Chapter 5,
A Black Dawn, V


Land of Fire

Ragged breaths escaped his chest as Naruto ran, barely registering the leaves and branches whipping across his arms and face as he ploughed sluggishly across the forest floor. He couldn't even spare the energy to tree hop through the canopy.

He wasn't gaining ground.

Naruto was tapped, and he knew it. Yet still… he ran.

The rush of footsteps across dry leaves behind him had the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he whipped around, throwing up his arms just as a larger figure shouldered into him. He had been spotted leaving the battlefield, it seemed.

He was left staring at the stone face of a large Weeper as he fell backwards from the impact, pain flaring through his body. However, it wasn't entirely from the kunai shoved roughly into his midsection.

Instead, his skull burned beneath his mask as if it had caught aflame. An intricate marking crawled across the skin on his forehead, as if it had always been there.

Naruto's vision went hazy as a cloud of black smoke suddenly engulfed both him and the Weeper, and he was flung backwards, ragdolling across the ground ten or so feet.

Coming to a rolling stop against the base of a tree, Naruto thudded onto his back, blinking away the spots in his vision. Absently, he could hear what sounded like a wet 'Crunch!' followed by a disgusting gurgling noise.

He was barely paying attention to it, however. Through the canopy overhead, his gaze lingered on the billions of blurry lights dotting the firmament above.

What he wouldn't give to just rest for a moment under such a beautiful sight...

"You look like a mess."

The smooth, silky voice growled low through the smoke that had just begun to fade. Sighing in damnation, Naruto heaved himself up into a sitting position, yanking the kunai from his stomach and tossing it to the side.

Only to then reach over and scoop it up again with a groan, realising that it was the only weapon he had.

Two slitted, almost honey-yellow eyes peered at him from the smoke.

For a moment, Naruto was reminded of Jaguar.

Naruto's brows rose in abject surprise as a jet-black paw stepped into view. What the hell? Had he stumbled into an actual jaguar?

The creature emerged fully, lit up by the wayward moon as its light speared through the trees. Honeysuckle eyes peered down at Naruto over a bloodstained muzzle that dripped with fresh gore.

It was not a jaguar… but a panther. Same cat, different coat.

Naruto blinked owlishly at the large predator, before crawling to his feet. Just behind the beast, he could see what was left of the Weeper that had ambushed him. The rotund shinobi's head was flopped gruesomely to the side, held on by half of a neck.

Naruto touched his faintly stinging forehead. The summoning matrix…

The beast's eyes tracked his fingers, and nodded in a silent affirmation.

Naruto's brows narrowed. "We… have no contract."

"Definitely not."

"-and I didn't summon you."

"Obviously." At the Black ANBU's blank stare, the panther slunk forwards. The powerful shoulders rolled like rotating pistons with each step. "Where is the face of Death?"

Naruto's fingers rose to touch his blank, cracked mask. He didn't reply.

The beast's brows furrowed, seemingly staring through the Black ANBU. Eventually, it grunted lowly. "You are hunting?"

If you can call it that…

Naruto nodded nonetheless.

The Panther's eyes flicked towards the shinobi it had slain that lay sprawled behind it. "Your prey is weak."

"They are not, and they have numbers." A second of silence stretched between them, and Naruto cocked his head, curious despite his situation. "Why are you here?" The question was punctuated by a series of racking coughs. Blood splattered the ground as Naruto fell to his knees again, crimson saliva dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

The panther took another step closer, its muzzle was barely a foot from Naruto now. "Call it curiosity," it said. The tail then flicked a couple of times, and the creature sniffed the air. It looked towards the direction Naruto had been running. "Sharpen yourself, tiny Black ANBU. Our quarry flees."

Our quarry? Naruto thought, swaying for a moment before steadying himself. Maybe some help wouldn't be so bad after all?

"Make no mistake, I aid you because my allegiance lies with Konohagakure, not you. The contract has not been signed."

Stabbing the kunai that was coated with his blood into the tree, Naruto used it to pull himself to his feet for the second time. He… was ruined. Yes, Jaguar had driven him to an inch of his life multiple times over their training, but this was something else entirely.

No energy.

Everything in his body was broken and battered.

He was bleeding from god knows how many places.

His mind was close to delirium.

No equipment, no tools, no weapons.

He had chakra however… he always had chakra.

It's all I've got but… it will have to do.

"Can you even move?"

Naruto turned on his heel back towards the way he had been moving. His feet stomped forwards, one after the other. Slowly, his pace quickened. The walk of the damned eventually turned into a dash through the trees once more.

The panther kept pace easily, as easy as breathing.

"Which way?" Naruto asked, his voice hoarse.

The summon didn't reply, instead taking the lead with a quick burst of speed and spearing off diagonally to the right. Wordlessly, the Black ANBU followed.


Flames.

Ash.

