A.N: second to last chapter

Chapter Forty-Two: The Make Believe War

Sakura and Karin stepped to me as if they where about to own me but a poison dripped metal cable made a beeline for them and slapped them away sending them back into the mangling crowd of bodies. Thank God for Sasori! He was after them and I was able to yell out a thank you before he disappeared in the chaos. By now most of the army must know of the deception because Wind and Water Towers where confusingly beginning to battle Fire Towers.

I quickly recovered ignoring the pain in my side to help Itachi with his meddling brother. My smaller katana had been thrown from my hand by Sakura's kick but I grasp my remaining sword by both hands and flung myself in between my teacher and his brother. My blade clashed with Sasuke's kunai and I was staring into the angry pools of the Sharingan. I did not fear to look into them for these eyes where not as deadly as Itachi's but I didn't let my guard down.

Sasuke is the best in his class and though I learned the ninja way under Itachi's protective black wing I still did not hold the caliber of skill Sasuke held. And as our lock seemed to lengthen I could feel my arms begin to give, my chakra was running on low and the pain in my side was becoming less easy to ignore.

But this gave Itachi time to pull back and activate his Mangekyou Sharingan. Now I just need to get Sasuke to look into Itachi's eyes. I pulled back from Sasuke and attempted to shift to the side so Sasuke's gaze my just glance over my shoulders, but this was unsuccessful as Sasuke made a upper cut for my face which I blocked with my scaled arm, but his eyes allowed him to read me quickly and I was stuck with the kunai between two of the larger plates that protected my shoulder.

"Ah!" I growled jumping back but the Uchiha followed attempting to stick me again where my armor was weak. Thankfully Itachi stepped in and took the kunai blow for me.

Blood splattered onto the ground from where Itachi was stabbed in the gut but his eyes where locked with Sasuke's. Now it became my job to protect Itachi from outside invaders for the next seven seconds or so.

One Mississippi

I blocked a rain of kunai coming for us.

Two Mississippi

Itachi nearly lost his hold of Sasuke as the kunai dug deeper into him.

Three Mississippi

Karin came back and I was forced into battle with her.

Four Mississippi

I punched Karin in the face and she swore at me.

Five Mississippi

I swore back and knocked her out. Go me.

Six Mississippi

More blood spilled from Itachi's wound.

Seven Mississippi

Sasuke was let go from the genjutsu and he fell unconscious.

"Itachi," I breathed seeing that the Uchiha was just standing there looking out with a dull black gaze. He instinctively pulled the invading object from his body and gagged. I ran to him and made sure he wouldn't fall over and bleed to death even though he was working pretty well on the whole bleeding to death thing.

"I'm alright," he grimaced "I don't think-I don't think it hit anything."

"Well don't fall over you'll get trampled!" I exclaimed but even so the chaos seemed to move around us as if we where in a protective bubble. "We've got to get out of here," I murmured looking around franticly. "My wings wont hold us both in the air for long."

"Don't worry," he said and looked at me with sharp eyes "I'll be fine, the fight is almost won."

"Almost won!" I yelled angrily "The Fire Tower betrayed us! Our army has been cut by a third! We'll be fighting for days if something doesn't give!"

Itachi just gave me a cool smile that said everything was going to be okay. I didn't believe him though as he quietly passed out and I haled him onto my shoulder. Now you'd be surprised how freaking heavy this guy is!

Somehow I was able to leap away from the worst of the melee and into a tree. I hid Itachi within the branches as well as I could, then ripped a strip of cloth for bandaging and practically corseted his wound. Lastly I put masking seals around the area so enemies would not feel Itachi's chakra as he slept.

I touched his chest lightly gazing at him for a second before taking off and gliding over the carnage. By now Loren and Gaara had abandon there posts and where in the thick of the fighting. Sasori was still in battle with Sakura and the battle seemed deadly even. Hidan and Kakuzu where fighting with a three man Fire team one of them being the bitch Ino. I could not see Zetsu, Konan, Tobi or Kisame they seemed to be in a thicket of Sound students. As for Deidara he was still bombing but he'd given up his main position of stopping the enemy escape and just starting bombing the enemy themselves. I could not find Haku and I feared for his safety as well as my other friends.

I flew upward toward Deidara's flying creature and landed lightly on it. He did not turn to me he was preoccupied with his work fiddling with his camera eye and molding birds. I in need of rest took refuge here with him though I silently hated myself for taking a break but my body didn't seem willing to fight. I pit my clawed hand to the wound in my shoulder and felt the hot blood on my fingertips.

