A/N: Here's the conclusion of the Sakura/Kabuto conflict. It took me a good amount of time and help, but I'm glad it's finally finished. Hopefully, you'll enjoy it as much as the others, and I can move on to the last parts without worries. All right...
Chapter Nineteen: Trials of Darkness
The limp arm was not so terribly difficult to fix. A little probing with the good hand to locate the severed tendon, a moment longer to start the jutsu one-handed, and a few seconds more to reattach it. Kabuto allowed her all the time that she needed, smiling evilly in anticipation; it seemed he was truly enjoying fighting his fellow medical ninja, in his strange way.
That realization threatened to drive Sakura up the wall, but she knew better than to let herself be caught up in that anger. To do so would cause her to become sloppy, and would only feed the enemy's sick sense of entertainment more—that was the last thing that she wanted. The key to winning this battle would be to remain calm, lay low, think, and wait for the golden opportunity.
Still, it would be really satisfying to be able to walk up and deck the guy...
"All finished?" Kabuto asked, still smiling.
Sakura gave no response but glare.
"I will assume that you are healed," he said, raising his arm once more to fling needles, "And continue where we left off, shall I?"
Sakura evaded the needles as she had before, ducking behind a huge table that was occupied by a human corpse. Kabuto lost track of her quickly as she lost herself among the test subjects, equipment, and chemicals for a second time.
"I will credit you, Sakura-san," he said. "You can hide effectively enough to fool a shinobi on the Jounin level, and very quickly. An important skill for a valuable medical ninja, as expected of Tsunade-sama's student."
He walked calmly towards the huge glass vats, the ones where the unconscious frogs were kept. No missile weapons crossed his path, and thus his suspicions of her hiding away to give herself planning time were confirmed. It seemed that he had not succeeded in angering her quite enough yet. That was a pity; he so enjoyed aggravating the younger ones into blind frustration. Since long ago with Naruto, he had not had many chances to do so.
That's fine, he thought. There is one way to draw her out. He reached the vats and stood before them, looking the frogs up and down.
"You know," he said, a fake frown crossing his face, "I had been planning on using these, but right now it just seems as though they're in the way, taking up space. And they really are disgusting creatures, frogs... perhaps I should relieve Naruto-kun of them so that he need not endure their stink anymore?" He raised his hand, ready to hit the button that woud drain the preservative and reach in to kill them.
Got her, he said to himself, sensing movement out of the corner of his eye. Sakura charged him from the right at very close range, holding her kunai low for a blow to the stomach. He turned to knock her away, angling his arm to disable one of her legs at the same time. The surgical cutting chakra flared in his hand.
Unfortunately for him, the arm passed right through her, not touching anything solid at all. His attacker had been a bunshin. Impressive. Where is the real attacker?
The real Sakura was already on her way. Once the bunshin had turned his back to her, she popped herself out of her disguise—a human cadaver, which she had used Henge no Jutsu to imitate—and rushed to the offensive, using the opportunity she had created. With a knife in each hand, she struck once at each of Kabuto's shoulders.
Kabuto had been smart enough to know that she would be attacking shortly after the bunshin from the other direction. He twisted around at just the right moment, knocking her backwards with his left arm. Sakura's right kunai sailed out of her hand, sticking in the ceiling above the vat holding Gamakichi. She flailed wildly with the left-hand kunai, desperately lashing out to cause any damage that she could, but succeeded only in cutting a non-fatal gash in his tricep before she flew several meters away, landing and skidding to a halt near a table heavily laden with chemicals.
"That was a worthy effort, Sakura-san," he said in a half-praising tone. The chi technique went to work on his injured arm, regenerating the damage slowly. "However, you will still need to do much better than that. The sons of Gamabunta-sama are still my hostages. Unless you wish to see them die now—for which I would not blame you, from just looking at them—you will need to engage and defeat me directly."
Sakura picked herself up, wincing at pain in her shocked joints. She would survive, but that had been a hard flight. There would be many bruises to tend to later.
"I know," she said, gripping her remaining knife solidly. She picked up a bottle labeled Concentrated NaOH – Keep Sealed! Unscrewing the cap, she flung it in a low arc toward her enemy.
