A/N: I had hoped to have this finished a looooong time ago, but big Navy kept me busy. Too bad, huh? At least it's ready to go now. Plans for VftF are all done, but I have to finish this first. I'll work with as much speed as possible around my studying and watch qualifications.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Prelude to Annihilation
The creature that once called itself Hyuuga Hiroto had become a different being. It still possessed the flesh of the former Captain, but that flesh was permeated by an evil force resembling few others in existence. Its skin was blacker than the blackest winter night, a shade that seemed to absorb all light. Through it pulsed the same sickly yellow chakra that tainted Keisuke, in such great volume that it spilled over the limits of the human body and amassed in the air surrounding it. Beyond that, it still resembled Hiroto in shape, stature, and expression, with the exception of the eyes; normal Hyuuga still had visible whites to their eyes even when the Byakugan was active, but this creature's eyes were all silver and glowed like melted steel.
There was only a half-moment to look upon it, which was both fortunate and unfortunate. The fortunate consequence was that its prey was no longer frozen in horror, fighting instincts taking effect as soon as it charged. However, their reflexes could only do so much for them. None of the shinobi save Keisuke knew what to expect from it, and Keisuke himself was once again blind and wounded. As a result, Naruto and Haruka barely managed to grab onto the blind man and haul him out of harm's way before the creature's menacing chakra lashed out, tearing up the arena floor where they had been only an instant before.
"Whoa!" yelled Naruto as his back was pelted with earthen shrapnel. He turned his head back to look at the fifty-foot-long, seven-foot-deep gouge in the ground that the single blast had ripped. "What kind of power is THAT? He only took a few steps forward and waved his hand at us..."
"It was Hakke Kushou," Hinata said, having seen her cousin do much the same thing with a smaller effect, "But it was magnified by so much! Its chakra is amazing."
"It can be as amazing as the chakra of Kyuubi itself, if she's eaten well enough," Keisuke explained, pulling loose of their grip. "Right now, she's likely putting on a good show to fool us into thinking this is a hopeless battle for us. That black shroud works in her favor, keeping us from knowing how much power she really has left."
"She" had already turned around and begun attacking again. The demon ran towards them with inhuman speed, hurling short bursts of its evil chakra as it came. The four shinobi split up in its wake, Naruto and Hinata escaping to the beast's left while Keisuke and Haruka fled to the right. Naruto hoped that it would be unable to choose a target between them and leave itself open in indecision, but no such luck graced them; the demon went right after Keisuke, tailing him like a shadow.
"Damn!" Naruto exclaimed. Whether it followed him because he was wounded and an easier target or just because it wanted to kill Keisuke more than the rest of them, it was not good. Keisuke was tired and his body had only just recently healed, and on top of that he had two bloody holes in his face. He could hardly withstand the full assault of such a creature alone. Naruto changed course, drawing a shuriken and tossing it quickly at the demon's back. This wouldn't be much, but hopefully it could give Keisuke a few more seconds before he, Haruka, or Naruto could hit with something more powerful. As the bladed projectile flew, Naruto moved his hands rapidly through the required motions.
"Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Several more projectiles appeared around the first as it was about to impact, the set totaling over fifty shuriken. There was no possible way to dodge them all, even with such speed as this thing had. They flew with strong and true aim, mere feet from impact.
The demon's aura flashed for an instant, pouring out an almost solid wall of evil chakra. The shuriken, rather than striking the back of the enemy, disintegrated into fine dust. A soft, sadistic chuckle reached Naruto's ears as though from a woman standing two feet away, though the demon was a much greater distance away from him than that. Naruto realized that the creature had projected it's voice backwards through a weird form of telepathy just to taunt him.
Laugh at me, will you? Naruto thought angrily. You're not going to be killing anyone in this age, you ugly...
His thoughts stopped as Keisuke stopped running and turned in mid-stride to stand his ground against the demon. What was this? He couldn't possibly be giving up already! To face all that power at point-blank range was most likely a suicide maneuver!
But then his Synchronization with Hinata told him what his own eyes could not; the Byakugan revealed to him the large trap seal that Keisuke had laid with his Ghostly Arms in the demon's path. That was a smart move, since even if the demon's Byakugan could see it too, it would still have to go around the trap to get to Keisuke. Naruto felt relief; this should give him and Hinata enough time to strike from behind.
Of course, the demon had other plans. Instead of running around the trap, it simply leaped upward, taking the fastest safe route across—air travel. It had a horrible grinning expression on its face before it opened Hiroto's mouth and screamed a blast of blazing light right at the blind man. Keisuke could not totally avoid damage, but he managed to get away with only a few cuts from shards of stone that flew from the arena walls where the shot hit it and Naruto could see that, even as Keisuke clutched his shoulder where a particularly large chunk of stone had lodged in it, it was the blind shinobi who was now smiling.
