full jounin at eleven, and he already had the moniker of the Night when he was a chunin for his mastery of his clans shadow manipulation. It was subtle but Obito could clearly see that the Night was a big influence in his clan, and their generation as a whole; Naruto had a big circle of friends that listened to him and, for the most part, followed after his lead. The Nara commanded respect for his friendliness and charisma more than his reputation. Naruto was a good son to Shikaku and Yoshino and a great big brother to Shikamaru, always finding time in his hectic schedule to be with them. The Nidaime Hokage recognised the genius in Naruto from a young age during a visit to the Nara clan compound after Naruto had been born.

In the same words as the legendary water using Kage, Naruto was "Already ready to take on the world."

The Sandaime held Naruto in high regard, the Sannin, all three of them, spoke well of them, but Orochimaru chose to keep his high regards for the Night to himself and rather show it by being mildly hospitable with Naruto.

By all definitions Naruto was the perfect human being, but Obito knew better. After their very first class in the academy Obito had asked Naruto for a small spar in the academy training grounds. They had both just celebrated their seventh birthdays and Obito felt bolstered by the fact that he was a few months older than Naruto that he was also much stronger than the 'genius child' of the Nara clan. The 'spar' forever left a scar in his psyche that never healed; Naruto, deciding that Obito was truly a strong opponent because he was an Uchiha able to use the sharingan, chose to let loose. He started off by using a watered down, childish version of his current 'Pasty face' and release all the killer intent his small body was capable of, which was too much for the Uchiha challenger.

Obito crumpled onto his knees and passed out a minute later, in front of all the other kids that had come to watch the clan heads son fight against an Uchiha. When he woke up again he was labelled an idiot for the remainder of his time in the academy, despite showing that he was at least a competent student.

Normally he should have been enraged at being made a fool of but he wasn't. He was afraid. He saw his own death in the pitch darkness of the night and all he could do was stand in place and accept it.

When he heard Naruto had disappeared he capitalized on it as well as he could by moving forward the agenda of the S rank criminal organisation by manipulating Nagato to begin collecting tailed beasts, because, deep in his soul, Obito knew that if anyone was capable of destroying all he had done, it was the Night.

The Night effortlessly killed Hidan and Kakuzu.

The Night destroyed all six Paths of Pein.

The Night cleanly assassinated the god of Ame, Nagato.

The Night was in possession of the rinnegan.

All these seemingly small actions to the grander scheme were enough to send cold chills down the spine of Obito. The Uchiha thought that his fear of the Night had been reduced after so many years of his disappearance, but the paranoia of being watched was enough to bring back old demons.

The man ripped off his mask and threw it to the ground, it shattered at the sheer effort he used. He faced the silent plant man and said in a low, intimidating voice. "Call the others."

Zetsu nodded and entered into the ground, leaving Obito to simmer in his own madness. The Uchiha steadily got to his feet and slowly proceeded to a section of the dull grey stone walls, where he pressed his hand against it and a panel opened, revealing an assortment of masks he had worn for the past years and a few more he was yet to use. His shaking hands gently brushed against each one before he selected one, a white mask with both eyeholes present that had two concentric circles winding out from the nose area, which had a single black dot, to the forehead and chin, the second circle had three tomoe, one for both eyes and the last on the forehead. There were three more concentric circles spiralling outside of the first two but a little bit further back. He placed it on his face securely and marched out of the room, and out of the cave to stand on the water. The newly masked man walked up the walls to stand on the head of his mentor and sat down patiently, shoving down the twitch in his body at being constantly watched.

"Oi idiot, who are you to call for a meeting?" the masked man heard. Obito turned around and Diedara smirked sharply at the new mask, even better than the last one.

"Yet here you are." Obito replied smoothly and walked to Diedara, stopping when he was about a foot away from the mad bomber.

"I just wanted to beat you up for wasting my time; I was attending to serious business." Sasori silently observed the radically changed masked man before him; Kisame and Itachi too narrowed their eyes at the great change. Of course the Zero tailed beast and the Bloody Uchiha knew who 'Tobi' really was and what he could do, it was just…different.

"Diedara, Diedara, Diedara…" Obito said in a low, lilting voice as she shook his head. "If Hidan was still with us you wouldn't be the weakest in this group, but you are. Did you know that?"

The mad bomber bared his teeth and his fists clenched. "And who the hell do you think you are? What makes you an S rank?"

Obito swiftly ignored the question. "I want you all to earn your ranks." He turned his head to the others, even Zetsu, as he spoke.