"Is that all?" Kabuto asked, tossing a needle and splitting the bottle in two. The highly concentrated base splashed the floor.
"Not yet!" yelled Sakura, slamming her fist into the ground. The floor rippled in a wave toward Kabuto, carrying the corrosive chemical with it. The evil medic was now in danger both from bludgeoning and from having his face melted by Sodium Hydroxide.
He was fast enough to dodge the deadly oncoming wave, and dove to his left behind one of the tables. Luckily for him, this was sufficient to save his life. Unfortunately for him, he was now away from the frogs that he had used as bait to lure out Sakura. It seemed it was going to become a stealth game again. Smiling in anticipation of the continued fun, he created another bunshin for Sakura to expend herself against here and slipped away to hide elsewhere.
Predictable, he thought as he heard a kunai clang to the ground. She keeps attacking the first thing that looks like her enemy, every single time. He scurried stealthily across the room, finding a new vantage point from which to wait and watch—behind a rare empty table from which he could view the frogs' vats.
There were only so many things that she could do at this point. Lacking attack from him, she would likely either seek him out actively or attempt to free the frogs. If she did the former, Kabuto could play cat and mouse easily all day long. If she tried the latter, she would paint a target on herself for him. All there is to do, he told himself, is wai...what?!
Sakura surprised him by suddenly vaulting over the table he hid behind and coming down on top of him, landing with her knees on his stomach. She tapped his left arm with her open hand, sending cutting chakra into it to sever the tendon that moved his forearm, before he had a chance to sit up and throw her off. She crashed into an adjacent table, bruising her back again.
"Unh," Kabuto grunted. "That was unexpected. How did you find me so quickly, Sakura-san?" He tried to stand up using his right arm, the one that she had not injured. His eyes widened in shock when he found that the strength had left that arm, too. What had happened? She hadn't cut the tendons in that arm...
"It was your blood," Sakura replied, looking up at him and smiling triumphantly. "You were leaving such a good trail of it, you weren't that hard to find."
"Blood?" Kabuto wondered aloud, frowning. He looked down at himself. He wasn't bleeding anywhere that he could see... wait, there! A pool of it was collecting at his feet! How had that happened? "It seems you are more skilled than I gave you credit for," he said. "When and where did you inflict that damage on me?"
"Before, when you threatened Naruto's frogs," Sakura told him. "You made a mistake by staying in the open. You would have been much better off staying hidden. When I attacked you from behind, I hit you..."
Something changed palpably to Kabuto. It was as though a numbness had been lifted from his right shoulder, leaving pain in its place. It was a piercing pain, as well; feeling it, Kabuto's good right hand went reflexively to that shoulder, clasping it. When he brought it forth again, it was covered in blood.
"In the right shoulder," Sakura finished. "I had to hit you from behind, or else not even the numbing genjutsu that I used on you wouldn't have worked for more than a few seconds, because you would have seen yourself bleeding. But the way I did it, the blood fell behind you, and you didn't see. Plus, the minor wound on your left arm helped distract you from it." She stood up, pulling out the last kunai in her bag.
Kabuto stared. This was not at all how he had predicted this game to end. Who would have known that this innocent-looking, formerly useless girl would be good enough to utilize genjutsu to hide her enemy's own injury from him? It was certainly a crafty trick, and far beyond what he would have expected from her, or indeed of most medical ninjas in the world.
"Is that so?" he said, gritting his teeth against the pain. "So now you've neutralized both of my arms, and there is no way that I'll be able to heal myself in time to stop you from killing me. I will have to make a hasty retreat, it seems. Most unfortunate." He rolled backwards, intending to use the momentum to leap to his feet.
"It's useless," said Sakura. As she watched, Kabuto's backward somersault carried him heels-over-head, landing his feet right into a puddle of fresh frog oil. The enemy medic slipped and fell right back down onto his face, his glasses falling off and skidding across the floor to stop at the feet of a large red amphibian.
"How about that?" Gamakichi said, stepping on the glasses and shattering the lenses. "You took my mobility, I took your freakish second set of eyes. Frog, you've just been plopped in a pot and had the water slow-heated. Never saw it coming until you were already cooked."