The reason became clear in another second. While the beast had been absolutely focused on Keisuke's death, Haruka had used its ignorance to run forward unnoticed... right onto Keisuke's "trap" seal. Naruto and Hinata watched as Keisuke reached out to touch the seal with one Ghostly Arm, activating it with barely a thought. Immediately, it erupted in a column of air which exhibited such great pressure that a circular imprint was left in the dirt. Haruka was launched upward, the wind whipping her midnight braid like a victory banner, straight at the enemy. A double-handed Jyuuken aimed at Hiroto's back glowed visibly in her palms.
Yes! Naruto thought excitedly. This was the kind of attack that could kill a small elephant; he'd seen Haruka do it before, when Keisuke had compared her to an old and dried-up pachyderm on a leisure trip close to a year ago.
"Futile," remarked the demon, sounding almost disappointed. When Haruka was only an arm's length away, practically having hit her target already, Hiroto's body went from zero rotation to a hurricane-force spin in half a second, using the sickly chakra as both a propellant and a weapon. Haruka gasped in pain and surprise as the energy singed through her and slammed her back towards earth.
"You cannot hope to defeat me with those techniques, especially with such weak power. It was I who gifted your bloodline with those eyes, and I have watched their uses grow through the centuries. There is no Jyuuken skill that is unknown to me, and I am master of them all!"
To demonstrate, the monster landed lightly on its feet, palms extended toward Hinata, who was closing the distance to make her own attack. Naruto attempted to provide his partner with some cover by firing off two Raifu Daigeki wind bolts through his Reiude, one at the creature's head, the other at its chest. They came close to hitting their mark, but the creature simply flashed its aura again, and though the shots penetrated the chakra wall slightly, no damage was caused. Clear of any danger from that direction, the beast made a terrible smile once again using Hiroto's lips and changed stances to a familiar, very deadly form.
"Jyuuken Hou: Hakke Rokujuuyon Kushou!" (Jyuuken Move: Eight Trigams Sixty-Four Air Palms)
Hinata halted her charge and ducked to the right, but she could not keep from being clipped by several of the sixty-four rapid bursts of finger-sized chakra bullets that were aimed at critical points in her body. She yelped as almost all of her right side went numb, and a look of fear spread through her. The yellow chakra was not just strong, as Naruto could feel through their connection; it was cold and dreadful, and it spread a strong desire to break down and flee, or grovel for mercy. He began to see what Keisuke had meant about the weak-spirited having no chance.
He also felt rage begin to swell in his core—Hinata was in trouble! Moments before, the demon was only after Keisuke, but now it wanted Hinata just to demonstrate a point and to feed off fear! Hinata's memories began to surface in his mind through the connection; he saw her the subject of disappointment, felt the glare of Hiashi's unforgiving silver eyes. The demon was bringing these memories to the surface, trying to feed from them!!
"No way!" he roared. "Hinata's not your battery!" While he fed chakra to Hinata through the Synch, he dashed at the laughing demon, calling twelve clones to run alongside him. Some of them rolled themselves into balls with their chakra tails around them, becoming living boulders with the intention of running the enemy over. Others launched Fuuton: Renkuudan air balls at it, and more—including the original Naruto—rode atop these gaseous missiles with Rasengans in hand.
Simultaneously, Keisuke and Haruka attacked from the other side, Haruka picking herself up to charge again in anger while Keisuke began hurling kunai and shuriken loaded with his own yellow-blue power, ready to explode into molten steel on impact. He threw them until they ran out. The combined assault would have leveled half of a village, were there one nearby.
This time, though Hiroto's body spun just as quickly and with as much force as before, it did not escape unscathed. Haruka was once again thrown backwards against the overpowering yellow whirlwind, but Keisuke's multiple Hitoshirezu Shintou attacks and Naruto's Renkuudan and Rasengan missiles burst upon the rotating defense and disrupted it. This caused weak spots which allowed three of the rolling clones to break through the Kaiten, knocking the demon backwards.
The monster quickly recovered itself and remained on its feet, able to use its high-powered Hakke Kushou to fling the remaining clones into the arena's walls and ceiling, dispelling them. However, it was not quite fast enough to thoroughly stop the momentum of the angry and determined real Naruto, and was only able to produce a partial Hakke Kushou to oppose the full might of the Rasengan. Naruto's Reiude chakra tails deflected the yellow chakra wave and allowed him to drive the damaging sphere straight into the creature's abdomen.
It shrieked as the tattered cloth of Hiroto's robe shredded and the black skin was rapidly abraded. In desperation, it focused all of the chakra that it had to the point of impact, stopping the damage where it was and forcing Naruto backwards. Despite this, it was still quite obviously in pain and at a disadvantage, and the sense of dread emanating from it seemed to dissipate somewhat.
"You're a master of the Hyuuga's style," Naruto growled, "And you might know a little bit about Keisuke-niichan, but you haven't met me."
