Yay, new story arc! Hope you like. Thanks for reading.


Part 8 - Chant Down Babylon

Itachi

Along the empty street, walking at an unhurried pace with a stately, disgruntled-seeming raven perched atop his shoulder, the next-to-last of the Uchiha followed a trail of broken bricks and cracked pavement until he arrived, as he'd known he would, at the statue-still form of his partner.

The blue-haired, blue-skinned titan stood frozen in a pose with one hand held out before him, the other drawn back to strike like an angry sea-god.

Kisame definitely would've been victorious, Itachi mused then laid his hand on the former mist-ninja's heavily-muscled arm and gave him a pulse of chakra at which Kisame flinched just slightly before he regained his bearings.

"Genjutsu?" the awakened Akatsuki snarled in disbelief. "How is that possible?"

Itachi drew apart, looked off over the rooftops mindful of mist-ninja or more demons like those that had attacked them earlier but there were none in sight. His raven, meanwhile, swiveled its stiletto beak fiercely, raised a wing and took a moment to preen its fan of ebon feathers. "It wasn't Naruto or Haku's work," offered the ninja drily. "We can be fairly certain of that. Someone has come to their aid it seems. I suspected Lord Hirai at first but he wouldn't dare oppose us. Our unknown adversary possesses a mastery that surpasses anything I've ever encountered, is sophisticated enough to trap me without me suspecting, powerful enough to trap us both without the need to be physically present. I surmise that whoever is the source of these illusions is also responsible for manipulating those monsters that attacked us before." The Uchiha turned back to his partner with what passed for a grin on his lean face. "To tell you the truth, I'm intrigued."

Kisame scowled. "How'd you escape?"

For such an obvious question Itachi traded a whimsical glance then tilted his head toward the bird at his collar.

"Ah, right."

"We'll have to be on guard from now on. Your sword, Samehada can free you if it's aware enough of your situation to give you a jolt of chakra when the need arises."

The big ninja's glance strayed strangely for a moment before he made his way over to where his weapon lay and knelt to retrieve it. "Yeah, gotcha," he grumbled absently, having turned puzzlingly taciturn.

Itachi raised an eyebrow then, when Kisame kept silent, prodded: "Kisame," he began, "your business is yours and you're entitled to your secrets as I am to mine. I've always maintained that as wise policy…but if there's something you've realized that's relevant to our situation it would serve our cause better if you shared it."

The man's face froze into a thoughtful, concerned frown – a look Itachi had never seen before.

"Kisame?"

The jonin blinked, his face intense; reflection brewing behind those glassy eyes. "I had this other partner once…before you." He looked up with an expression that at once impressed upon Itachi the gravity of this revelation, "before I joined the Akatsuki."


Inoue

Was it cold out or did it just seem that way? As the old Councilor stood at the railing of her ship, The Sophae, she couldn't quite decide. Being one of Kirigakure's Councilors, she'd certainly made her share of hard decisions before yet this one was the hardest – to destroy a thing she loved, the home she'd known and defended since childhood, and not at a distance but right up close and at her own direct command.

It is necessary, she told herself as the wind stirred her gray hair. All the pieces were still in place for the rise of a new Kirigakure but they all depended on the old one ending, one way or the other. Heaven and Earth, woman, are you really going to give in now just because the way has gotten hard? Beyond all the plans she'd laid for this, years of work, all the reasons why the Mist Village needed to start anew, freed from the shackles of its history, thoughts for her own survival and for her clan's could not help but intrude. The price for failure didn't bear thinking about.

Inoue looked down over her ship – the sleek, nautical marvel that was her mobile command center. The vessel pushed the boundaries of what technologies were permissible under the Five Nations Treaty and, in some cases, edged casually past them. All the Elemental Nations dabbled a bit in forbidden technologies and forbidden jutsu. Any that didn't were just being naïve. For all of that there was nothing about The Sophae that would get Inoue hauled off in irons to face charges of war crimes. The same could not be said of its sentries, her personal praetorian, the Nephilim Guard.