"Gamakichi-niichan!" rang out a nasally voice from one end of the lab. "I found a door! It's unlocked, too! Do you think this hallway leads to some snacks?"
Kabuto turned his head to see the great yellow Gamatatsu perched near the laboratory's emergency exit. How had the frogs gotten loose? His eyes flowed over to the vats of preservative where they were supposed to be contained, and found his answer in the human corpses that floated inside them. Sakura had replaced the frogs at some point when the two of them had been hiding around, without him so much as noticing a single awkward movement. This encounter had been a total defeat.
Sakura stood over him now, kunai in hand. It was poised for the death blow, high and sharp and menacing. Anger and justice was on her young face. Kabuto closed his eyes and lay still. So this was how it was going to end for him...
Oh, well, he told himself. At least it was fun. And Orochimaru-sama's designs will be achieved anyway... Sakura's fist connected with his vulnerable head, concussing him. He blacked out, and saw no more.
"What, you're not going to kill him?" Gamakichi asked.
"He'll die in the fire, anyway," Sakura said. "I just wanted to get him back, give him one good whack for all he's done to Konoha, and to Naruto and me."
"Ah, I get it," the red frog said. "Girlfrog, you have a weird way of getting people back, but I like it!"
Sakura smiled at him, then stood back up, walking towards the door. "Cover the whole laboratory," she instructed. "Everything that can burn in here, I want burned."
"You got it, girlfrog," said Gamakichi, saluting.
Minutes later, Sakura threw a single kunai, carrying an explosive tag, into a room completely drenched in frog oil, and closed the door. She and her companions bolted away, off into the facility to catch up with their friends.
Behind them, years of terrible medical experiments, along with their performer, went up in flames.
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"Found anything bad?" Kiba asked.
"The text search didn't turn up anything unusual," Neji replied. "It would appear as if the experimentations were really just that—experiments. If anything was done to Haka no Keisuke that would endanger us, it would either be external to his body or not included in the records."
Kiba stared at the diagram on the screen one more time, trying to make sure that neither of them had missed anything. Though he looked long and hard over every visual detail, there was nothing out of the ordinary in it.
"Damn," he said. "Even if you say that, it still leaves a lot of possibilities. There's too many ways that these bastards could have slipped something in him that we don't know about..."
"Agreed," said Neji. "But unfortunately, there will be no way to find out with the information we found here. I have some skill, but I am no analytical specialist. The specialists in Konoha will have to take a look at these records along with everything else we bring back." The Hyuuga Jounin ejected the disc of Keisuke's records, stowing it in his bag along with the others that he had burned.
"So what are we supposed to do now?" Kiba wondered. "If we have all the information we need, shouldn't we be looking for everyone else? It's been a while since the last explosion, you know... you think they're okay down there?" The wild ninja glanced nervously toward the door, obviously very anxious to be gone from the place.
"I have been wondering about that, too," Neji admitted. His pale face betrayed no emotion, remaining true to the mission, but Kiba knew he was still capable of worrying about his cousin.
"So, we going after them now?"
"Yes," affirmed Neji. "We have all that we can get from this database. We will now move to support the rescue effort. Silence is still in effect, Kiba, so proceed cautiously." He nodded toward the door, indicating that Kiba should go first.
Obediently and somewhat gladly—he never did like machines much—Kiba approached the door. He put his hand on the handle, poised to turn it. He applied the necessary force that should have been able to open the door...
But wasn't.
"What the hell?" he yelled. "I can't believe this! We're locked in!"
"You're sure?" Neji asked, his Byakugan coming active to peer at the locking mechanism. Everything seemed to be in order with the handle lock, which Kiba had in fact undone in order to get the door open. But there was a series of bolts within both sides of the door that secured it fast to the walls around it. "Undo the bolts," he instructed.
"What bolts?" Kiba asked. "I didn't shut any bolts when we came in here..."
"But I did," came a voice from the computer banks. "We can't have you rats going back to your friends the way you came, can we?"
Neji recognized that voice. "Hiroto-taicho!" he exclaimed.
"How pleasant it is to see you, Neji, come into my domain along with your dear cousin," the voice said, dripping sarcasm. "You know, I have wanted to make conversation with a sensible Hyuuga for some time since my desertion. Having dear Haruka for company was tiresome at best."