"You," said the demon, glaring at him with loathing, "Are a fool to make me your enemy, boy. I had not known what to expect from you, this is true. Yet you are talking to a demon who, other than the nine Bijuu, is among the most powerful evils in this world. What threat could you possibly pose to an immortal like me?"
Naruto faced the crackling power straight-backed and proud and said, "You don't know who I am? I'm Uzumaki Naruto, you ancient bitch, and I'm Konoha no Sato's next Hokage. You should be asking yourself what threat I possibly couldn't pose to you!"
Hinata, though still in pain from the multiple impacts, had overcome the numbing effects with Naruto's shared chakra and dispelled the fear with his bravery. She smiled proudly at him, and took her stance again, waiting for an opportunity to back him up. This was Uzumaki Naruto at his best; they could not possibly lose now.
Haruka was also smiling, though she wished that she could have been the one to give that monster a smacking and a talking-to. She resolved to improve herself further once she had gotten out of here and brought Keisuke back to health; the blind moron was going to be very very busy with her for the next few years, until she was either satisfied with her improvement or until he collapsed from exhaustion.
"This is good!" Keisuke said, encouraging everyone. "Our morale is high, so she can't gain any more power, and she has only the energy that her host had plus what she's stolen from a very few people over hundreds of years of isolation. Keep your spirits up and we can wear her down in a few more minutes!" And hopefully, we may just make it out of here with all our limbs still attached...
The demon, though hurt, shook Hiroto's head and sighed. "My son," it said, "You are too confident in the little which you know of me. If you knew the true power of the wonderful energy that courses through those veins of yours, you would have given up all hope long ago and become my food and my tool, as I intended you to be."
The yellow aura around Hiroto flared for a brief moment and then disappeared completely, much to everyone's surprise. All four shinobi looked hard with their Byakugans and Reiudes, but could no longer find any trace of the yellow chakra.
"That damned black mask again," Haruka cursed. "I can't see a thing except black. It's really getting on my nerves."
"I'm having the same trouble, Haruka-san," Hinata agreed. "No matter how strong the focus, the Byakugan can't penetrate this illusion..."
"She is the Byakugan's creator," Keisuke remarked. "An intelligent creator, when creating a weapon, also creates a way to defeat that weapon should it be turned against them."
"Damn him, what is he doing?" Naruto wondered aloud, raising his tails around him protectively. He moved to a position that would be more squarely in the path between the monster and Hinata, intending to block any harm that came her way; at this point, her Hyuuga abilities were not going to be effective for anything other than a diversion, so it would be up to him and Keisuke to attack the demon and defend Hinata and Haruka at the same time.
Hiroto's face contorted with evil glee, and the mental voice of Keisuke's mother reverberated through the chamber with head-splitting volume. The black mask began to spread out from the creature's body, beginning to form a set of curved walls. Then his hands flipped perpendicular to his arms with the palms angled up toward Naruto and Keisuke.
"Hakke Kushou, Ni no Tachi." (Eight Trigams Air Palm, Version Two)
The yellow chakra appeared once more, this time reaching out briefly in the form of a vortex. Unlike before, however, this technique used its swirling motion to draw in Naruto and Keisuke vice pushing them away. Naruto swatted at the vortex with his tails, but the burst of power put into the evil vacuum was more than he was prepared for, and he was sucked towards the enemy without means of escape. Haruka, realizing that Keisuke's power was a more effective means of attack against this threat, jumped in front of the vortex so that she would be taken instead of him.
But Keisuke shoved her away hard, placing himself in the vacuum's path again. Before Haruka could retaliate, he was caught and being pulled in like Naruto was.
"Idiot!" Haruka shouted. "Why did you do that? You and Naruto-kun are the only ones who can hurt this thing!"
"Where I'm going, Haruka," Keisuke said, "You don't want to go. I can hurt her just as easily from there as I can out here. You and Hinata-chan stay alive!"
Hinata rushed after Naruto, hoping to grab onto his hand, leg, tail, anything to pull him away—the demon was ecstatic about having caught him, laughing madly in their minds, and she herself had felt the effects of that evil chakra. And if Naruto were to be caught at this point...
"Naruto-kun," she yelled, "Hold on, I'm coming!" She was ten feet away... five... she made a dive for his left foot.
Then the vacuum attack yanked him and Keisuke one final length towards the demon, and the black walls closed around them, locking Hinata and Haruka on the outside and severing the Synchronization link. Hinata got to her feet, intending to Jyuuken her way through to the inside, where she could join them. However, she had to divert her energy to escaping the flash of yellow-black lightning that came for her, the same type of lightning that had taken Keisuke's eyes. She somersaulted backwards across the floor and leaped agilely away until the bolts stopped chasing her, then stood panting in battle-ready stance, waiting for another wave.