The woman turned her attention to them. Standing there, spaced out evenly along the guardrails like that - clad in anonymous grey, their heads and faces completely swathed in gauzy wrappings - they seemed a bit spooky but hardly remarkable. Many countries had ceremonial guards who could stand for hours at their posts still as statues, seemingly not breathing, maybe not even human. These were human, or once were – these men and women who'd given up so much for the sake of their Mist Village, some willingly and some not. Inoue wondered what they'd have had to say about being deployed for a purpose like this: its destruction. The thought sent a chill through her.

Ah, it really isn't the weather then…

"Go," she told them and blinked, deciding that instant.

They were well gone and on their way before her eyes flicked opened.


Haku

Sitting cross-legged on the deck of Lord Tohma Nikai's flagship, Haku was at the same time thankful beyond measure that he and Naruto had escaped the Akatsuki and delivered Mei Terumi as per the improbable plan that he, Shikamaru and the unworldly Okino had contrived yet glum over how little it had accomplished. On the way here, he and his leaf-village partner had imparted to Mei everything they knew about Councilor Inoue's role in all that had befallen Kirigakure and Councilor Hirai's efforts to stop her. Confronted by the enormity of that, the auburn-haired mist-jonin had not truly appreciated the outcast Nikai's more immediate threat until they had walked midway across the wide, grey-blue waters of the Unagi Canal, passed through the veil of the ninja-patriarch's concealing jutsu to find his five commandeered, zombie-manned warships ready to unleash fiery death upon the already trouble-plagued city.

Oh, yes, there are zombies now too, Haku considered as he looked up at the gangs of them standing by, attentive to their master's word. Zombie -, the boy thought as if pitching a plot for an especially bad movie, -ninjas.

Though pickled by salt water, these refugees from Davey Jones' Locker had been dearly-departed for some days now and the decay was starting to show. Haku would've been horrified, shocked even had he not been past shocking just now.

Hideo was there as well, another but much more advanced iteration of Lord Nikai's undead creations, so maybe he shouldn't have been surprised to see him again. In truth though, Haku owed Hideo more than could ever be repaid. The revenant, if that's what he was, had saved his life and more. Prior to his reunion with Naruto at Hirai Castle after the fiasco that followed their first foray into Kirigakure, Haku had begged him to look after Naruto. It'd turned out that begging hadn't been necessary as Lord Nikai had charged Hideo with the protection of all blood-gifted outcasts and to follow their commands. Though quite unintentional and unbeknownst to him at the time, Haku met the criteria.

Another monstrous jutsu, the young ninja thought and sighed. It struck Haku that, out of thousands and thousands of different techniques, almost all jutsu were warlike in nature with only a few geared toward genuinely humane or utilitarian purposes. Even the entire spectrum of medical jutsu occupied just a tiny fraction of all the jutsu there were and had been developed mainly to alleviate injuries sustained in battle in the first place.

If only there were jutsu that soothed hurt feelings, cooled rage, clarified confusion, mended broken hearts or put right past wrongs, he mused, now that would be something.

This wasn't so much an idle thought. Since they'd introduced Lady Terumi to Lord Nikai it had been nothing but bitterest acrimony between the two – Kirigakure's past crimes versus Nikai's imminent ones. The teenager had to shake his head and wonder about the underpinnings of his, Shikamaru's and Okino's plan which seemed more and more farfetched by the minute.

The fugitive ninja-lord's three students, though quiet, seemed to want to edge reflexively toward their sensei's position but their troubled expressions gave voice that they weren't completely deaf to Mei's pleas either. Tensai Kaguya, his pale face grim, kept close to the kunoichi, having been charged with keeping an eye on her in case she gave way to desperation and tried to disable Nikai's ships herself. His younger sister, Sakiko stood back away and anxiously watched all that unfolded with younger Genosuke never straying far from her side.

