Memories of the Dawn

Chapter 4: In the Hands of Our Saviors

Naruto ran through the forest, passing the trees that seemed to tower over him in the darkness. He was fleeing from his captors, and especially from his enemies. He was also fleeing his friends who had been with his since graduation. He cherished their friendship but he couldn't trust anyone now, not his friends and especially not his enemies. But were his friends still his friends, and were his enemies still his enemies? Naruto wasn't sure of anything anymore. 'Did I really kill Hinata?' He suddenly tripped and tumbled into a tree. Naruto got back up and looked behind him. There, standing in her pink shirt and cream miniskirt was her old friend Sakura. She had her arms crossed and back against a tree. She was staring at him. "Sakura?"

"Naruto, I've been waiting." She smacked the tree and walked out of the way. In a mere second the tree trunk split and began falling. Naruto would have to act fast or be flattened. He quickly jumped out of the way. Naruto walked over to Sakura standing by the stump. "Please, tell me what's going on." He pleaded.

"They were right; you don't remember a damn thing. Don't trust your new friends so easily, they might turn on you. That, I can tell you from experience." She said turning her back and retreating into the forest. "Wait!" Naruto began running after her, quickly Hidan and Kakuzu jumped in front of him. "Wait boy, return with us immediately. It's too dangerous out here." Kakuzu motioned with his hand.

"Wait, I need to know right now, how did we end up on this island?"

Kakuzu sighed, "If we knew, we would have been off by now." Naruto followed them back to their base. While walking, Naruto noticed an inconspicuous dirt path marked with a small trail of berries. Naruto saw how the bushes were cut back. Without notice Naruto disbanded from the group and follow the path through the jungle. Hidan and Kakuzu did not notice his disappearance until he was long gone. The young shinobi continued his journey until he hit a fork in the road. He put his hands together, "Shadow Clone Jutsu." Two other Naruto's appeared and he sent the clones down both paths. Eventually, the two clones met at the end and fell into a giant pit of spikes. Naruto went down the left path and found that there was an alternative route.

He followed the mysterious passage until he found what looked like a large chapel with glistening glass windows and a faded paint job. The once bright white walls now lost their luster and have fallen into decay. There were large rotting double doors at the entrance. Naruto entered though the doors; everyone looked up and stared at him. Sasuke, Kakashi, Lee and Kiba. All anyone did was stare at him. What would they all think of him; would they hate him for whatever he had done? Kiba walked over to Naruto and held out his hand. "Welcome back, buddy."

Pain walked to into Tobi's room, unsure of his master's desires. "You called, Madara?"

"98, Pain, I'm missing a book. Hitachi told me so. "Tobi said examining his dusty old bookcase.

"How can you be so sure?" Pain asked.

"Not only have I counted these books over ten times now, but Itachi's eyes never lie. The boy took it."

Pain's thoughts were racing, "Will this effect our plan?" He asked.

Tobi turned to face him, "If you want to make it off this island alive, you better pray not. But then again, you never pray. After all you're 'God.' Call a meeting tonight; we may have a change of plans."

Pain moaned, and then took off. Later that night all of the Akatsuki members met in the foyer. They were sitting on benches found in the cellar, most of which were rotten and falling apart. Pain and Konan stood at the podium discussing something. "Attention Akatsuki, we may have a sort of a problem. The Jinchuuriki may have found out about our plan."

Many of them gasped, "Oh shit!" Hidan cursed.

"But don't worry; we'll all still get off of her alive. Now I'm going to turn this over to our scouting troop." Pain and Konan sat down behind the podium as Deidara and Kisame stood up. The two walked over to the stand and prepared to show their results. "Well," Deidara began. "I've been working with Kisame to find another island. There is none. My birds have flown for miles and miles and found nothing. Not even any signs of life. Kisame?"

"My sharks have found now underwater passages or caves to lead out of here. We've deemed that there is no physical way out of here." Itachi raised his hand. "Yes Itachi?"