Smoke.

The forest around them was set ablaze in hellfire, dismantled corpses were scattered around a child's playthings. Weasel was struggling to breathe, her back up against one of the trees left blackened by her fireball techniques. Her ruby red eyes flicked down, eyeing her collapsed ribcage with a numb kind of nausea.

The captain must be dead, for him to be here…

Her eyes flicked up to the hulking, dark-skinned foreigner. The monstrous man looked like a maelstrom of black silk, slowly grinding out a victory against an utterly exhausted Jackdaw.

He had come from the trees like a wrecking ball. As spent as she was, she had sensed his presence far too late…

He had crushed her in his cloths like a toothpick from behind, leaving her in the middle of the battlefield to die in pain.

Weasel winced, watching as Jackdaw's leg buckled under him from a vicious snapkick from one of the Weepers from behind. Mbeki's fist finally broke through Jackdaw's barriers, slamming into the Konoha nin's jaw and sending him crashing through one of the smaller trees.

Get up… Weasel willed, staring at the motionless pile of splinters and dirt. Just one more time. The chūnin was a defensive powerhouse, one of the most resilient fighters she had ever seen.

She winced, rocked onto her side from a wayward explosion.

A moment passed, and Weasel turned away, disregarding the motionless Jackdaw. Cat ate the canary…

She giggled to herself, appreciating the joke before a racking cough burst out of her throat. Blood spattered against the inside of her mask, along with some bile. She tried to right herself, but the pain was excruciating.

Her fading vision turned back to the carnage around her. Jutsu was flying, the sickening impacts against flesh like a staccato rhythm that never ended. Slowly, her fingers began to form seals as she took stock of the remaining combatants. She couldn't win, not anymore.

There were too many of them, all of them powerful shinobi.

'I'm counting on you.'

That voice echoed through her head, and she spat out the accumulating blood in her mouth in disgust. She had failed a direct order from her captain.

Disgraceful.

Her fingers continued to move, inch by inch.

The Hokage had to know. Who, where, and why.

The smallest puff of smoke, and suddenly clutching to her collarbone, a red-eyed raven stared into Weasel's spinning sharingan.

"M-mission failed," she whispered through cracked lips, not noticing the slight frizzing of her hair. "All operatives… k-killed." Her eyes caught sight of the genjutsu user, and her hatred flared for just a second. It was tempered as a wave pain flushed through her, nearly sending her into unconsciousness. Focus, damn you. "I-Iwa ambushed Wind Country's coup-"

Another flush of darkness hit her as the shockwave from one of the Weeper's fire techniques reached her. Her ears were buzzing as she grit her teeth, desperately holding onto consciousness. Her hair began to frazzle even more, some strands even lifting up in the air.

Mbeki had the princess, his whipping cloths lashing at his own hide to fend off the female guardian's genjutsu as he desperately tried to make space.

Vision blurring, Weasel barely registered the scent of burning ozon-

The crow pecked at her cheek, and Weasel nodded, refocusing.

Desperately, she forced her sharingan onto the combatants again. "E-eight Weep… seven?" she trailed off, noticing the missing Iwa nin. When did he die?

A black blur suddenly shot across the battlefield, it was only her doujutsu that had allowed her to catch it.

Another Weeper vanished in a spray of red mist.

That smell of burning ozone began to fill the air en masse. The buzzing grew louder-

Not buzzing, she realised.

It was a snapping, crackling sound. Like static. Like…

Electricity.

"N-nix…"

The hoarse whisper left her lips, just as one of the Weepers turned to look in her direction. She could see it.

The burning flash of white reflected in the glistening pupils of his eyes. A surge of something monstrous scattered over her head, and a streak of pure white lightning struck the ground with the force of a comet.

'BOOM!'

The ground exploded.

The Weeper that had been looking at her faded, engulfed in white. She watched him crumble, flesh sizzling into dust and ashes, before Weasel was forced to close her eyes from the brightness of it all.

And then the shockwave hit her-

Darkness.


Pat…

Pat…

Pat…

Slowly, steadily, blood pitter-pattered off his form and into the tree branch he was stood upon. His fingers clenched, seizing the maelstrom of pure white chaos that was flooding his veins like liquid fire. His other hand was curled into the half-dragon seal.

It hurt.

It hurt beyond words.

But he had a job to do.

It took so much longer than it should have, a slow, taxing technique that was already difficult as it was. But that was fine.

Quantity did not matter here. Speed wasn't the goal.

His icy, bloodshot eyes peered through the cracked black mask in a squint, tracking fractional movements through over a thousand feet of foliage and trees.

The lightning spear began to form in his clenched fist, sparking out the gaps of his fingers. Slowly, ever so slowly, he shuffled his back foot in the puddle of his own blood and prepared to throw.

His lungs emptied, his heartbeat slowed.

