Chapter 28

Yugito ducked under an orb of scorch release and swept her tail broadside against the shinobi from sand that sent it her way. The tail of blue fire bisected her, flinging out bits and pieces of ashen paper and putting her out of commission for at least thirty seconds. Not being able to rest on her laurels for even a second, Yugito had to summon a wall of consuming fire in a column around her, which melted the cold ice of a member of the yuki clan. She pounced out of it like a tiger hidden in the grass, shoved her elongated nails into his abdomen, and wrenched away, letting him fall to the ground in pieces so thinly sliced as to look like deli meat.

She didn't have a way to seal them away, but she was strong enough that she could deal with them with relative ease. But there were a lot of them and if she hadn't mastered the use of Matatabi's chakra, then she'd have died dozens of times over by then.

Luckily for her, she had.

Magnet release, blast release, Byakugan, the whole gamut came out to play with her and the only thing she could do was to keep them at bay and hope that Jiraiya was alive enough to help her put them away before they could wander off and do damage on someone who couldn't handle it.

Strangely, despite the fact that she was very truly fighting for survival, her heart wasn't beating with the same flitted up-down, yes-no, do-or-die type of lightning fast deep primal level impulses. For lack of a better word, she felt calm and serene. Like someone who had mastered a particular way of movement. She didn't have to think about the fight, it just happened and she let her body do it for her. A slip up could mean the end of her, but she knew that she wouldn't do that and she also knew that the enemies couldn't force it on her either.

She was ready to take on the world. If the world won, then the world won. But if it won, it wouldn't be because she didn't try.

She stopped, pressed against the floor with her limbs splayed out, baring her fangs at an invisible enemy. All the kekkai genkai users were motes of paper in the wind. She had a few seconds respite before the next one fully reformed and came with the intent to kill again.

Yugito closed her eyes and focused on breathing. It was in those scant few moments that images of her loved ones came to mind.

Kurotsuchi, a brave girl with a mouth that would make a sailor blush. Fu, the one who laughed at everything, even when the world threw the worst it had at her. Temari, who stood tall when everything around her fell to pieces. Mei, a bastion of wise council, never changing, never having to change. Naruto, the one she decided to stand next to.

And also Ai and Bee and Omoi and Karui and, hell, even Samui or Atsui. She thought of Sakura and Kakashi and she thought of Jiraiya and Tsunade. She thought of them all.

She thought back to when they weren't with her. Or, more accurately, when she wasn't with them. And she smiled. Even in the epicenter of the end of the world, Yugito smiled in remembrance of all those who helped her become more than a monster.

And when she opened her eyes, Fu flew into the room, her back a mass of strange purple extensions that scooped down and entrapped the reforming kekkai genkai users in an instant and dropped off, leaving an inescapable coffin with a struggling zombie inside in its wake. She moved methodically and without having to stop, taking the zombies in her contraption one by one until over the course of half a minute, only she and Yugito were left in the room with functioning movement.

Her back morphed back into itself and she reabsorbed the exoskeletal material from the outside, leaving Fu in an almost completely exhausted state behind. She was leaning against the wall, her hands on a convenient railing as sweat poured from every area on her body. Her breathing was ragged and her eyes bloodshot.

And somehow, she was still smiling. She was still laughing despite her body needing air probably should have taken precedence in that situation.

Yugito jolted forward, her body having suddenly switched gears from survival to making sure Fu was going to make it through the next five seconds. The older woman patted her on the back and gave her some space. "There, there, you okay?"

With a final, wide gulping breath, Fu shuddered out her last chuckles and nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. Been flying over everywhere trying to keep those ash people out of the count. Some people have died, but mostly everyone's alive. Sasuke's here, by the way. Might want to give it a few before saying hi to him. What else… oh, we don't know where swirly face is. Mei and Jiraiya are taking care of the last of the ash people. Temari's facing down Gaara, who's also an ash zombie. Uhm… yeah, I came over to help you out."

Yugito's brain was somewhat overwhelmed with the swamp of new information that swept through. Unfortunately, it didn't give her an idea of what to do next. Her combat potential was really only suited to stalling the zombies in order to buy time for someone to take them out for good. She wasn't really suited for tracking down someone who had the ability to use space altering jutsu either.