"Haruka-san?" Kiba asked. "Neji, wasn't she killed by the Cloud guys, back there?"
"I had hoped that we would be able to assume the worst and move on," Neji said, "But it seems that we cannot, now. However she did it, if Hiroto is telling the truth, then she escaped their grasp and made it here before we did."
The voice from the computer speakers laughed. "Escaped? Hardly! I was the one who did the dirty job of infiltrating the Kumogakure general headquarters and hauled her out. She hardly did a thing on her own, and did not have the sense to check who it was that was doing the "rescuing" before I incapacitated her. No, she is a useless wench whose only talent is whining and barking. She could no more find her way out of a Cloud army than she could a wet paper bag."
Neji frowned, and his eyebrows narrowed in displeasure. The former Captain seemed to have even less of an opinion of his fellow Hyuuga since the last time they had met. He could hardly believe that he had once listened to this man's preachings in his younger days.
"When you abandoned the defense of our clan estate," he said darkly, "It was Haruka-san who rallied us and rescued Hiashi-sama. She did what you did not have the loyalty or the heart to do."
"Ha!" Hiroto countered. "Admirable as you make it sound, young bird in the cage, you are wrong. Rather, Haruka—and every last one of you who calls yourself a proud member of the Hyuuga clan—did not have the ambition, nor the vision to do what I have done and will do now. It is ironic... the lost Haruka, the outcast, who had more reason to hate her own clan than even I did, was the one who succumbed to its lure of false comradery, false family."
"What you will now do?" Neji asked. "What is it that you want to do now, Hiroto-taicho? Do you mean to bring the Cloud descending on us, the ones that called you brother? Your three elite Cloud shinobi failed to destroy us. Do you think that by getting all of Kumogakure no Sato involved in the war, you can help wipe us out?"
"Oh, man," Kiba said. "Neji, don't get me wrong, but since we're already in trouble, I don't think you'll mind much if I said we probably shouldn't be making this guy angry..."
"I am already angry, whelp," Hiroto said, silencing him. "I have been angry nearly all of my life. The Main and Branch Families, the perfect, painful system of protection for the Byakugan, and the animosity and merciless suffering that results because of it... I am infinitely angry because of that. My friend, Hizashi, died because of that!"
"My father chose death," Neji affirmed. He remembered when Hiashi, his uncle and Hizashi's brother, had explained that to him. It had been difficult to believe, until he had been given the scroll with his father's handwriting on it and seen Hiashi on his hands and knees before him.
"Oh, yes, that is exactly what they told me, as well," Hiroto said, "In that oh-so-convenient document that the Heads of that day's Council forged using his handwriting as a model. I was not stupid enough to believe one false word of it, as you, Neji, apparently were."
"It is you who are the stupid one," Neji said, being bold against his former commander. "The Hyuuga clan is changing, and you have been unable to see it. Your eyes are below par, Taicho."
"Changing, yes," Hiroto acknowledged. "But how long will that last? When the Byakugan's secrets are nearly spread throughout the world enough times, the system will be reinstated all too effortlessly. No, young one, the only way to avoid going back to that horrendous way of life is to wipe out the clan entirely."
"Which brings us back to my question," Neji said. "How exactly do you plan to do that? You will need an army to invade Konoha and strike us down..."
"Not at all, young one," Hiroto said, and Neji thought he could hear a sneering tone. "The bargain with the Cloud was merely a means to an end. I tell them where they can get a Byakugan—your dear cousin, Hinata-sama—and they bring me the blond-haired monster fox. I give the monster to my wonderful host, Orochimaru, and he gives me the power to bring the Hyuuga estate down around your ignorant, stupid ears. Everything is now ready... once I have the required sacrifices, I will be prepared to unleash havoc on your self-destructing clan."
Neji eyed the door. Kiba was still trying hard to budge it, but his efforts were futile. The bolts held fast against his pressure, and in this cramped space it was too dangerous to attempt to use Tsuuga to pummel their way out.
"Is this why you have locked us in here?" Neji asked. "You want to use us as sacrifices for this power of yours?"