"Itachi might be dying," I said looking at the blood.

Deidara let a few birds fly down from his hand and looked at me. His eye was dilated and his hair disheveled from the wind and his art crazed high. Deidara enjoyed battle but a somber expression slowly took his face.

"Where is he hmm?" Deidara asked.

I pointed to the trees where I'd hid Itachi. "He's got chakra masks on him but I need you to give the message to Loren. I would fly there myself but…I feel so weak right now."

"Okay," Deidara quickly molded a bird scribbled the message into the wet clay and let the bird off. "When do you think that jutsu will ware off you yeah?" he asked looking at the scales running up my body.

"Hopefully not soon," I said annoyed "my close got ripped off."

"Oh!" was Deidara's brilliant reply.

"It's sucking my chakra though," I said getting to my feet "Got any solider pills?"

"Uh huh," he said a slight flush on his face as he retrieved a small leather bag and handed it to me. "I'm a bit unnerved that you're running around naked yeah," he said with a smug grin.

I popped the bitter pill in my mouth. "No, you're just unnerved that I'm standing in front of you naked."

"You don't blush at anything anymore yeah," he said.

"Ninjas don't blush," I said with a smile as the energy packed pill brought my spirits back up. I hugged him and kissed him quickly on the cheek. "Be careful," I said and jumped off the bird snapping open my wings.

I skimmed a bit to low for safety and it was a bad mistake because about twenty seconds after I jumped from Deidara's bird I was tackled. I heard a yell from up high but my face connected with the ground and who ever were on me growled hungrily in my ears. The impact with the earth made my mind cloud over and if it wasn't for the solider pill I'd probably been knocked out.

I felt nails drag across my back scales not ripping flesh thanks to the armor. But the attempt to scar me did kick me out of my daze and I tried getting up but who ever it was sitting on my back. Again the moron tried to cut me with nails but could not bypass my scales.

So I curled my tail around his waist and flung him off me, which must have surprised him. I did a tumble roll once he was off me and landed on my toes. I turned and saw a blond growling on all fours with animalistic red eyes. I remembered him, the idiot at the ramen bar; damn what was his name again?

He snarled and charged at me and it looked like red flames where curling from his body. He punched and I blocked by crossing my arms in front of my face, the force of the punch dragged me backward nearly ten yards.

I know he was named after some sort of weird food…

He wasn't as fast or precise as Sasuke but his fighting style was strong and unpredictable, like a rabid dog. He pulled back and I stood in the defensive. He created a shadow clone and I was suddenly on alert. Yet something wasn't adding up.

Shadow clones where for trickery or a quick get away and they where easy to destroy. So for him to summon one didn't make much sense to me until I saw what he was doing. The original held out his hand as the clone began to hit the air around it and I couldn't believe my eyes as a sphere of blue spinning chakra began to form in the boy's palm.

"Rasengan!" he growled and charged.

I had a really bad feeling that if that jutsu hit me it would shatter my armor and probably make a hole that went straight threw my chest.

But lucky me always have an angel somewhere and this time it came in the form of Loren. She sent her foot into the blonde's side making him crash into a tree and sending the Rasengan into that unfortunate tree.

"Can't you ever take care of yourself?" Loren asked jumping next to me and I smirked.

There wasn't much time for jokes because the animal boy was getting back up and red flames where a thick aura around him.

"What is that?" I asked gapping at the strange energy.

"Demon chakra," Loren said, "That's Uzumaki Naruto and he holds the Nine Tailed Fox Demon within him."

"Oh well I hold four annoying dragons in my head," I said as he glowered at us with silted pupils. "Do you think we got a fair shot?"

"Not particularly," she replied.

"I knew you'd say that," I sighed.

Naruto charged again. And thank goodness that my eyes where trained well. I blocked his right hook and swung to the left spinning around a full 360 before kicking him hard in the same side Loren had. He was sent back again growling like an animal.

"I think you pissed him off," Loren murmured her metal stars slicing threw the air around her. Naruto was about attack again but Loren went her storm of ninja stars at him nicking at his close and flesh. They stormed around him like an irate mass of bees and the assault seemed to distract him.

"Dragon Hurricane Jutsu," I yelled making the wind burst from my pours and push Naruto back slamming him for a second time into the Rasengen scarred tree. There was a sharp crack but it wasn't the tree that had become broken and I was glad to see Naruto dazed at the base of the tree covered in cuts and holding a ruined hand close to his chest. I was about to cheer when I heard a terrifying decompression pop of air and Loren and I looked over at where Naruto had fell and saw that there was nothing but a soft wisp of smoke.