Haku looked over at them, feeling a kind of kinship that maybe only orphans felt. They were not his brothers and sisters but as close as he was likely to find, in spirit and circumstance if not by blood.

Sakiko's glance flicked away shyly while her smaller companion returned a dull, disdainful glare.

I suppose you can't please everyone…

Shikamaru and his team from the Hidden Leaf Village were all there too, having arrived an hour or so earlier in the young, blood-gifted ninjas' company. They sat together side-by-side except for Naruto who lay stretched out on the deck wincing with his eyes pressed closed, and Sakura who knelt over him, using her medical arts to repair the damage Kisame had wrought. Haku noted the depth of the pink-haired girl's concern, her hastily-stifled reaction to seeing her partner again so badly beat-up, and wondered if Naruto's feelings for her might not be quite as unrequited as he thought. The shinobi smirked and shrugged the idea away. Having only ever been in ONE relationship hardly made him an expert.

"Honestly, Haku!" a flustered Lord Nikai trumpeted, rounding on the teenager and rousing him from his thoughts, "what is the point of you bringing this-this-this mist-kunoichi here, especially this one whose own blood-gifted clan never suffered as ours did?"

Haku sucked in his thin lips then shrugged and explained drolly: "I think the idea was that you two would work things out like sensible adults." The young ninja winced then quickly added to his earlier list a jutsu that could reel words back in after they'd been said. What a treasure! He cursed himself. What was he doing letting fly a comment as ridiculously unhelpful as that? Having served a year as a constable in Wave Country he'd learned very well that no 'grown-up' in the world cared for snark, especially from a relative child. Heaven and Earth, he'd picked the wrong time to abandon discretion.

"Oh, I should never have sought you out!" the ninja-patriarch spat back venomously, the features of his face flushed and curdled. "The only reason I did is because you're the last, the sole survivor of the once-great Aramata Clan, and I felt I owed it to you." He paced away, fuming, brushed back his tangle of ash and brown hair with his fingers. "You've been to Kaori no Hana Island, Haku, seen what they did to your family – burned them alive, their houses and lands with them! Naturally I assumed you wanted justice. Little did I know that you, YOU, would attempt to thwart me at every turn."

Haku blew out a breath through a puffed cheek. For a ninja-lord, the young shinobi couldn't help but think, he was laying it on a bit thick. Another thing he'd learned was that there was no sense in answering an emotional outburst with another unless escalation was what you wanted yet it wasn't anger that rose within him but weary, weary sadness. "What I want is a future," the former Demon's Apprentice answered with a doleful ache leaking into his tone, "where the ninja villages don't commit acts of mass slaughter for pure political expediency, and madmen armed with horrifying weapons don't doom entire populations in the name of abstract notions." He looked up with his faint, schoolgirl's smile. "Not that anybody asked me." Haku pushed his way to his feet.

"But you're right," he slogged on, picking an uncomfortable fold out of his borrowed clothes, "I have seen the ruins of my clan's home and often wondered about the family I never knew but they were not all the innocent lambs you think they were and neither were yours. Those who carry a kekkei-genkai are and have always been viewed with some suspicion but too many of us in Water Country were mercenaries, profiteers, criminals and assassins which made it that much easier for Kirigakure to make us all into monsters. They were more than happy to take advantage of the prejudice against us, hold us to blame for the Civil Wars and all the horrors that unfolded from them then wipe us out in the name of 'justice'.

"It seemed like an easy way out and the Mist Village took it. But our Clan Matriarchs and Patriarchs – they weren't blind or stupid. Do you really think it possible that none of them saw it coming?" He gestured toward Gennosuke. "Do you think the Serizawa Clan with their gifts of projection and clairvoyance were taken by surprise?"

Nikai straightened and turn toward him, eyes narrowing. "What are you suggesting?"