"If need be, yes," Hiroto said. "But only if there is no other way. There are others that I would much rather use than you. They prepare to fight elsewhere, and once I am finished subduing you, I will go to them and take them when they are weak and tired. There will be no preventing me then."
The room shuddered suddenly, knocking Kiba off-balance and causing Neji to grab the nearest computer bank for support. They were too busy to respond as the database room began moving downward like an elevator in a half-complete shaft, jerking and rumbling all the way. When it did not stop, and Hiroto did not continue to speak, the two occupants were afforded time to secure themselves against the bumpy ride.
"Subdue us, huh?" Kiba thought aloud. "I wonder how he's going to do that. What do you know about this guy anyway, Neji?"
"He was the Captain of the Hyuuga Elite Guard before he deserted us in the Rock and Sound invasion," Neji responded. "As one would expect of a man holding such a title, he is extremely skilled. We will not find defeating him to be at all easy, whether or not he has any support."
"Is that so?" Kiba asked. "But you're a Jounin, aren't you Neji? You've got a lot of skill, too, so together we should be able to beat him."
"That is what we will hope for," the Jounin replied. "And if not, then there are likely to be possibilities for escape that we may utilize."
"Heh, that's the Neji we all know, all serious and cryptic," Kiba said, smiling ferally. "Now I know we aren't gonna die. This is in the bag already, and when we get out of here, Naruto won't believe his..."
The elevator motion stopped suddenly, and the door opened of its own accord, allowing Neji and Kiba to see out into a dark stone hallway beyond. There were many large, metal doors lining that hallway, which was lit by dim torches. It seemed that the database-elevator had been a shortcut to the prison level.
And standing in the middle of the hallway, some fifty feet away, stood a tall, dark-haired man in a white robe. A small, limp form was tucked underneath one of his arms. When the eyes adjusted to the dark, it became obvious that the form was humanoid, and that a knife was pressed against its throat.
"I have here a small, innocent young child," Hiroto said. "Surrender immediately, or I will murder this child while his mother watches."
Screaming and the rattling of chains could be heard from one of the cells, the door of which stood open. The screaming was high-pitched and frantic, belonging to a panicked female. Hiroto stood in ignorance of it, his eyes riveted to the younger shinobi before him. His expression was one of cold anger and demand.
Neji suddenly realized the trap that had been set. Somehow, Hiroto had been told about Kiba's experience in the mountain town siege, and was using it to incapacitate the wild nin, rendering him useless so that he could subdue Neji alone. He looked to Kiba beside him through the Byakugan's peripheral vision, and saw that his teammate had gone still and pale.
In that moment, Neji realized that unless Kiba miraculously got over his problem with fighting near soft soft targets in the next ten seconds, he would face his old commander on his own.
"Well?" Hiroto asked, smirking in arrogant triumph. "What is it going to be?"
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Darkness, at last—cool, harmless, blessed darkness, nowhere near the scathing light of the sun. It had taken Ayaka the better part of an hour to dig one-handed through the dirt to the hallway beneath without any of her plants—a very tiring process for the injured woman—but finding the cool darkness below gave her new strength. She hit the ground and began running, intending to find her lost teammate and escape as quickly as possible.
Hikaru might have been stupid, arrogant, and perverted, but right now he was the only ally that she could rely on. She had refused the Aburame's offer of help, and knew that none of the rest of his party would treat her favorably. The remnants of the Sound forces that were stationed here were busy with their own business. If Hikaru was dead, then she was alone.
One plant remained to her, and one only; a special variety created for tracking purposes. The plant was able to sense the pollen of others of its kind and allow her to follow its scent. She always gave packets of pollen to her comrades when they worked with her; Hikaru should have had some on him even now. Indeed, the plant seemed to believe so, and it guided her downward into the depths of the facility, far into the deeper, darker parts made of stone.
However, the path that the plant had her follow dead-ended in a hallway with no doors. She realized that there was most likely a hidden entrance somewhere, for the plant never lied, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Without her other plants, there was nothing she could do to sense them. Ayaka realized that she wasn't going to get to Hikaru this way.