"What do you mean physical?" He asked confused.

"Well, Deidara and I figure that maybe we were sent here using a jutsu of some sorts. This is unconfirmed and, even if it was true, it would require a large amount of chakra. This would be possible only with a bijuu. Speaking of that, where is Naruto?"

"Uhh..." Hidan paused. "We kind of, lost him." Kakuzu sneered, "We? You're supposed to be watching him! I was focused on finding the base."

Pain was furious, "We require him to get off this island. If he is in the hands of his former allies, it could ruin our whole procedure!" Konan put her hand on his shoulder, "Calm down, Pain. You're going to have a heart attack. I want Itachi to join Hidan and Kakuzu on the search for the boy."

Tobi finished meditating in the corner. He stood up and led the four-man squad out of the base. They began walking down a dirt path into the jungle.

Itachi was hesitant, "Listen, Tobi."

"No, you listen!" Tobi retaliated. "We're on a mission to find the boy. If we fail, then no one gets off this island alive." His voice was menacing and scared the others. They sometimes forgot that Tobi wasn't just an ignorant child, but a vile mastermind bent on Akatsuki's global conquest. Tobi smiled under his mask and led them forward. "But don't worry; we won't fail because I know exactly where our friend is."

After sitting down and talking for a while, Naruto became somewhat confused. His friends were still being nice to him. "Why are you guys being so nice to me?" Naruto asked solemnly, keeping his head down. Kiba looked at him, "Well you're our friend. That's a good enough reason for me."

"But after everything I did..." Naruto paused. How would his friends react?

"What did you do?" Kiba was lost and had absolutely no idea what his friend was talking about. Naruto was silent; he wouldn't dare speak of the tragedies.

"Is H-Hinata?"

Sasuke came out of a back room, "Still out patrolling? Yeah, she and Neji should be back anytime."

"You mean she's alive?" He gasped.

Kiba really looked confused; he developed a weird look on his face. "When wasn't she?" Sasuke came out of the back. "What is up with you?"

"Sasuke! Why did you attack me?" Naruto growled.

"You idiot, I've never even seen you until now." His friend snarled. Naruto was unsure of his words. Did he not remember, or did he not want to?

"At the beach, you charged at me and Itachi saved me." He stressed.

Sasuke scoffed, "Even if this did happen, I doubt my brother would come to your rescue." Sakura had just walk in through the doors and looked at her friends arguing. Naruto shook his head violently. "No at the beach, I couldn't move. I had a huge gash in my leg and Kakuzu fixed it." He hurriedly pulled up his pants leg only to find the stitch work had disappeared without a trace. "I-It's gone!" Sakura walked up behind the blonde.

"Is there something wrong with you?" She asked concerned.

Naruto slowly turned his head and stared into her warm, welcoming eyes. But somehow he couldn't see those eyes and only saw the blank stare of the vicious Sakura in the jungle. He backed away in fear. "Is there something wrong with me, what's wrong with you? You tried dropping a tree on me!" He shouted.

"Why would I drop a tree on you?" She said defensively.

"How the hell should I know?" He asked. "You said you were waiting and that I wouldn't remember anything."

Kakashi looked up from what he was doing and stared at his student. "Naruto, I think that during your time with Akatsuki, they've been putting you under various genjutsu. It's the only way you would think that any of us would attack you. It also explains why you couldn't move on the beach."

Crash! Suddenly a loud noise came from the door. Everyone looked over and found that there was a large red, three-pronged scythe protruding from the large cathedral's double-doors. With a quick tug the doors were ripped of the handles. They flew outward like they were being sucked out an air lock into space. There, standing in the doorway, was Hidan, Kakuzu, and Itachi. Itachi held out his hand, "Come, Jinchuuriki. Let's go." Naruto pulled out a kunai and stood ready. "Not a chance!" He heard a loud sigh. He turned around and looked up. Sitting on one of the roof's support beams was a young man with dark hair and a bright orange swirl mask. He was just sitting there in his Akatsuki cloak, dangling his legs over the edge. "

You're that boy from the room, with the library." They stared at each other. "And you're the boy that stole my book. Don't make this any harder than it needs to be. Come quietly, and your friends will remain unharmed." Naruto eyes became a piercing red as he threw his kunai as hard as he could towards Tobi. The sharp metal knife flew swiftly at the Akatsuki member. Quickly Tobi lied back and dodged the kunai. The then dived backwards off the beam and began falling about 5 stories from the roof of the chapel. He fell backwards and everyone was expecting him to crash through the floor boards.