"They knew. Isn't it obvious?" said Haku. "They made their choice, to sacrifice themselves, to take on Kirigakure's crimes as their own. What I'm telling you is that your clan leaders and mine were willing to die for this village, the same one that you wish to destroy. I'm telling you that among all those mercenaries and killers were Kirigakure's greatest patriots." Haku ventured a meaningful look toward Mei who stared back solemnly.

"Not to seem selfish but what I want too is to get back to my life," Haku went on, feeling once again that he was ceding control to that certain annoying and problematic aspect of his nature – though generally quiet, reserved for the most part, once he got to talking it was hard to stop. "There's nothing particularly special about it but it's mine and I should probably have stayed where I was, living it. I couldn't though. I can't now. For whatever baffling reason I feel compelled to try and save these people who would slit my throat for everything I did as Zabuza's student, for being from one of the outcast clans and having this blood-gift. And I don't know if it's because I think I have anything to atone for or if it's just because I don't think they deserve to be savaged by a plague or," he paused in mid-stride, unaware that he'd been pacing, and waved his hand behind him at the towering rack after rack of rockets aimed at both banks of the Unagi Canal, "suffer the same fate as the Aramata."

The boy fell quiet, ceding the floor to the sound of the wind and waves.

"So that's it," offered Mei at last, "that's why."

Haku wiped his forehead with a sleeve. "Maybe I've only been trying to stave off the inevitable. If that's how it is there still isn't a single thing I can think of that I'd do differently except one." He turned toward the quartet from the Leaf Village. "Kiba, Sakura, Shikamaru, Chouji…Akamaru," he offered with head bowed, "I'm sorry for having gotten you involved in all this."

The three seated leaf-ninjas fidgeted a bit while Naruto flailed and pushed himself up to lean on one arm. "They came for ME, Haku," the blond genin objected in his piping, gravelly tenor then looked up at his companions, settling finally on Sakura then said in a softer tone: "I'm…I'm the one who should be sorry."

"It's ok," Sakura allowed from her teammate's side then, after some thought, smiled then added cheerily: "Things happen, right?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "I'd just be wasting time sleeping or playing Shogi anyway."

Chouji nodded agreeably.

Kiba grinned, one pointy canine peeking over his lower lip. "Great speech," he gibed casually. "But the only thing I'm mad about is that you didn't just come get me instead. You are an honorary member of Team Eight, remember? And just think: you could've saved yourself a whole bunch of trouble. After all," he continued, canting his head toward Sakura then leaning heavily into Shikamaru and pulling him into a crushing, overly-familiar one-armed embrace, "the Hokage never would've sent Pinky and the Brain here after little ole' me!"

Haku stared, speechless as Shikamaru grimaced and pushed a cackling Kiba off him while Sakura rolled her eyes. Akamaru barked, joining the lift in mood, and hopped about his master's folded legs.

"Anyway," Kiba pressed, his humor fading, "this is some important, world-changing shit going on here. We should be involved. What else are we doing all that training for?" The wolfish genin levelled his gaze and looked as if he was on the verge of some great announcement but he smiled smugly instead and kept whatever it was to himself.

Haku goggled at first, oddly moved by their gestures. Having friends was still something relatively new to him. Sometimes the things they said and did whether mundane or unusual stirred his emotions in ways he was still unused to. He found himself smiling, trembling with soft laughter. "Fair enough," he rasped, spread his hands then said to Kiba: "I'll pencil you down for next time."


Akatsuki

A scrap of trash, ragged at the edges, drifted across the vacant, Friary Hill lot, pausing here and there as it caught on tufts of grass or against a tooth of broken masonry. The wind finally blew it clear just as the two black-caped figures entered, confident but wary. Black, open-toed boots treaded purposefully over the desolate landscape. The raven perched atop the dark-haired one's shoulder cawed, cracking the stillness.

"This is the place, Itachi?" Kisame asked, looking around at the brooding faces of the surrounding tenement buildings. "You think he's here?"

