Well, I decided to screw myself over and hold off my work until tomorrow (it's due Tues.). So here's another chapter. Also, apparently the general consensus is that I'm evil. Let's test that out, shall we?

As usual, I don't own Naruto. Pity.

Warning: swearing at the end.


While Naruto held Hinata's lifeless body, Sasuke and his squad took note of his sadness. It was obvious to anyone who met the two runaways that they shared a close bond, and sometimes silence was the best form of condolences. Now was one of those times.

"Karin, Suigetsu," The Uchiha commanded, "Move that cross away from Priest. We'll hit him while his regeneration is slowed."

"Right," they responded. Each grabbed an end and hauled the heavy machine to Naruto's position.

Sasuke and Juugo were preparing to strike their undying enemy, who, despite having only half a head now, was rising to his feet. "Interesting," he avenger thought. "He's clearly dead, but he's making advanced movements already. I wonder…" He looked back at the chakra emanating from the cross and focused his attention to a specific portion. "This is…" His Sharingan eyes widened.

"You…" Naruto set the Hyuuga's body down gently. "Will die." His voice was calm and his eyes were glazed over as he stood. He reached back and unclipped a hypodermic needle containing the Agende Vhansin's drug from the back of his belt then stabbed it into the circular implant in his left wrist. He injected the entire drug, far more than the suggested 'trial run', and threw the empty tube to the wind. His dull eyes began to burn with incredible ferocity and his stance lowered as his higher brain functions began temporarily closing off.

"Boy," echoed the fox's voice in his mind, "What are you doing?"

"Kiiiiilllllll…" came a prolonged raspy reply. The memory portion of his brain strained to recall that one simple word.

"This isn't normal for you…" the fox said inwardly. "You are destroying your own mind, and for what? That girl?"

Naruto gave a distorted high pitched grunt. The fox understood that to mean 'yes'.

"Very well. I should start fixing your mind… this poison the cannibals gave you could do permanent damage if left unchecked…" The presence of the fox disappeared into the warping shadows of his cell.

Outwardly, the blonde red-eye's appearance changed drastically. He was now on all fours, tattoos leaking energy like burst dams. All nine tails formed and one immediately struck itself into the back of his head, which induced a surprised- if one could call it that- look on his face before he returned to his animalistic growling. Everyone present backed off. They knew the blonde wasn't aiming for them but knew it wouldn't bode well if they were in the way.

After the strange energy worked its magic, Priest's head finally reformed itself and instantly gave its trademark maniacal smile. "And so the heathen reveals himself as the demon he is!" He exclaimed, gripping more of his specialized needles from his tattered coat. "Come, beast!"

Naruto complied with a guttural shriek and charged on all fours, tails and tattoos alike burning the air and singing everything that came into contact. As soon as he came within striking distance, his tails shot forward to impale the priest…

And missed. The mad holy man's energy shifted at the last second and he leapt through a nearby wall that would have otherwise blocked his escape. When he exited the other side, he sent his energy to a handful of needles and threw them back through the wall and right into the enraged Uzumaki's body.

Uzi paid the needles no mind as they spun into his skin and exploded. The fox's energy level was elevated so high at this point that it completely healed the gaping wounds in seconds. He turned towards the wall and, lurching himself onto his legs, struck the air with his left hand. The tattoos released the familiar chaos of slicing energy that cut right through the wall and continued onward. Priest, however, had enough time to move before the sharpened air could reach him.

As the unholy man ran to retrieve his cross, Naruto stood his ground. The blonde berserker raised his right arm and threw it at the immortal, sending a whip like string of burning energy at the man. It caught the madman's left arm and started to pull him back. The priest responded by pulling a small knife from his coat and promptly removed his arm beneath the elbow in one swing. Still laughing, he phased through a building that still had all four walls standing.