However, the next wave never came. The energy crackled and flashed menacingly, but did not pursue them.
"Why... why did it take Naruto-kun and Keisuke-san and stop?"
Haruka walked over to join her junior Hyuuga, relaxing her own battle form and glaring with helpless rage at the swirling black and yellow energy wall that kept them out. After a moment, she also relaxed her Byakugan, seeing no point to using it if it could not penetrate the black mask.
"It probably doesn't have the energy to do anything to us besides keep us out while it's busy with them," she said. "That idiot Keisuke said to stay alive, but that's going to be hard if I have to be driven insane by boredom again."
Hinata looked at her oddly for a moment, but then saw that she was most likely right. She, too, released her Byakugan and stood up at ease. Her eyes turned to the swirling black again, watching it with deep concern.
"You think it is running out of power, Haruka-san?" she asked.
Haruka sighed and took a seat on the ground, wiping her brow. "Well, Keisuke did say that we were wearing it down. Probably, it wanted to isolate two of us so it could eat and gain back some power."
"And it took them instead of us because they were the most dangerous," Hinata concluded. "That isn't good... That kind of power, I don't have any skill that can counter it."
"Which Keisuke should have realized, that idiot," Haruka said. "If he were outside, he could have broken through that wall and stopped it. But nooo, he has to be righteous and brave, and let me sit out here powerless while he could be turning into his own mother's lunch..." She stared into the depths of the black power, a tangible sense of regret and anxiety reflected in her silver irises.
Hinata looked at her senior, interpreting the words internally. "You're worried about them, aren't you?"
Haruka kept on staring at the spot where Keisuke had disappeared. Hinata expected an answer to the effect of "hell no, not about that idiot," or "that stupid demon has no chance." What she got completely surprised her.
"So worried that I could just about die."
With their Byakugan power inactive, the tiny, yet steady increase in strength to the wall went unnoticed...
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Black and cold enveloped the two. Naruto and Keisuke could see only each other in the masking effect, and there was no sign of their enemy. The Ghostly Arms could find no trace of the monster, either.
"What the hell is this?" Naruto asked. "She pulled us in already, why isn't she attacking?"
"Attacking isn't her plan," Keisuke said. "At least, she won't attack physically. The fighting from before hurt her and used up a lot of her power. She needs to feed on pain and sadness to replenish herself. Synchronize with me, it will be easier to stay together."
Naruto followed his instructions, intertwining several of his Arms with Keisuke's own. He felt their senses and chakra mingle.
"Sorry, niichan; I don't have a fancy Byakugan for you to borrow."
"Normal eyes will do, little brother," Keisuke assured him. "Although, I can't see how much good any vision will do when all there is to see is black. Be careful—when she starts her work, she will probably be looking to attack you in your mind."
Naruto gave an affirmative nod and grunt, and steeled himself. His tails flicked around him anxiously, itching for whatever was going to happen to start already. In his mind, he ran through the procedure for self-dispelling genjutsu.
"I hope Hinata's not in trouble without me," he said under his breath. "We haven't fought anyone this strong since Sasuke."
Then a thought occurred to him, one that he had not graced his mind for a few days. He turned around, intending to ask Keisuke his opinion.
"Oi, niicha... oogh!"
He found himself impaled on a long, menacing sword blade, held by a very familiar pair of white hands attached to an equally familiar body. As he watched, the body turned from white to a mottled gray, and the hands turned red from his blood spilling over them.
"Did you really think that my intentions had changed at all," asked Sasuke, a wicked smirk on his face, "Naruto?"
"Sasuke!"
The pain was real, and so was the emotional pain that was beginning to well up in his chest. He had, in fact, begun to believe that his old friend's odd behavior was a sign of change. Now, though, finding him in league with a creature as evil as Keisuke's demon mother, he was certain that he had been wrong, and it hurt. Sasuke had probably decided that this demon was a better way to gain power than Orochimaru, that's all...
The darkness around him became thicker, and he thought that he could hear someone laughing...
She needs to feed on pain and sadness to replenish herself... attack from the mind...
"Wait a minute," Naruto said, pulling the sword from his stomach. He concentrated, slowing his chakra flow willingly, and the wound vanished; it had never been there in the first place. "You're an illusion. I'm not buying it another second! I'm not your freakin' battery either!"
He focused more, completely stopping his chakra, and the illusion quickly dispelled. Immediately, he started up his chakra flow again and sent a pulse through the Synchronization to Keisuke, in case he was suffering a genjutsu of his own.
"That wasn't needed," Keisuke said. Naruto turned to see that he was standing erect, perfectly fine. "But thanks for the thought."
"She didn't do anything to you?" Naruto asked, amazed.
"She tried," he said. "I saw myself killing my father from my father's point of view. She could have been more creative, I think; the dreams from before hurt worse."
Indeed Naruto noted that, except for the bloody holes in his face, the blind man could not have looked better. He found himself in awe of his big brother's willpower. What had he gone through in the past few days?