"You thought I'd go down that easy!" he yelled from behind us.

"Rasengan!"

...

"Jen-Chan," said a voice I could barely remember. There was too much pain to remember anything at the moment and all I wanted to do was sleep here on the hard cold ground and slowly bleed to death blissfully. What was the point? How did I think that I could be a ninja? What in God name was I thinking?

"Jen-Chan please wake up it's been a day un," said that same voice with a funny accent at the end of his sentence. It was a deep baritone sound that was both worried and tiered. Then the silly voice poked my cheek annoyingly.

I tried to ignore it I really did but the more he persisted the more I came to realize that I was no longer in pain. Maybe I died and this was some angel trying to raise me from my grave and take me to the afterlife. Though I'm not sure why an angel would have to be so aggravating. So curiously I cracked open my eyes.

Everything was very fuzzy but I did make out two colors, blue and yellow. I felt my lips smile seeing that it truly was an angel coming to get me, I don't mind being dead. Then someone took the blaring light out of my eyes and I saw that it wasn't an angel after all…It was just Deidara.

"I knew angels didn't have funny accents," I rasp smiling dumbly at him. My head felt very light and my body felt oddly heavy.

"What…? No, never mind I'm not going to ask yeah," he said and brushed his hand over my forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Weird," I sighed as the soft lips of his hand mouth grazed over my brow. "What happened?"

"You almost got killed by the Kyuubi brat but I sent a bomb down in between you both yeah," he said. "Your armor protected you from the worst of it though but you got knocked out."

"Wha-What about Loren!" I exclaimed franticly trying to sit up. "She didn't have armor! She'd been killed in the blast!"

"Relax it was only a C1 bomb," Deidara said holding down my good shoulder with one hand while the other stay limp to his side. "It can only kill someone by direct connection to the clay, she only had minor burns hmm."

"Oh…Deidara," I said scrunching my brows together.

"Hmm?"

"Where is your other arm?" I asked seeing that the sleeve of the button up he was wearing was completely empty.

"Oh it's in a freezer right now," he said as if it was completely normal place for his arm to be. "I have surgery at eleven to fix it back on so no worries yeah."

I just had to blink for a second before breaking into hysterical laughter. Deidara found this amusing as well and we laughed for a good while before calming back to an uneasy silence.

"How is… everyone?" I asked with a hard lump in my throat that brimmed my eyes with tears.

"Hidan is dismembered but fine, Kakuzu was stabbed in the heart but is living off his other four perfectly fine, Konan-Chan, Kisame, and Zetsu have minor injuries. Tobi-Baka-san is perfectly, the little bastard, and came out of battle with one scar on his stupid mask. As for Sasori-Danna…"

"What happened?" I asked my eyes wide.

Deidara gave a rueful smile and looked at me. "We're still looking for him. Loren-Chan and Zetsu have been hunting the area for his capsule practically all night after Loren woke up of course."

"Why'd I sleep so long," I grumbled cursing my weakness.

"You where working off solider pills Jen, it's not like you had much energy to begin with yeah," he said and I shut my mouth. "Anyway we found his body but he wasn't in it."

"I hope he's okay," I murmured before looking up again. "And Itachi-sempai?"

"Sleeping," he said giving me a dull look "the stab wound wasn't fatal."

"Ah…and how many…died?" I asked feverously.

"Not a lot," he said with a humble smile "we have exactly twenty-five MIA and only five deaths. I know them too yeah…well I know there names from the announcements."

"Say them please," I whispered and he saw the worry in my face and his expression became more solemn.

"Dan of Fire, Yamato of Wind, Udon of Sound, Kin of Sound, and Zabuza of Water," he said and I almost sighed with relief that I knew none of them personally but then I stopped myself because they'd died in a make believe war.

"More probably would have died if the teachers hadn't called in professional medic ninja from Japan hmm," Deidara said while absentmindedly running his fingers threw my hair.

"So it's over?" I asked closing my eyes.

"Yeah, it's over."

I was going to ask him if we had won or not but then again it doesn't really matter does it?

A.N: Haku lovers are so lucky cuz I was sooo close to killing him off. Lawls. Anyways yes the next chapter will be the last of Year One. Year Two is yet to be known and if you ask nicely I MIGHT write it