The air around him grew still, and he waited…

Now!

Muscle fibres tore in his shoulder. Electricity scattered up his arm, scorching his skin and burning off his suit.

But the throw was perfect.

The lightning javelin careened through the trees at a speed that cracked the air, ripping through the leaves and skewering into and out the other side of a Weeper who had been mid-air. The explosion caught another, wounding him just enough for Mbeki to gain the upper hand.

Another vanished in a torrent of flashing fangs and claws.

The tide had shifted dramatically.

Vision dimming at the edges, Naruto shifted his foot back in the puddle once more…

After a while he lost count of how many more javelins he had thrown. Judging by his left arm that was scorched black up to his chest, one or two too many.

Mbeki had fled, princess in tow. They were heading for Wind Country.

He landed on the forest floor harshly, knees crunching into the dirt as his feet gave way. Groaning, he dragged himself up, and began to stalk through the forest into the clearing.

The landscape was a mess.

Explosions, jutsu, ruined earth. It had scarred nature in an irreparable way.

Something shifted in the smoke up ahead, and Naruto limped his way forwards. There, writhing in the dirt, a once gorgeous form scratched at the charred ground. Her skin was blistered and popped in places from Naruto's lightning javelins, her makeup running with streaks of blood, sweat and tears.

Her legs were mangled, scrunched and bungled up impossibly tight by black fabric.

She sobbed in agony through a tongueless mouth.

He had no weapons. He had no strength to tame the white lightning. And so his hands wrapped around her throat.

And squeezed.

Her eyes bulged, veins like little worms of red climbing their way through the whites.

Slowly, surely, Naruto strangled the life out of the traitorous guardian.

Their eyes never left each other. It was a hideous death, a putrid gurgling noise was all that broke the silence as blood and bile seeped from her paling lips. It wasn't long before she went limp in his hands, her head lolling over lifelessly as one of her eyes finally burst from the pressure.

Letting go, Naruto stumbled backwards. He turned, coming face to face with the frazzled, blood-soaked visage of the panther summon.

Its flank was ripped up with wounds and its fur matted with what was once superheated mud from a Weeper jutsu. Nonetheless, the creature stood strong, regarding Naruto carefully.

"You were right," it said eventually.

"About?"

"Your prey was not weak." It slid down into a resting position, licking slowly at a cut on its paw. "I'll die from these wounds if I stay," it murmured. As if it was nothing of consequence.

"Then go," Naruto muttered, turning to face the direction Mbeki had fled.

Wind Country.

He was in good shape, compared to Naruto at least. He would make it to the border within a week with the distance he had put between them.

"And your companions?"

That broke Naruto out of his thoughts. He turned a quizzical eye onto the massive cat. "They're alive?"

The panther snorted, blowing ashes from the ground into the air with the action. "Won't be for long, without help."

"Can you take them?"

"To?"

Naruto glanced up over the trees. In the distance, he could just make out the top of the Daimyo's palace.

The panther followed his gaze, before rising slowly.

"Damned humans…"

"Please."

The creature growled lowly, turning and padding softly towards Weasel's unconscious form. "Chase them into the desert as you are, and you will die," it stated, not looking back.

Naruto shrugged. "Probably."

The summon paused, just for a few seconds, before continuing on.

Naruto left the creature to its task. His eyes drifted up to the stars above him.

"This is madness, Naruto."

He didn't bother looking at Ghost, instead just nodding solemnly. "Probably."

Even still… he began walking South.


Author's Notes: Been some time. Long story short, I work some ridiculous hours in some ridiculously remote places. There's been no time for any of my hobbies, let alone something as consuming as writing.

This chapter is short, and I apologise for that, I made a mistake in not including it with the previous one. But I've got the chance to post it now, which means I can finally conclude the 'A Black Dawn' section of this arc.

Unfortunately, I can't promise when the next update will be. I understand how frustrating that may be, but you have to bear with me. I'm just one guy trudging through life, and as we know, life is a fickle bitch.

Jutsu/Techniques:

- Summoning Technique - Ninjutsu, Supplementary, ?-Rank
The Summoning Technique allows the user to transport a target to their location. The selected target must first be marked using a paired set of seals. A vast configuration summoning seal variants are available, with the most common being that of a Slave/Master matrix that allows unrestricted access for the summoner to the intended target. This particular type of seal is used commonly for storage and rapid acquisition of items, materials, and in the case of shinobi, weapons/equipment.

- Lightning Release: Javelin Bolt - Ninjutsu, Offensive, B-Rank
The user harnesses a massive amount of lightning chakra within their palm. By using their curled fingers as an inductive load, they step up a tremendous amount of energy before abruptly breaking the containment and allowing electricity to spill out the sides of their fist to form a spear. Timing is paramount, as the bolt of lightning must be thrown before it grounds out against a nearby source and electrocutes the user.