"You haven't answered-" suddenly the Uchiha's hand shot forward and grabbed the former Iwa ninja by his throat, lifting him off his feet in an almost surprising display of strength. "Gack! Urk!"

"I'm almost tempted to snap your neck in two. You aren't the right one to do this without getting yourself killed. Bombs cannot harm the Night."

"'Bombs can't harm the night'? What's that supposed to mean?" Kisame asked, not caring about the state of the former Iwa ninja; he was more concerned with thinking of what had triggered Tobi to drop his idiot guise.

"I want you all to go to Konoha and kidnap the Night family; Shikaku and Yoshino Nara are there and Shikamaru Nara is in Suna on a mission. I'll handle the brat, I want you four to bring the older ones here, alive and restrained. Sasori and this one are to get the attention of the Night; he knows how to find me." they knew who the masked man was referring to as 'Night'; he same person that had burnt through their ranks by killing the Zombie brothers and the god of Ame with his paths. Naruto Nara was the biggest problem the organization had ever encountered. The Akatsuki was no more, with Ameagakure no longer being their base seeing as Konan had fortified the rain barrier to trap those without the Rain village chakra signature, no matter how little in the individual. This was a big blow because the Gedo statue was in Ame and they had no way of accessing it, except Zetsu and Obito but teleporting the statue through the ground or with a kamui could make it unstable. Killing Konan and changing the defence seal matrix of the village was another problem entirely; the paper Angel had taken to using paper clones more and more recently, after she had escaped a broken neck from the Night with one. Killing a paper clone could result in one or two things; the clone would explode or the entire village would come down on their heads; Rain was a great village with great shinobi, one of the best on the continent.

With the Gedo statue so far away from retrieval and the entire continent now fully aware of the threat of the Akatsuki, from the many letters the Hokage and the Kazekage were sending to other nations, ally or not, it was now a hard time to be an S rank in the criminal organization. It was also the time for Itachi to defect, because he had been given the sign to do so from Jiraiya and Tsunade, but after hearing that the masked Uchiha codenamed Tobi intended to take the Nights parents he persevered and stayed, just to see if he could be of any help to Naruto. The genius among geniuses, Naruto Nara, was much older than Itachi and far more accomplished. It was why Itachi idolized the blonde-black haired man. Lending a hand to the Night in any way, if it was making sure his parents and brother were safe or by killing a few of the S ranks was the least the Uchiha could do. But first he had to bring Naruto's parents to the Valley of End so he had a better chance of eradicating all of the threats, and maybe give his unknowing mentor, because Naruto wasn't too aware that Itachi had been learning from him, even more reason to rip the others apart. At least, that's the feeling he was getting from Obito; strike the Night where it would hurt the most.

Kisame was deep in thought, much like his partner, Itachi; he might be thick headed but he was far from stupid, so he nodded with his partner, Itachi.

Obito glared at the choking former Iwa ninja in his grip. "You. I know how the Night would end your miserable life; your throat slashed and forgotten like a pile of dog crap in a waste disposal." He didn't care that the blonde bomber was weakly clawing at his hand, pleading with his eyes to release him. "At least put up a fight before he kills you." He released Diedara and watched as the blonde gasped for air, dragging in precious oxygen into his lungs and feebly glaring at Obito. "Now leave."

The bomber stumbled away from Obito and dug his hands into his pockets, forcing clay into his hand mouths. He pulled his hands out and formed a large clay bird, which Sasori, Kisame and Itachi hopped onto, before Diedara stepped on it and commanded it to fly to Konoha.

"Tell the Night." Obito began with a raised voice to the steadily departing Akatsuki members. "I will start cutting his family, piece by piece, if he doesn't show up in five minutes."

He didn't receive any answer, but he knew they heard him.

"How are you going to bring Shikamaru here? Suna isn't exactly close to this place, you know." Zetsu asked sceptically but his question was answered when a kamui vortex opened up from the Uchiha's right eye and the youngest Nara brother was spat out. The masked Uchiha then stepped on Shikamaru's back, before the latter could leap onto his feet, and Zetsu took that as his cue to summon plant tendrils from the ground to tie up the Nara, making sure his hands were separated and his mouth was covered, though this didn't stifle the enraged yells and the death glare from the fourteen year old boy.

"Well that's convenient." Zetsu grunted after making sure his plant trap was securely binding the Nara.