There must be a different way, she thought. The traps were set up along all the possible routes to the prison level, or so the Sound said. If I take one of the other routes to the other side, I should be able to get into Hikaru's chamber. She took off back the way she had come, intending to take the different path at the last fork. Her shoulder pained her, but there was no time to treat it; the explosions and tremors had ceased, which meant that Hikaru's fight was already over. If he had lost, there might not be any time left to save his life.
Yet somehow, when she reached the other fork and started down it, and felt the powerful, dark presence moving straight towards her, she found time to stop and stare ahead to where it was coming from. It was a power that she had felt before, one that inspired thoughts of a seraphic head severed from its blue-robed body. She fought the urge to back away, standing resolute before it; if she chose to run, she knew that the man who had killed Kouhei was easily fast enough to catch her. Ayaka could only hope that she was not the dark one's prey.
He had, apparently, already sensed her, for he looked at her without surprise or astonishment when he came within view. Rather, his cold red eyes regarded her with the knowledge that he could kill her in an instant with minimal effort, if he deigned to grant her the honor. Ayaka remembered those eyes right after Kouhei had died. They seemed even colder and more dangerous now, somehow. The pupils seemed even to be shaped like black, angular shuriken. They held her attention even after the young man stopped walking.
"You are alive," he noted with neither approval nor displeasure. "Then you defeated Shino... no, that isn't it. Shino spared you. That is very like him..."
So he can read my mind now, Ayaka thought. Or else, he knew from another source and is playing games with my mind. But why would there be a reason to do so, when he could simply dispatch me in an instant?
"I'm not going to kill you," the dark one said. "You still have a role to play. Get out of here while it's still safe, and survive to return to your clan."
What did he mean by that? A role that she still had to play? Surely he did not mean for her to continue to oppose the Aburame, after what happened. Why was it so important to him that she return to her clan? What benefit was there in that for him?
Yet before she could ask him anything, his eyes swept off of her and he began walking again, passing her like any other face in the crowd.
"Your teammate is dead," he told her as he passed.
Dead? Ayaka thought. She turned, intending to ask him questions, ask him the meaning of all that he had said. But when she had spun around, the dark one was no longer there; he had disappeared from view, and his presence had been masked.
But what did he mean? If Hikaru truly was dead—and the lack of explosions below was excellent support for his claim—then there was something in that young man's claims that was somehow important information for her clan. That, and there would be no reason for such a powerful being to lie to her.
She set off down the way she had come, following the shadow of the dark one, though she knew it could mean her death. To hell with the village—her clan had to know this information if it was true, and with Hikaru dead, there was nothing more she could do but escape, and as long as this dark one was here, expecting danger, then it was likely that she would be safe at least until he left.
Ayaka had a good idea of where he was going, as well. Powerful shinobi tend to be drawn to other powerful shinobi, she thought. He is most likely come to confront either Hiroto or the other one, Orochimaru. There is pollen on both of those two; I should be able to find them easily, and Kouhei's killer with them.
Following the senses of her tracking plant, she ran at top speed towards the command branch of the facility.
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"Urgh..." Naruto grunted, holding his head. "Damn it, that hurts! I feel like my brains have been run through a blender!"
Hinata wasn't feeling much better, but then nearly being asphyxiated was liable to cause such affects. "It will fade in time, Naruto-kun," she said. "Once we've gotten more good air."
"I can't believe how lucky we are," exclaimed her blond partner. He stood up, rubbing and stretching his sore shoulders; apparently, he had landed awkwardly on them in the pile of debris he'd woken up on. "It's just amazing how we didn't just stop the lightning, but blasted all the way through the wall to the room outside. If we had hit anywhere else, we would have suffocated to death. I was really lucky to have you here with me after all, Hinata."
A large smile spread across the Hyuuga girl's face. She stood up, taking her place by Naruto's side, and activated her Byakugan. Without Hikaru's stealth jutsu obscuring things, she could see that they had hit the entrance to the passage beyond the room dead-on. It was made of stone and even more dimly lit than the passage from which they had entered, filled with debris, but it was just as wide and led in the right direction. Their way into the bowels of the facility was completely clear.
"There aren't any traps that way," she announced. "It looks like the only defense they installed on this route was that Cloud ninja."