Something stuck out though.

"Where's Kurotsuchi?"

"She got hurt in a fight with Sasuke and walked out. She's probably fine though. Out of all of us, she's the survivor."

Yugito wasn't so sure.

"Do we help Temari then?" Yugito asked.

Fu shook her head. "She's got that covered. We need to gather everyone who's still alive and get a chain of command going on."

It made enough sense.

Yugito nodded and made to run to the exit of the room, hoping to get a sense of direction on they way. Fu, however, had something else in mind. Before the older woman could even start, the younger had grabbed her by the elbow and held her in place. Yugito unintentionally tugged forward, but was kept in place. Trying to physically move against Fu was like willing a stone statue to take off its hat. She was too sturdy.

"Hold up," Fu said, her voice quieter after having gotten her breath back.

Yugito looked back. The girl's face was scarlet and was looking to the side. "Are you okay?" Yugito asked, doubling back to put her palm against her forehead.

Fu brushed the hand aside and nodded. "I'm not… I'm not sick." She turned her head forward so she could look at the older woman straight in the eyes. "I need to tell you something. Just in case things go sideways in the next couple of hours."

Yugito gulped and regarded her seriously, unsure of where Fu was going to go.

The girl took one last steadying breath and clenched her fingers into a fist. "I… really look up to you. I have for a long time. I'm not sure if I've said that or intonated it in the past or what, but I just want to make sure that you know that I really respect you for everything you've accomplished and what you had to go through to achieve those things."

The woman felt a small smile come to her lips. It was somewhat rare for her to see Fu struggle to show emotion. It must have been eating her up for a while for her to be so disheveled.

"But… But more than that. You figured out how to be strong, how to come to terms with yourself way before I ever could. And even when I was acting like a bitch, making things worse for everyone, you never lowered yourself to my level. You always cared for me. You always stuck by me. I…" Fu gulped hard and grabbed her hands in her own. "I love you. You and Temari and Kurotsuchi and maybe Mei. And Naruto. I love all of you. Romantically. I consider you my family. Now and forever. This contract might not have been any of what we wanted at first, but I can't imagine a better future without it. Thanks. Thanks for being you."

In a way, Yugito was struck by her words, but she also knew them to be deeply true in another way. Yugito wrapped Fu in a big hug and held her close to her body, squeezing like her life depended on it. "Don't look up to me too hard. I'm only the way I am because of you and Naruto and Kurotsuchi, Temari, Mei… You all mean so much to me too." Yugito pushed her away and held her at the shoulders so they could look into each other's eyes and so Fu could understand exactly what she was going to say next. "But don't use that sort of language. We are going to make it out of here, one way or another. And we're all going back to that beach. And we're all going to be a family."

00000000

Temari took one last deep breath and plopped down on her ass, laying the fan on the cold ground next to her so she could recline back and close her eyes. "Man, you guys give up a hell of a fight, don't you?"

"We try our best, don't we?" Her father replied, his eyes blackened and dead, not that she could see them. He was encased head to toe in linen wrappings with a special black mark in the middle that chained around the whole thing, keeping him, thankfully, in place. The only thing sticking out of the whole thing was his mouth, letting him talk to his only daughter.

"I did at least. Though I'm definitely not as powerful without the power of Shukaku aiding me," Her little brother said back to her, much in the same position as his father.

Kankuro sat down next to Temari as well, his puppets well and truly spent and depleted. Without them backing him up, he looked defeated and small. Or maybe that was just because it was hard for him to draw his gaze upwards at the other half of his family. The half that didn't make it.

"And here I thought I did pretty damn well against you. I guess I've still got room to grow then, huh?" Temari said with a small chuckle at the end. It had been a hard fight, especially against the two of them. She had only triumphed because Kankuro was still in fighting shape after Sasuke bolted. That, and they had help from Jiraiya and a member of the sealing corps of hidden sand who thankfully tagged along. All in all though, she was pretty proud they managed to take down both her brother and her father with their comparatively meager force.

Gaara smiled, his cracked skin shifting about to make room for that expression of joviality. There was an undercurrent of emotion in his words. "We all have room to grow. But you have grown strong. Not just in body or with jutsu. But your composure as well. And your spirit. And your character. I am… so proud of what you've done." His voice became as cracked as his skin. "I'm sorry for leaving you. I couldn't protect you."