Kidnapping two prominent figures in Konoha was not going to be an easy task, not by a long shot. For Shikaku, Itachi and Kisame had to wait for him to leave the tower and pass through the red light district as he made his way into the market district to do some grocery shopping for his wife before they made. Itachi cast a genjutsu over the entire section of road that the council man was walking down, making those around see that Shikaku continue walking to the clan compound and the man feel like he was already in the clan compound, grocery bag at the ready to give his wife, but with one glaring problem that mad the veteran shinobi know it was an illusion; Yoshino didn't nag him about taking his sweet time to return, assuming he had taken a nap in the grocery isle of the supermarket. It was an unspoken tradition that both never intended to break. The black haired, scarred man clapped his hands together and forced his chakra out of his body, but as the chakra bubbled out, pushing away the foreign chakra in his system and closing in on those of the civilians under the illusion. Though before the dispelled chakra could clear from the civilians system Itachi made his appearance abruptly in front of Shikaku, quick and unexpected enough to make the man look straight at Itachi into his spinning sharingan eyes.

Kisame pouted all the way back at not doing anything as they took the waiting clay bird outside of the village.

Yoshino wasn't much easier than her husband; the woman had retired from active shinobi duty after Naruto became a chunin, when she pregnant with Shikamaru. Despite not participating in any formal spar, no one wanted to count the almost frequent beating she gave her husband, the woman was still in great shape; she had been in the Best Figure in Konoha Women's Weekly for three months running, right in front of Hime Yakumo, Yuuhi Kureanai and Nomi Yamanaka, wife of the Yamanaka clan head. Best figure didn't only mean the way the Nara clan heads wife had the most desirable body in the village, a fact most men and women had to suppress for fear of death by her incredibly lucky (and proud) husband, but that she had managed to keep the muscles she had built from her days of active duty, as well as a limited amount of combat prowess.

She used her cooking knife to deflect multiple poison tipped senbon, moving her hand in a blur and slowly inching her other hand behind her, under the kitchen table, in a hidden compartment beside the cooking stove, to grab a pair of gleaming forearm length silver kunai. She spun both long knives in her left hand and slammed a savage kick at Diedara's abdomen, who attempted to sneak attack her from her left. The blow stunned the man bomber enough for the woman to carefully analyse the insistent senbon; she tilted her cooking knife downwards and position both of her silver kunai under the weapon, the next wave clanged downward and pinged off the kunai and returned right back into the puppet masters open left arm. She did not have time to revel in her minor victory, a swift fist to the back of her head and she was felled, her weapons kicked away from her frantically grabbing hands. Before she was allowed to pass out Diedara kicked her against the solid oak cabinet used to store pots without mercy, seven brutal times until he was dragged back by his wooden partner, for him to shoot a knock-out senbon to her neck to release her of her pained agony. Her bruised, slightly cut unconscious body was fed to a clay bird, which flew back to Obito.

Then they blew up the Nara clan heads residence.

Shikaku was furious after seeing the state his wife was in, biting at his plant mouth bind and struggling in his restraints like a wild animal, shocking Shikamaru that his sleepy, lax father could lose it so easily at seeing his mother in her pitiful state. Not that he was any better; both Nara men spat venomously at the quiet masked man who stood in front of the others, also looking at the state Yoshino was in in silence. Obito slowly turned his eyes to them, sharingan blazing, and they caught the deep amusement set in his eyes. He walked up to Shikaku, who fought even more against his bindings to rip apart the mastermind behind the kidnapping and said.

"You only have the Night to blame." Shukaku's eyes became even more bloodshot after the moniker of his oldest son and his muscled arms bulged in effort, clenching his eyes as he focused on tearing out of the plant tendrils holding him.

Then everyone froze.

"Your right…this is my fault. I'm sorry dad, mom, Shika. This is won't happen again." A voice said lowly as breeze gently began blew, the top of Madara's head never shook but the dark, solemn feeling that made the air thick made all, even the captive family of the Night.

Kisame growled. "I…I can't move."

The sun that shone down cast their shadows in front of them, so they could all see the clones of the Night slither out of the ground like phantoms of the dark, their bright blue eyes dark and lowered to the ground as they shaggy blonde-black hair shifted with the wind. Even Zetsu wasn't safe from the shadowy hold Naruto had on all of them, all attempts at fleeing were for nought because his whole body didn't allow him to move.