In the blink of an eye, Tobi flipped around so he was falling feet first. He seemed to phase thought the floor and into the ground. He quickly appeared behind Naruto with a kunai to the blonde's throat. Sasuke and Sakura charged and swiped their weapons at him. With Naruto in his grasp, he did a complete back flip, totally avoiding the attack. "No one move, or the boy dies!" Tobi threatened. Itachi stared at him, "You said yourself we need his powers to get off this island."

Tobi spun Naruto around and flung him into the wall. He raised his hand then motioned towards the rest of Naruto's friends. Hidan and Kakuzu ran towards the gang, while Itachi set his sights on his brother. "Well, here we are again." He said walking towards Sasuke. "Foolish, little brother." Itachi dashed towards Sasuke, but Sasuke did a front-flip above Itachi and sliced threw him. Itachi exploded, sending Sasuke flying out the non-existent door. Hidan stared over at Kiba, "So, where's your mutt?" Hidan taunted. "..." The truth was that Akamaru was captured earlier by Akatsuki and forked over to the leader. What ever happened after that...? Kiba charged, "Tunneling Fang!" Kiba was spinning towards Hidan who dodged and pinned him against the wall with his scythe. "You're no good without your stupid fleabag." He scooped up Kiba on his scythe and flung him all the way across the church. Kakuzu was one-on-one with Kakashi. Sakura ran to aid Naruto who was cornered by Tobi. Tobi delivered a roundhouse kick to Naruto's side and shot him into the wall once more. He stood up and wiped the blood from his mouth. "You're dead now!" Naruto got down on all fours and pounced at the Akatsuki member. Unexpectedly, Tobi raised his hand towards Naruto and stopped him in mid-air. He pulled back his arm then shot Naruto forward, against the wall once more. It was then that Sakura intervened. She tried punching, left and right, Tobi would either block, dodge, or just plain phase thorough the hits. Sakura's biggest mistake was trying to kick him. She brought her leg up and against his head. He grabbed her leg and flung her around in a circle until he threw her into some of the church benches.

"I'm done here." Tobi said, becoming bored with this fight. He jumped forward, and then disappeared in mid air. Sakura looked all over for him. She immediately felt a sharp pain in her side. Sakura looked and found a large cut in her left side. She then felt a similar pain in her shoulder. These cuts appeared all over her until she fell to her knees in pain. Blood was seeping from her wounds, and Tobi appeared in front of her. Naruto had gotten back up and saw the incident. He growled at Tobi who just glanced over. He jumped through the roof and expected Naruto to follow. Only Naruto left a big hole in it. Hidan had easily overpowered Kiba and went to assist Kakuzu. The two left Kakashi under a pile of rubble. Outside Itachi was fighting Sasuke, neck and neck. Back and forth, like a dance between assassins. His kunai would continually clash with his sword. Suddenly, Itachi created thousands of his shadow clones. The original joined Tobi on the roof with Naruto. The two turned and faced the angry and wild Jinchuuriki. "You have one last chance, boy. Return the book, and come with us. You're friends are on the brink of death." Sasuke continued fighting the Itachi clones below. Itachi created thousands more until they completely surround the outside of the church.

"I'll never join you, not again!" Naruto roared.

"Very well," Tobi snapped his fingers. Itachi made his hand-sign

No one expected what happened next.

Tobi smirked, "You're just like Deidara, Itachi."