The Uchiha nodded. "He's here." The shinobi's Sharingan eyes flared into scythes of black pin-wheeling around pools of pure fire. Though silent and unseen unless one happened to look into his face just then, the change the infamous Uchiha's kekkei-genkai imposed was both palpable and dire, engendering an atmosphere of dread that rippled outward like a pebble thrown into still waters.

The air at the end of the lot shivered and swam like a mirage, a hazy kaleidoscope of colors and light, then settled with sudden clarity to reveal a splendid, orange-columned pavilion bounded by a reflecting pool. The sky above shimmered within, dreamlike grey clouds drifted brightly in perfect mirror-image.

"Well-well," hummed Kisame, poor-humored, as he took a step toward the water; blue lips pulled back tightly from triangular teeth, "looks like an invitation. It'd be a shame not to accept.

"Okino!" he roared at the edifice, cords standing taut from his thick neck. "So, what, am I supposed to be impressed? This is how you take revenge? You always fancied yourself such the deep thinker, a dreamer, and this is the best you can come up with?" The infamous S-class criminal paced in agitation. "I'm not surprised. The world isn't half as deep as you think, never was, never will be. No matter where you go, no matter who you or anyone imagines themselves to be, how spiritual or pure, we are ALL either predator or prey! That is the world! That's something you never got…even when I took your legs from you, your sight." Kisame paused. His dead, glassy eyes flicked up. "I'll be taking much more this time."

"Don't be rash, Kisame. That's what he wants. It's the only way he can defeat us," Itachi chastened then motioned his partner back. "There's more here than meets the eye."

The taller Akatsuki gave him a sour glance and didn't bother to suppress his annoyance. "I suppose you ought to know."

"I know a trap when I see one," Itachi illuminated, nodding toward the mysterious structure. "That pavilion is a labyrinth and not entirely of this world. Were we to enter it we would never emerge again."

The hulking ninja raised his blue hands and let them fall slack at his side. "So what do you propose? It's your call."

"We've been delayed here too long already. As interesting as I find this and as much as I hate inelegant solutions, there are times when the Gordian knot must be sliced rather than unraveled."

Again Itachi's eyes flashed – portals to hell suddenly thrown full open. Under that baleful gaze, the great pavilion erupted in gouts of dark flame that spread hungrily over the walls, along the carved brackets and beams, turning its bright, coral columns black with scorch. In mere minutes the entirety of the pavilion was haloed in a pulsing cloak of ebon fire, burning blindingly bright despite its darkness. Minutes more and the doomed building began to crack and give way. A corner fell in with the brittle, fibrous sound of snapping wood and the discordant, chime-like clatter of roof tiles. Smoke gushed upward, swirling in volcanic vortices, the surrounding air rushing in to feed the fire's supernatural insatiability.

The two shinobi watched in silence, bathed in the unearthly, violet glow, their Akatsuki cloaks fluttering in the draft. At length they exchanged a look and turned to go.


Haku

Mei gave Haku and the team from Konoha a fond but skeptical look following their banter, one corner of her mouth uplifted, while the more on-edge Tohma shook his head reprovingly. Before any words could be said, a pulse shot through the ship – a shocking ripple of energy like a flash of light or crack of thunder but without their familiarity. All turned toward the source as an oppressive, seismic rumble followed and the ship lolled up and down in the unsettled waters of the Unagi Canal.

Lord Nikai gasped then started to shout orders to his men but he saw soon enough, they all did, that it was not his fleet that had fallen under attack but something else entirely. Part of the Mist Village was rising though it was hard to tell at first. The edges of the building tops slowly crept higher, the corners shifting and turning behind the dense layers of cityscape in the foreground, all obscured by the pervasive mists and shadowless distance. As the captain, guests and captives stared mute in fascination, the city block continued its ascent revealing as it climbed a crust of pavement atop a base of dripping, rocky strata. Even the zombie crew stood frozen in a weird kind of cadaverous awe as bricks, shards, wet clumps of stone and earth rained from the rising mountain, water and wastes gushing freely from bared storm and sewer lines now exposed to the open air.