Then all the clones looked up at the same time and a great pulse of energy riffled their cloaks violently as Naruto release his grip on his killer intent. The real Naruto stepped out from behind the clone holding Obito, wielding a katana in his right hand and his eyes as dark and evil as his clones. His eyes roved from the frozen masked man to Kisame, then to Itachi. A sharp frown twitched down from his lips. "Where does your loyalty lie, Itachi?"

"Konoha." was the simple reply and Naruto nodded curtly, Konan had mentioned that Itachi was also a spy in the organization.

The shark man spat. "Traitor." His eyes shot to the shorter ninja beside him and they clashed with the eternally activated sharingan of the Bloody Uchiha.

"…Yes." He felt his shadow return back to its original form and he fully turned to Kisame. "For what it's worth, Kisame, you were a competent shinobi."

"Fuck you." The man spat and the clone holding him pulled both of its arms out of the abyss of darkness that was his cloak, a kunai in its grip, and slashed it across the throat of the shark man, flipping the a small chain of seals, Kisame did so as well but without using chakra in the seals, and his body summarily solidified into rocks. Kisame followed suit. The water that made up ninety seven percent of his body was countered by the Earth style: Earth Assassination technique used by the Nara clan. Itachi pulled out a tanto from his sleeve and jammed it into the head of the frozen, stone clone, a sharp cut appeared on Kisame's head, leaking deep red blood, signifying the end of the Zero tailed beast. After watching the way the shark man had been easily taken care of, as well as how quickly Itachi had sealed the sentient Samehada sword into the crumbling body of its dead wielder, he renewed his struggles against the strong shadow hold the clone had on him. The clone looked from the last assassination to the plant man.

As Naruto slowly walked to Zetsu the clone began its own set of handseals, each seal was like a death clock counting down to his destruction as Zetsu also flowed through the same seals, until the last seal, a tiger seal, finished everything up and the body of the clone ignited, Zetsus body burst into flames as well and the plant man was not even allowed the body movement of thrashing around in pain, only his screams of agony filled the valley. Naruto stopped beside him and watched, patiently, as the plant creature melted with the clone, until it was nothing more than a pile of goo on the ground did Naruto stab his blade down into it, slicing the good up into five equal parts and clapping his hands together, sealing each part into a section of the blade, where it would roam in the Night Dimension forever, unable to escape or contact the outside world.

As this was going on the plants holding the Nara family crumbled with its summoner, releasing them, but only Shikaku rushed to catch his wife before she hit the ground, observing as Naruto moved to their masked kidnapper, take over the shadow from the clone.

"Do you have any regrets?" Naruto asked after a long moment of silence. The blonde-black haired assassin genuinely wanted to know where the masked mans plans had all gone up in smoke; from when he, Naruto, was introduced into the mix or when he, Obito, kidnapped his family.

"Only one." Obito replied as a full blown smile spread on his hidden face. "Never proving myself to you when I was in Konoha."

"What-"

Obito's eyes spiralled madly and merged together to form its elevated version. "Mangekyo sharingan: Kamui: World in-between."

For Naruto's family, they only saw Naruto disappear in a whirlwind along with the masked man, but to Naruto he was savagely thrown around by the wind vortex, until the quick movements stopped all of a sudden and Naruto found his feet planted on a greyish-white stone floor.

He noticed with a lurch that his cloak was gone, as well as the feeling of being connected to shadows. Naruto looked down and his eyes enlarged when he saw that his shadow was not under him, he looked to the sky and saw that there was no sun or moon, not even clouds; just an unexplainable light. His combat uniform was still on his body and he was a hundred percent sure that he wasn't in a genjutsu, sharingan or not all genjutsu weren't undetectable. The Night looked at his hands, feeling his chakra still flowing easily through his chakra network, and there wasn't anything wrong with his body as far as he knew, his weapon storage seals were still intact too. The only thing was that he was now without his shadow, and thus the Night Dimension and the perks of using shadow manipulation.

Far in front of him Naruto heard a deep laugh and he sharply looked up. "What is the Night without darkness?" he said aloud, his voice carried back to Naruto, who straightened up, noticing as the masked man reached up and unclasped his mask. Naruto's eyes narrowed when he saw that it was Obito, bleeding profusely from his left eye. "Nothing."

"Where am I?"

Obito threw his arms open and replied. "This is the World In-between, a destination of my own creation I made just for this very occasion." He smirked when Naruto remained silent. "Here, the Night has no advantage of the shadows. Your crutch is gone, Naruto."

"My bloodline is not my crutch." Naruto shot back.