Keisuke tipped his head towards Naruto, sensing the feelings he experienced. "In case you were wondering, she's been doing similar things to me in my sleep for a good long while. Thanks to Orochimaru's drugs, I couldn't resist the dreams, but I could grow more tolerant to them. My past isn't so painful anymore."
Damn, Naruto thought while staring at him, I'm going to kill Orochimaru ten times over for that...
Then Keisuke smiled. "I can tell that you've had some dreams yourself. You didn't need me to break you out of that illusion."
Naruto remembered his nocturnal sessions with Kyuubi, before Hinata had neutralized them in her extremely pleasant fashion. Staring up at the bars, into the monster's eyes, forced to relive old nightmares and forge new ones in excruciating detail—it had not been fun at all.
Yet he realized that Keisuke was right; he had recovered rather quickly from the illusion of his long-gone friend. Just one more curse of Kyuubi turned into a blessing.
"Yeah," he said, smiling widely in the growing dark, "You could say that. But I let the bitch have a little bit anyway." He spoke of the momentary shock he'd had, and how the demon had extracted a small amount of energy in that period.
Keisuke felt around himself with his Reiude, ascertaining the truth of Naruto's statement. He was right; the swirling dark had grown stronger, and another attack was being prepared. It was another illusion, he could tell that much, and one of greater clarity if one judged the chakra formation correctly.
"Nothing to worry about," he concluded. "Now you know what to expect. If you maintain your confidence, she'll run out of energy using her illusions before we give any up. I think you've got a pretty good handle on your past, don't you?"
Naruto wasn't afforded the time to answer, as he suddenly found himself whisked away many years, far back to the earlier days at the academy when he had begun to fixate on the young pink-haired girl, Sakura. She was looking at him with scorn, and he knew he would never have a chance...
"NOT!" Naruto yelled, and with a mighty pulse of chakra the image was dispelled.
Immediately it changed into an older version of Sakura, one who was glommed tightly onto an injured Sasuke in a hospital bed. The younger him stood watching, staring with an emptiness to his eyes.
"Geez, get a clue!" Naruto said. "I'm not going to fall for something that weak, especially now that I've gotten over her!" This illusion, too, was thwarted within seconds.
The fish-man, Kisame from Akatsuki, stealing all of his chakra with the great sword, Samehada. Naruto could remember being very afraid then... There was no way for him to fight such a beast!
"Weak!! Find something scarier than a fish, old crone!"
Itachi, glaring evilly at his prey with an irresistible dominance. Kyuubi's power would be his for the taking...
"Hey, look... he's got red on him! Next!"
On and on it went, one illusion after the other. Each was extravagant in detail and reflected a significant saddening or scary event from years before. Yet each he easily threw off; as Keisuke had said, once he knew what to expect, his experience in surviving nightmares gave him strength to combat these visions. No matter how many were thrown at him and no matter how great the frequency, he defeated them all... and that made his confidence soar. No way was he feeding that ugly old lady any more!
So caught up in his triumph was he, and so elaborate were the environments incorporated into the illusions, that he failed to feel or see the slow buildup of dark power in the black walls around him...
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
After the initial attack, a new illusion had come to take the place of the old, and the once-again-blind man found himself out in an entirely new environment. This particular vision included a heavy rainfall, and he could feel the mud beneath his feet with cold, sticky clarity. He had eyes in this vision, as well; he could see that he was in a back alley in some village, and that it was sometime in the twilight hours just before nightfall.
He did not know whose body he was in, however, and it certainly was not his own. Looking down at the arms, legs, and torso, he could see that it was a very young body, perhaps that of a fourteen-year-old. It was clad in a dark training suit of the kind Hyuuga apprentices wore, soaked in rain to the bone.
Yet there was nobody else in the alley but him. He was alone, and nothing was happening.
"Is that all?" Keisuke called out. "I haven't forgotten what you promised me before you sealed me away all that time ago. Are you going to take it back now?"
He was surprised to find that his voice was extremely high-pitched and sharp, even for a young boy. In shock, he reached down, patting himself to see if his suspicions were true. After a moment, he had his answer.
"Wonderful," he said to himself, "She's turned me into a teenage girl. I'm sure she did it to demoralize me, but it's more annoying and insulting than depressing..."
"Is it, now?" His mother's voice echoed in his mind, though it was not part of the audio effect in the dream itself. "We will see about that. Why don't you have a look around?"
"I think not," Keisuke responded. He did what he had done before, concentrating to halt the flow of his chakra momentarily to break the genjutsu illusion.
Then something strange happened that had not happened before. In spite of his will, his chakra did not stop flowing... it increased in flow! The power manifested itself as a dark yellow aura around him, completely out of his control.