Mei darted a quick, horrified look back at Tohma, stammering, "Is…is this you?" But the vengeful patriarch, equally puzzled, could only shake his head. "Well SHIT then, what now?" she spat. "Haku?"

The boy frowned, flummoxed though not surprised that she'd ask him. "I-I have utterly no idea."

"Huh," grunted Kiba, folding his arms as he regarded Lord Nikai. "I guess someone's gonna destroy the Mist Village before you." Heads swiveled toward him, carrying with them looks that were anything but complimentary. "What?! What else could it be?"

"Pff…he's right," added Mei, latching on with mean humor as she looked toward the would-be destroyer of Kirigakure – the thwarted and dethroned Angel of Revenge. "And to think you came all this way for nothing." She straightened. "It kinda looks like I gotta go now. Look, Lord Nikai," the kunoichi plead in renewed, pained earnest, "hold your fire. Wait until I get back at least and we'll finish our talk. I can't tell you I can make everything right, that I can give you back anything of what you lost, like what any of you lost. But let me try."

The woman strode to the guardrail; her appointed custodian, Tensai allowed her. "Haku," she began again. "Since you've come this far, how about a step farther?"

The Demon's Apprentice blinked at the unexpected question. "You're serious?"

"I only ask because we're a bit short-handed right now."

The teenager frowned, his eyes narrowing for a moment before they rose toward the spectacle of that chunk of the city spinning skyward up through the cloud cover, vanishing at last into heavens on high, on its way maybe to God. The words tasted like venom, burned a hole in his gut but still out they came: "Alright. I'm in."

"Then I'm going too!" piped Naruto an instant later, startling in his intensity.

"And me!" insisted Kiba, rushing up to join them. Shikamaru, a step behind, pulled at his teammate's shoulder but the genin shrugged him off.

Mei whirled on the young leaf-ninja. "Absolutely not! We're in enough trouble as it is without involving the Hidden Leaf any more."

Kiba gawked, appalled as he fought off Shikamaru's attempts to intervene. His breath raced, fury attended his eyes. He flung a gesture at Naruto and barked out: "Why does HE get to go?!"

"Ugh!" the tall mist-ninja gasped impatiently. "Because he has a writ from Councilor Hirai and so I don't have the authority to stop him. That said," she continued, turning to Naruto, "I can still beg. You really should stay here out of harm's way along with your friends, and you would if you had any sense."

As Haku wrestled with the prospect of what lay ahead, what new tragedy had overtaken the Mist Village, he watched Shikamaru wrestle Kiba back and draw him into a tense conversation. The pair argued - the chunin stern and deliberate, the wolfish genin fierce and demonstrative. Zabuza's former student wondered worriedly for a moment if it would come to blows.

"Lady," Naruto answered the kunoichi's earlier advice, "I think you're gonna need all the help you can get."

Mei followed the lead of the boy's blue eyes toward another section of the city as it twisted itself free of the earth, skyward bound. Her fists balled, her expression wrenched by a storm of emotions. "Fine, I don't have time to argue. Come on you two, with me!"

Haku nodded, settling into his 'all business' persona he'd perfected under Zabuza's tutelage. Mei sprang from the boat with a powerful, chakra-enabled leap. Before following after her, the teenager spared his Team Eight 'teammate' and his overseer one last glance. Shikamaru had, apparently, curbed the ninja's zeal but only just barely. Kiba stalked away, glowering, an angry grimace on his face. Haku felt for both of them. As he turned to go, he caught Shikamaru's dark eyes for an instant and the unvoiced message passed between them: Haku was doing his part, now it was time for Shikamaru to do his.

"Hey, wait just a minute!" a vexed Tohma protested angrily, shouting after Mei, Haku and Naruto as they sped away. "I made no deals, no guarantees. I will destroy Kirigakure and you with it! ME! Just see if I don't!