Temari's eyes started to stream hot tears. As soon as she saw her brother and father, she didn't know when she was going to cry, just that it absolutely was going to happen. She also knew that she couldn't let him know that she was. He had to know that she was going to be okay. "You moron. I'm your big sister. I was the one who was supposed to protect you. I failed."

She could see him grit his teeth and clench his jaw.

"You don't have to worry," she said as soothingly as she could. "I'm fine on my own. We're fine on our own. Right Kankuro?"

He nodded and said "Right," past the tears on his face, past the sadness in his throat.

Gaara's head pitched forward slightly, against the linen wrapping. She had a feeling he'd be hanging his head if that was possible. "I wish I could have stayed with you two longer," he said. "It was just starting to get nice too. But you're right. You will be fine on your own. I have faith in you two."

Temari and Kankuro smiled, despite everything that had happened, they could at least all smile together.

"Oh, and by the way, how's the whole thing with Naruto shaping up?" Gaara asked with a surprisingly normal tone of voice.

Temari's head perked up, confusion evident in her eyes. "Wha?"

"I'm guessing it didn't work out and you got a divorce. It makes sense. I did make the executive decision after all…"

Temari's brow lowered. "What? No! I love him. And he loves me. We're… we're happy together."

"Wait, what's this I hear about my daughter getting married?" Her father burst in, sounding much more protective now than in life.

Temari narrowed her eyes at him and let an annoyed breath of air from her lips.

"Oh, okay. I get it. I wasn't a good dad. One of the worst in fact. But I had my reasons for acting that way. And I also have my reasons for wondering why you're married at such an early age!"

"Do you even know how old I am?" she asked.

"…What year is it?"

"You don't get the year. You guess."

He waited a for moment, the air becoming lagged down with an awkward silence. "16," he finally said.

"20."

"That's still too young to be getting married. And what's this I hear about it not being your own choice?"

"There was the option for her to be part of a historic political marriage," Gaara replied. "So I put her up for it. Turns out there were four other marriage offers for the same person by the end of it, and we all went with it. Turns out I might have started world peace."

The man was shocked silent for a moment or two. "I didn't know you liked jokes, Gaara."

"I don't dislike jokes in and of themselves. I'm not too clever to make them up on my own though."

Kankuro leaned over next to Temari while the two of them started bickering. "This isn't how I imagined this would go," he whispered.

Her tears were still wet on her face and she was looking at a comedy act going on. "No, I didn't think so either."

It was nice though. She wondered if that was how things would have gone if she had a normal family that bickered over normal things. It's not what she was used to.

She took a deep breath and hoisted herself up by her battle fan. "It's been nice," she said. "And I wish I could talk to you a little bit longer. But the fate of the world is still ticking down and I've got a duty to the people who depend on me. We both do. Any last words before you're sealed for good?"

Her father was the first to react. "I didn't do you right when I was alive. But I'm happy and proud of what you all have become."

"Things didn't go as planned, but I'm happy that they've worked out like they have," Gaara said before giving one last smile. "Now go on, save the world."

The two dead members of a broken family started glowing a bright white while the two living members walked away from them. As they passed back into the afterlife, Kankuro nudged Temari's shoulder. "What now?"

"Now? Now we have to go find the man with the swirled mask."

00000000

Kurama looked out through the iron bars of his cage past the mindscape, past the chakra system, past the body itself, and looked through the kid's eyes. He was talking to the woman in blue. Mei, he thought her name was. It was hard though. He didn't really keep track of most of everyone's names. Until then, he'd really only thought to remember his siblings' names and the odd human that managed to differentiate themselves from the herd.

And now, he had the boy. And even that was pushing it.

There was still a sea of hatred that roiled and boiled and tormented Kurama in his gut, calling for blood and retribution and vengeance. But there was also something tempering that call. He'd already given the world so many chances to show its true colors to the point where he had stopped thinking that the colors he'd been shown could be anything but the truth.

And he still thought he was right in that. The world was ugly and terrible and existed only to create good things so as to crush them moments later. He'd been trapped and tortured and left to rot. That's what the world showed him.