"I dominate here," his mother said, sneering at him. "Your chakra is half mine; I can control it freely, if I so desire. This time, you will be going nowhere, my son. You will feed me before you die."
Keisuke was shocked for a moment, thinking he had lost, but he stopped those thoughts before they could increase the demoness's power. This was a mere inconvenience, he told himself. The dreams in Orochimaru's laboratory were horrible, but they had taught him to resist and survive. Once she had found out that she could not get a reaction of despair from him, she would abandon the attempt.
"All right, so you surprised me," he admitted. "However, there isn't anything in my memory that I haven't seen recently and gotten over. Spiritually, I have never been stronger. You will have trouble breaking me."
"Such arrogance, my child! You are correct; the dreams that were enabled by my dear toy Orochimaru's drugs did not kill your spirit, but instead made you more able to resist the pain of your own memories. But what of the memories of others?"
"DIE!!"
Before Keisuke could ask what she meant, he was under swift attack. In this body, alien to him, he did not know how to defend himself, and was immediately overpowered. Somehow, he suspected that this body would not have been able to fend off the attack anyway; it came very quickly and strongly and the body was not trained enough to match it. In half a second, Keisuke was knocked to the ground and sent skidding through the mud until his head collided with a large metal object; a trash receptacle. He felt hot blood stream from a large wound, though the pain of the wound itself was dulled by numbness induced by the cold.
Yet he was strong enough in spirit to sit up and look into the face of his attacker. It was a woman, perhaps twenty-something years of age, with short, dark hair and a band tied around her forehead. She had white eyes with no pupils, and those eyes were crying.
A Hyuuga branch member. But he'd never seen this one before... why would this be important to him?
"What do you want from me?! I never did anything to you!" The female voice that came from his borrowed throat acted on its own, independently of his will; the illusion was making him play out the memory.
The attacker, looking hurt and disgusted at the same time, did not speak, but came towards him again. Keisuke felt a scream come out of him, but choked off when the Jyuuken slammed into his guts. The torment did not end there, however, for the woman had picked him up by his collar and now threw him like a rag doll against the wall of the nearest building. He felt several ribs crack, and his eyes began to tear up from the pain.
"St-stop it!" he heard himself yell. "Don't...!"
Another slamming force. Not a Jyuuken this time, but a conventional punch. Another one followed, and then another. Keisuke, in this strange body that was not his, found himself under the barrage of punches delivered by a woman who was crying and looking at him with utter loathing through the entire beating.
"Wh... Why...?" he gasped between punches. But the woman wouldn't tell him.
"You don't realize?" spoke the demoness. "How hopeless you are. Look at your reflection, there in the trash on that shard of glass. Do you see?"
He tore his eyes away from the rampaging woman for a second to look, even though he knew he should not. His abnormally sharp vision found the shard in moments and, although it was small, he could clearly see the silver eyes and dark, braided hair looking back at him. The face of someone he knew, many years younger.
The face of someone he loved. Laughter filled his mind as anguish gripped his heart.
"Haruka," he gasped, "Is this... ugh!"
The laughter increased as his mother began to feed, and to grow stronger.
"Is this real? Yes! I have ALL of the memories from every last one of your descendants, my son! You wondered how Haruka could be so powerfully sadistic and yet so insecure at times. Now you have a glimpse at the reason!"
"No..."
"Yes! The woman who spills your blood now is the sister of the Branch family member sacrificed in the place of Haruka's mother! How sad do you believe she was when she found out that her sister was murdered because another Hyuuga ran away out of cowardice? Haruka keeps it buried deep in the recesses of her mind, but on this night, and every night after until her father took her out of the village, she was made sorry for her parents' terrible lack of courage... just as you are being made sorry now, my child."
Sorry Keisuke was indeed. Sorry that he had never made the effort to overcome the masochistic dreams that created the sadist. So very sorry that he had been annoyed by Haruka's antics rather than treat them as a symptom of a long-buried torturous memory.
But his mother was not sorry. She was well on her way to achieving the level of power that was needed. The power needed to extract the sorrowful essence of the entire Hyuuga Clan...
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
The illusions stopped coming quite abruptly. Naruto was returned to the present place and time, sporting a huge, cocky smile and swishing his tails across the ground and through the air in contempt. It looked to him as though the demon had at last given up on trying to get any suffering or fear out of him. They were in the clear! He whipped around, looking for the grin of approval on his big brother's face.
"Hey, Niicha... huh?!"
But Keisuke was on the ground, rolling back and forth and clutching his head. The dirt and rocks underneath him tore into his flesh, reopening the freshly-healed wounds there. His mouth parts were moving constantly, trying to form a word but unable to project his voice.
"You mourn for that pathetic worm?" said the voice of the demon. "Fool. You do not realize that she is the one who has killed you!" Booming laughter filled the space, and Naruto only had to lift his eyes a few feet from his vulnerable friend to know the source.