"I bet you regret our spar all those years ago. Little ol' Obito wasn't there to be your punching bag and you moved on to better prey, right?"

"I always thought you were a friend, Obito." Naruto said with a sigh, closing his eyes in disappointment. "Always. Even when you never accepted to hang-out with me, I didn't stop trying to bring you in."

The Uchiha lost all composure, swiping his sleeve over the bloody side of his face and throwing his cloak away when he was done. "Lies! The Night is evil! The Night has no need for friends! You just wanted to brainwash me like you did to the others, like you did to your own family!" Naruto still kept his eyes shut; his shoulders slumped at how far gone Obito was. "When I kill you the world would be free of your illusion! Your curse would be lifted and when I bring back my master; we will rule the world! I will bring Rin back! Did you hear me, Night?! I will have Rin!"

"Obito…" Naruto began, opening his eyes but keeping them on the ground as the natural shadows around his eyes, showing years of sleepless nights he had during his war with the West, darkened as he clenched his fists at his sides. "Don't make me do this."

The Uchiha laughed, a blood chilling sound that worsened Naruto's mood. "Don't make you do what, Night?"

"Don't make me kill you." Naruto finished. The logical part of his hazy mind told him that if he wanted to return back to the real world then he would have to end the person that cast the jutsu. He hoped. He didn't want to kill the other man, but he would if it meant he could return back home.

Naruto attended Obito's burial and consoled Kakashi and Rin. He was far away, picking off shinobi of Iwagakure in Hiruzen Sarutobi's team, along with Asuma, Yugao, Ibiki, Gai and Ebisu. They were miles away and too occupied to spare a few hands to help, even as the distress signal was sent by Rin to any neighbouring shinobi team for back up. Naruto regretted not trying harder to make Obito his friend, because despite making a name for himself Naruto was nothing without his friends and his family. That was the type of person he was, and now that Obito had brought to light the warped sense of reality he had kept of him for so long he finally understood. Although Naruto didn't want to think that Obito had allowed depression and despair to linger among his living teammates, before Rin was killed as well, just to prepare for another fight with him. He did though know that, behind all the plans for gathering all the tailed beast, and this mysterious master Obito was talking about, the formerly thought to be dead Uchiha always held dark intentions for Naruto, because the seven year old him had thought it was a good idea to begin a friendly spar with a full blown dose of killer intent fuelled by his unique shadow manipulation.

With an even worse sense of dread Naruto finally, truly, understood; Obito feared the Night because of the things his killer intent made him see under its influence, when the Uchiha was nothing more than a child.

"I'm not afraid of the Night anymore. I'm stronger than I was back then. The Night has no power over me." they both got into their respective fighting styles. Obito into the Uchiha taijutsu stance and Naruto into the Nara assassin taijutsu stance; lowering his centre of gravity slightly by bending his knees a little, which were shoulder length apart, lifting both of his arms palm up at his side at first before he pushed them outwards and turning them palm down, making sure to bend his elbows, his left leg further forward than his right and his right palm further forward than the left.

Obito's now solitary sharingan eye spun in anticipation.

Outside the World In-between Shikaku glared at Itachi and said in a deep voice. "What happened to him?" Itachi replied as best as he could and the father felt all strength leave his arms, but he made sure to hold his wife in a comfortable bridal style. "Take us there." He ordered.

The oldest son of the late Uchiha clan head didn't reply for a moment, until he said. "I can't."

"Why not!?" Shikamaru yelled.

Itachi's eyes lost their usual stoniness and became grim as he replied.

All the way back in Konoha, barely even a second after Obito and Naruto had disappeared from sight, Tsunade sat back in shock, her curious gaze on a small scroll that had appeared in a puff of smoke in the very centre of the room, there was a small piece of black string that held the scroll from unravelling. Even from her desk the Hokage could clearly read on thing written on a small tag on the string holding the scroll shut in bright red ink.

For Shikamaru.

Of S rank importance.

Authors note

Who wants to see Naruto fight? Just him and Obito, no shadow manipulations.

Done forget, Obito still has all his abilities while Naruto lost his bloodline, but Obito only has one sharingan eye because using that World In-between jutsu burned it. Take note, it's a Mangekyo.

What's in the scroll? Why is it to Shikamaru? Any guess would be great, so leave it in the review.

Next chapter is going to be the last one, who wants to read it? But So far, how am I doing? Kindly tell me in the reviews and if you'd like to see the last chapter of this story. I hope your all safe, wherever you are in the world and I will see you when I see you :)

Foy.