"Can you see him from where you are?" Naruto asked. "If he's still got any fight in him, we need to watch our step."
Hinata shook her head. "He's dead. He got buried underneath the rubble and crushed."
"That's a relief," Naruto said. "The first time I've ever felt relieved about somebody dying. He was a worse hothead than I am, and a mean bastard. Not to mention he wanted to kill you so badly..."
"Yeah..." Hinata said, though she disagreed inside. Some part of her felt guilty for having been the cause of so much misfortune. Still, there was no way that he could have been saved in the situation that he had created. Killing him was most likely an act of mercy. She took some comfort in that.
"Come on," Naruto said, snapping her out of her funk by taking her hand. He looked at her with his confident smile, the one that never failed to make her warm inside. "You and me have some rescuing to do. Unless the Snake Bastard himself shows up, I don't think it'll be that hard, either. You ready, Hinata?"
She returned his smile with one of her own. After surviving the storm that they had just been through, she had to admit that not much else besides the world's most infamous and sadistic villain would scare her now. She gave a short nod and an energetic "Yes!"
"All right," Naruto said. "Let's go get Keisuke-niichan and get the hell out of here. I've had enough of holes in the ground."
They vaulted over the huge pile of rubble and started off down the newly opened path. Naruto re-established the Synchronization between them as they went, combining their senses against any attacker that might be lurking in their way. His feelers waved constantly around them, feeling for traps and concealed enemies, while Hinata's Byakugan penetrated every shadow and crevice, scanning every place that he should miss. No enemies appeared, however, and their progress was swift and unbroken.
The lack of enemies was beneficial to them in another way, too. The link between them, channeled by the Ghostly Arms, passed on the accelerated healing capability caused by the mingling of the Kyuubi chakra with Naruto's to Hinata. Both of them found their left-over injuries from the previous fight healing quickly as they moved. In minutes, they were both nearly fully recovered and, though they still were not full on chakra, they felt almost as though they could fight Hikaru all over again.
As their bodies healed and their progress continued, their spirits lifted. They were on their way to the prison below, perhaps almost there already, where hopefully they could find Keisuke, contact the others by radio, and begin thinking about their retreat. The mission would be over shortly after, and then they could all go home and have a great long rest. Preferably, a rest spent pleasantly in each other's company and the company of their close friends. Perhaps even Haruka would turn up—that would make Keisuke's recovery much swifter, without a doubt...
"Naruto-kun, there's a door around this corner," Hinata said.
"Think it's the door to the jail cells?" Naruto asked, excited. "We'd better be ready; there could be guards waiting for us. You feel comfortable with me showing off a little bit? Nothing too fancy, just something to blow off some energy..."
Hinata stifled a laugh as they came to the door, trying to remain serious and failing. "Go ahead, Naruto-kun," she said. "Just try not to use too much energy, since we still need to get out when we're finished."
Naruto flashed a smile reminiscent of a kid who'd just been given a cookie. Now Hinata really did laugh some; it was both comical and comforting to see him enjoying himself, even on such a mission as this. She supposed it was to be expected, since he had just defeated a monster of an opponent. What man wouldn't feel full of himself, even just a little bit?
The blond threw open the door and hurtled into the dirt-floored, brightly lit chamber beyond. A giant smile of confidence was plastered to his face.
"All right, you Snake-kissing freaks!" he yelled. "Who's next?!"
"Ah! Finally!" exclaimed a female voice. "Do you assholes have any idea how bored I was? It's rude to keep us waiting so long, you know!"
"Huh?" Naruto said, immediately confused. "But that sounds like..."
"Naruto-kun, above!" Hinata yelled.
His head immediately snapped back to look above him. A Hyuuga with dark, braided hair was dropping from the ceiling right on top of him! The silver eyes blazed with the anticipation of battle, looking right into him with cunning and a destructive intent that was unmistakable.
"Haruka-neechan!" he gasped, preparing to leap out of the way. "It's m... gah!"
Naruto's leap had been stopped abruptly by a sinkhole that appeared directly below his feet, sucking him down and rooting him in place. He was trapped! But what the hell had caused that thing? He reached through the Synchronization link to Hinata's eyes, and peered down around him. No mistake; he had been caught by a Rokujuuyon Reiude trap seal.