There, standing over Keisuke, was a human form. It was not Hiroto as Naruto had expected; the darkness had coalesced around the former Captain's frame, forming a new shell. This new body, though it maintained Hiroto's size, was without a doubt that of a woman. Like before, the eyes were molten silver, and they glowed with a palpable evil. The lips cracked into a wicked, yet oddly beautiful smile as she stepped towards her ailing son, hand extended. A stream of dark yellow chakra connected them, tinted with blue highlights near Keisuke's end that slowly turned black as they approached the woman.
And what power Naruto could feel in her! Apart from the flood of it that she was receiving from Keisuke right now, there was even more trickling in from the wall of black that surrounded them. Naruto knew it must be because Hinata and Haruka were outside, trying hard not to despair and failing. They didn't know what was happening on the inside, and it must have been driving them near insane with worry. Especially because there was nothing that they could do against the Hyuuga's supreme mother.
Oh, she was not going to be laughing when he was done with her...
Anger swept through him, and with it came a will to attack and kill. Tails swishing in his wake, he dashed with blurring speed and closed the distance between the two in less than a second. Each magnificent Tail of Light became a high-speed cutting edge, and all nine whirled at the evil woman in their path as Naruto spun three-hundred and sixty degrees in the air, bringing his fist to bear upon her.
Yet the woman defended herself with barely a movement, seeming to be caught up in enjoying her son's defeat. Every tail was repelled by a wall of invisible power that flashed dull yellow when it was contacted. She was emitting chakra from every release point on her body, as the Hyuuga masters often do in dire situations. His fist she caught in one hand. Only after Naruto's motion had completely stopped did she turn her horrible scalding eyes on him.
"You naive young fool," she chuckled. "Thinking that you can save anyone, let alone my son, is a thought you had best put out of your mind for good. Well... at least for the few minutes that you have left to live, anyway. Let us make a splendidly painful few minutes of it, that I may have something to show the young heiress..."
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"Gaah, what the HELL is going on in there?!" Haruka fumed. She stood with her fists clenched so tightly that Hinata almost thought she heard her finger bones would crack. Her eyes looked upon the black mass—getting larger and larger at a continuously accelerating rate—with a mixture of anger and fear that looked ready to turn to panic at any moment.
Hinata couldn't blame her; she felt ready to be sick at the sense of dread that was creeping through her flesh once again. She felt cut off from a significant measure of courage without the connection to Naruto, for the dark hurricane seemed to be sucking the two of them dry of all hope, even though it was not directly attacking them.
"Damn it!" Haruka cursed. "She's getting stronger just from watching us squirm, isn't she?"
In answer, a thunderous cackling pierced their minds, causing Hinata to clamp her hands to her ears. The effort was futile, however; the laughter was not audible, but telepathic. The headache was excruciating; the demon had indeed gotten much stronger.
"It gets much better, my children... Why not see for yourselves?"
Hinata's mind was suddenly filled with a terrible image of Naruto, held captive with his throat in the grip of a woman whose power touched the sky. Black electricity shot through him. His headband flew off, revealing the Caged Bird Seal beneath, which was also burning tar-black. A horrid scream, the inflection of which suggested that his voice box was being mangled, filled her mind with as much clarity as the demon's laughter had.
It brought her such pain! Naruto in such torment was unbearable; it made her insides heave so violently, and her heart constrict so tightly, that she would have broken all her gentle mannerisms and killed a hundred people just to make it go away!
"Stop it!" she yelled. "Don't show me that!"
"Why not?" sneered the demoness. "It's only the truth. Isn't that right, Haruka? Just like what I'm showing to little Keisuke-chan..."
With the focus off of her momentarily, the pain in Hinata's core lessened somewhat, enabling her to get a hold of herself and look to Haruka, wondering what she was being shown. What would the evil woman show to a reputed Sadist to evoke despair?
Yet Haruka was not where she had been a moment ago. She had already rushed forward, forgetting that all her rage was useless against the originator of all her power, oblivious to the fact that the evil force before her would probably kill her. Her chakra flared visibly around her, so intense was her rage.
"Dis-gus-ting bitch!"
"So predictable..."
Black and yellow power lashed out, burning through Haruka's body to the ground beneath, where it cracked the earth and sent rock shrapnel and dirt everywhere. Haruka staggered backwards, coughing up a spurt of blood and gasping for breath. She knelt on the ground, and seemed about to hurl a defiant curse and rise back up. Yet her defiance only lasted as long as her strength did; in another moment, she toppled to the ground, unconscious.
"A pity," said the demon. "Now that she has fainted, I cannot extract any conscious pain from her... but it is of little concern. I will have enough power soon enough..."
"Naruto-kun," Hinata whispered, a dirty tear streaking down her face, "I know you have the power within you. Even if you have to use it, you're the only one that can stop her. Only you can save us, save the Hyuuga. Please..."