No, the boy wasn't doing what he thought he was doing. He wasn't showing Kurama the true colors of the world. He was showing that it could be changed. That the cycle could be broken, this time for good. That, with effort and hard work, there might not be a need for fear anymore. At least not unjust fear.

'Hey Kurama!' Naruto shouted from his consciousness.

Kurama made a show of rumbling in his cage. "Yeah, kid?"

'What do you think?'

"What do I think about what?"

'Have you not been listening?' Naruto asked frantically.

"What do you think I am?"

'I guess now you're someone who only intermittently listens in on my conversations, as opposed to all the time.'

"Intermittent? That's a big word. Did your-"

'Yes, my wife from sand is rubbing off on me. Get a new joke.'

"I think it's funny."

'And I'm glad. But things are going sideways and I need your help.'

Help, huh? Did he really owe them help? Did they do anything to deserve him helping them? They, who have shown him only grief?

He remembered the look in the kid's eyes as he walked through the cage and wrapped his little body around his wrist.

Perhaps it wasn't only grief he had been shown.

"What do you need?"

00000000

The familiar orange-yellow chakra flames flared up all over his body, adding to the sage chakra he was using. A cape similar to the one his dad used to wear materialized over his shoulders. He took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes, expanding his view of the world around him so that it took everything possible into it.

Mei looked at it happen with wide eyes. Looking at it made her feel foolish. Perhaps that wasn't the best word to describe it. Clearly, and without any room for argument, she shouldn't have doubted his abilities. She should have believed in the power he was capable of. But now that he was here, with her, looking straight ahead at the end of it all and racing forwards despite that… things had been upended somewhat for her. He wasn't the quick-mouthed, energetic, bull-aheading sort of person anymore. He'd been changing bit by bit right by her side for months now and she was only just seeing the change at the other end.

She couldn't treat him like a kid anymore. He was just as effective as she was. And not even necessarily strictly in the sense that he could turn the tide in battle. That look on his face; He was thinking. Not just in the sense that people normally think, but in the way that a seasoned chess player thought ahead, looked at the whole board, and came to conclusions that were best for the entire strategy. But there was also worry and franticness in his voice and his movements. He thought ahead, put faith where it should go, and still worried for the sake of other people all in frame of time.

No, he wasn't a kid anymore.

But what did that make her? For three seconds a sort of self-consciousness enveloped her and halted her speech and thought patterns. She was a peer to him; They were equals. She couldn't be the kind woman who held his hand through bad things anymore, they had to trudge through those things together. Her supporting him and him supporting her. But was that good?

No, not good or bad. It was just different. Different in a startling and scary way that she didn't know she was still capable of feeling. If they were peers, did he really need her anymore? What could she do? If she was capable in that moment of extreme self-consciousness of even a morsel of self-reflection, she might have realized the irony in her, one of the strongest shinobi on the continent, of being worried of being rejected by her former young charge.

What could she do?

A lot.

Who did she want to do those things for?

She'd gone through a whole lot of pain and suffering and did horrible things and horrible things had been done to her. And she did them for the people who were suffering. She did them and was subjected to them to make a better future, to protect. She did it because it was, in fact, the right thing for her to do.

She did those things and was subjected to those things for the people who couldn't do it themselves and for the people she loved. Naruto used to fit into both those categories and now he only fit in the latter.

What could she do?

A whole lot.

His eyes opened and looked across the castle directly at a wall. He was seeing something that she couldn't. He looked to the other two people sharing a space with him, Sakura and Kakashi, and pointed to where he'd been looking. "He's over there."

Sakura's lips pressed into a thin line and her fingers clenched into fists while Kakashi got an even more morose demeanor. They were looking for their long-lost teammate. It made sense for their tension to be at their peak. Mei didn't belong with them as they were off to confront him. Like a tag-along to a family get-together.

But she had no idea what he was capable of and the most pressing thing she needed to do, finding the man with the swirled mask, wasn't something she was outfitted to find. It might do her good to find Chojuro or Ao.

Naruto turned to Mei. Worry ate at him. Nervousness clutched his heart. And he didn't know what might happen next. He still smiled though. "I don't know how he's changed. I might need your help."

Mei smiled a little bit. "You're damn right."