"Caught you!" shouted another voice from the side, this one a male. Naruto's head turned that way, unable to believe his ears and hoping his eyes would not deceive him so.
Unfortunately, they saw exactly what he did not want them to see. A thin, ragged man with a mane of brown hair and many scars stood nearby, an elaborate seal etched into his skin. Flames burned along that seal, giving him the appearance of some kind of hell-spawn. A number of long, thin arms visible only to the Byakugan reached out from sixty-four points in his chakra circulatory system, extending the reach of his chakra into the air. Some of those reached up into the air, connecting him to Haruka.
The man had blue eyes to match Naruto's own, but other than that his features were unmistakable for anyone else's. This man was the man that they had come here to save.
"No way," Naruto said, too amazed to even defend himself from the oncoming Jyuuken strike. "Keisuke-niichan?"
Fortunately, Hinata still had enough wits about her to defend them both. Her arms whirled above their heads, slicing the air with blades of luminous chakra. They arced high, warning the attacker to abandon the assault or be harmed. Haruka saw the defense and halted her advance, kicking off against the wall to launch herself gracefully through the air. She landed beside Keisuke, a look of wicked enjoyment on her face.
"It looks like this is the challenge we've been waiting for," she told her formerly blind partner. "I think this ring here must be a good luck charm, Keisuke!"
"You call being assaulted good luck?" Keisuke replied with mock astonishment. "I know you're sadistic, but to go so far as wanting to be attacked by big, dark, surprisingly skilled shadow-people when we're supposed to be running for our lives out of here? That's a new level even for you."
"Are you really that surprised?" Haruka said, still staring eagerly at their opponents.
Keisuke laughed. "No, actually. I'm not."
Naruto gawked at them while he let Hinata help him out of the sinkhole. What the hell was going on? They were acting completely like themselves, with the exception of the fact that they seemed to think of him and Hinata as their enemies. He had thought that after Hikaru, nothing would surprise or challenge him other than Orochimaru or Sasuke, but now he was no longer sure about that.
"Hinata," he said, a note of unexpected fear leaking out in his voice. "What's wrong with them? They're themselves, but they're not recognizing us. What do you think happened?"
Hinata was staring wide-eyed at them herself, now. The exact same confusion seemed to be on her mind.
"I don't know," she said. "They called us 'dark shadow-people.' Do you think somehow their vision has been distorted?"
"I don't think so," Naruto said. "I can see them just fine, and they seem like they can target us pretty well. Maybe they're brainwashed?"
"HEY!" Haruka shouted at them, seeming annoyed. "You big black wonders frozen in fear or something? Quit squawking in that gobbledegook of yours and come at us! I've been waiting long enough as it is!"
"Crap," Naruto said, "It looks like they can't understand what we say, either. What the hell happened?"
"It seems like your prey might be trying to taunt you, Sadist," Keisuke said, smiling at his partner.
"Oh?" Haruka intoned, licking her lips. "Is that so? Well, it would be just terrible if I didn't accept their challenge, wouldn't it? Fine, you sleazy shades... if you're not coming over here, I'll go to you!"
She charged forward with a great, sweeping stride, palms poised to deliver a fatal strike at Naruto's stomach. Her eyes burned with excitement. Behind her, Keisuke's Reiude flared out as he began to make hand seals, planning to support his partner from a safe distance.
"Damn it!" Naruto yelled, evading Haruka with a roll to the right. "Hinata, I don't know what the hell's gone wrong with them, but we can't let them just kill us! We're gonna have to fight them!"
OoOoOoOo Plot Twist no Jutsu! End Chapter Nineteen oOoOoOoO
Next Chapter: So many new developments! Sakura has won her fight, just as Shino has, but where will both of them be going now? Will they be able to rejoin their fellows in the sprawling underground facility? Will Neji and Kiba triumph over Hiroto and his unfair tactics? What was it that Sasuke has planned for Ayaka and her clan?
And most importantly... what will be the fate of the two Reiude-Byakugan teams, reunited at last only to become locked in combat with each other?
There will be only one source for the answers...