Then she checked herself. What was she doing, crying in despair like this? That was the old Hyuuga Hinata, the one that this wicked aberration was trying to drag to the surface and feed off of. What was she doing, giving into that manipulation? To let herself be a "battery," as Naruto had said, was pure lunacy.
If the Kyuubi, the mightiest demon that ever lived, could not defeat her and Naruto, then this weaker demon certainly couldn't either. Wiping her face, she got to her feet, drew air into her lungs, and shouted with all the voice she had directly into the mass of black.
"Naruto-kun, fight back!"
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The pain was incredible. The evil bitch was shocking him with power that was created from years of pain, and feeling the depth of all that pain at once was so terrible that Naruto wondered why he was not dead already. Worst of all, every ounce of pain that he felt turned into even more power for his captor, and while he could resist mental pain, physical pain was something that he could not prevent in the slightest.
Even Kyuubi felt the pain, the unbearably strong spiritual current scorching its way through the Hyuuga Caged Bird Seal directly into the core of both human and demon. Naruto could feel the fox thrashing around in his cage, enraged, but inactive—just as he had been when Hanabi had activated the seal to get Sasuke out of his mind.
Can't you do anything, you stupid fox?!
How can I? The stupid Caged Bird Seal may disrupt the barrier between our souls, but if it is activated I am as powerless to resist as you are!
Despair engulfed him. Pain pierced him. Agony rumbled in his ears, pulsed in his veins, and gurgled out through his throat. It seemed as though it was truly the end of them. Oh, how the mighty had fallen; the most powerful demon in the world, the number one most surprising ninja in history, and they still couldn't pull a win out of this one...
He could just imagine Hinata crying over his dead body, and Sakura trying to comfort her even though tears streamed from her own eyes. Kakashi would stand near his grave every day and mourn his loss, while Tsunade and Jiraiya would drink themselves into oblivion. The world would go dark...
Naruto-kun! Fight back!
Hinata?
Fight back!
I can't!
Fight back!
I'm dying...
For our sake, kit, listen to the girl! I'm useless in this state... you must take my power and fight this evil before we both die!
A dirty, determined face with long, midnight hair and beautiful white eyes, a single tear streak down one cheek, yelling, "Fight back!"
A sudden jerk of high-intensity pain stabbed through him, calling his attention back to the present. The demoness's face was a mere inch away from his, snarling with a horrible, toothy glee. It was about to complete its meal.
"You were delicious, little boy. I wish you more pain in the next world, though I regret I have no time to harvest it from you..."
The hand that had been draining Keisuke stopped for a moment to form a killing instrument made of flesh and sharpened chakra—a dagger formed around a hand. It stabbed towards Naruto's chest, crackling black from the air friction...
And then was blown away, along with the rest of the demoness, by a sudden eruption of burning red chakra. The supreme mother of all Hyuuga was knocked against her own black wall of chakra, which disintegrated quickly once her concentration was broken. The air cleared of darkness and the stadium once more came into view—along with an unconscious Haruka and a pleasantly surprised Hinata.
Keisuke let out a groan, finally released from his mother's spell, and sat up. He spent a long moment holding his head in his hands and trying to contain the terrible throbbing in his brain. Eventually, however, his senses began to slowly return to him, and he reached out with them to feel the most welcome feeling in the world. In spite of his recent agony, he joined Hinata in being joyfully surprised and climbed shakily to his feet, where he stood bloody, but smiling.
There stood Naruto, glowing brilliant red with powerful chakra swirling around him. His Nine Tails of Light were now nine long ropes of flame that danced violently in the air, and his pupils were angry red orbs that stared into the evil woman's heart with such deadly intent that it made the air nearly ignite in front of him.
"I think you've had more than enough to eat, you ugly old Hyuuga granny," he said. "You're bulging bigger than I ever did after twenty bowls at Ichiraku's."
The demon stood up again, snarling. She was winded somewhat, but by no means was she defeated.
"I will have you know that I am swollen only with power, young one," she said. "You may have tapped the powers of your demon tenant, but you're too late; I have absorbed far too much power, and am now beyond defeat. You, on the other hand, have been weakened physically in this battle. You will only bring more misery on yourself before you die."
One burning tail melted the ground beneath it into slag, leaving a molten scar along its path. Naruto stood erect and proud, and raised his fist in challenge.
"Then I'll at least make sure I die keeping Hinata and the others safe from you, old hag. If you're so powerful, then show me!"
And with those words spoken, Naruto and the demoness charged each other as Hinata and Keisuke looked on in awe. A titan of yellow and black electricity and molten silver on a collision course with a bullet of flesh and flame and feral destruction. So great was their velocity that only the sharp contrails of their auras were visible when they moved.
Yet when at last they collided, the whole world seemed to feel the impact...
OoOoOoOo Boom. End of Chapter Twenty-Three. OooOoOoO