Naruto gave another enraged howl and struck the earth with his remaining eight tails, sending him flying forward. He put his left hand on his right arm and ran it down the tattooed limb. The body art crackled as he pulled his hand back, releasing one shorter whip for every slash-mark tattoo. He thrust his left arm forward and caught multiple surfaces with the whips and pulled back. His velocity suddenly increased as he flew towards the building and demolished it as he passed through. Of course, the priest was long gone from the flimsy stone structure and trying to find a way around the effective defense that Sasuke and company formed around his cross.

As Naruto intercepted Priest and began the lethal cat and mouse game throughout the ruined town, Sasuke addressed his team. "Listen," he said coldly without removing his bloodline eyes from the fight around them, "I took a closer look at the chakra this thing produces."

"What did you find?" The ever-quiet Juugo asked.

"It's not just chakra."

"What?" Karin muttered.

"The chakra is produced by billions of tiny machines."

"Machines?" Suigetsu added his two cents. "I don't see any machines."

The Uchiha sighed. "They can only be seen on the cellular level. They produce chakra as some kind of energy source and rebuild the priest's body themselves."

"But whenever he's away from the thing, he still regenerates." Juugo pointed out.

"Proximity to the cross must allow some of the machines to enter his body. He probably can't hold too many without suffering from them. That's why his regeneration is slower when he's farther away."

"How did you figure all that out?" Suigetsu asked, slightly annoyed at his 'leader's' intelligence.

"When his head was removed, it grew back. His body started moving before it was fully complete, though. He was dead but moving, so the only way that can happen is if the molecular devices are active inside his body."

"Yeah," Karin commented, "But that still doesn't tell us how to kill this bastard."

"If we completely destroy his body, the machines will have nothing left to rebuild and will 'die' off."

Karin was about to respond about how useful such technology could be in their hands when she glanced at Hinata's corpse. She noticed that the gaping hole in her body didn't look as large as when she first looked over her. "Must not have been paying close attention at the time," she thought.

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"What's the matter, heathen?" Priest taunted. "Does the light of truth blind you from your path of destruction?" He ducked to avoid a tail plowing through a concrete pillar.

Naruto only regarded the man with enraged eyes and a murderous mindset. He had killed the man many times by this point, but each and every time the mad holy man came together and rose up to fight. He could feel the sanity coming back to his mind as his demonic tenant attempted to purge the drug from his system.

"You killed her!" He shrieked in his raspy voice. Speech was slowly coming back to him as coherency flooded the closed off portions of his brain. "Now death!" Obviously, words weren't totally fluent yet.

For the first time since their encounter, the smile on Priest's face died. "Very well, then." He said with a serious tone. "It seems your eyes are lost to the darkness." He reached behind him for his metal-bound book held up by his belt. He opened it and started writing something in its pages. "All that's left for you is eternal slumber in the shadows," he said in his thick highlander accent.

Naruto launched himself forward with his tails and prepared to strike the unholy man with his energy-laden palm. He was forced to cut his attack short by a barrage of explosive needles, wincing as one sliver of a projectile grazed him in a sensitive area. He hit the ground running, repositioning his tails in front of him as a shield. The mad priest didn't even look his way as he retracted the single bloody needle with a wire and stabbed it into his book.

Uzi instantly felt a sharp pain course throughout his body. He instinctively fell to his knees in agony. The stinging pain flowed into every corner of his body without any sign of subsiding. In fact, it was getting worse.

"And so now," Priest set the book down on a pile of rubble, needle still protruding from its pages. "The heathen will realize too late the error of his ways." He raised his small knife to strike the kneeling red-eye.

"What are you doing, fox?!" Uzi screamed inwardly at his tenant. "Help me out here!!"

"I can't move either!!" The fox yelled back. "The priest has me in a binding of pain as well!!" The demon animal roared in pain.

"So this is it, eh?" Naruto thought as he closed his eyes. "Well, at least I can see…"

A gunshot interrupted his thoughts. He opened his crimson and blue eyes to see the priest's knife hand torn to bloody bits. The regenerating holy man and eastern specialist both turned to find the bullet's owner.

"Y'know," a winded voice yelled from atop a pile of rubble, "That really fucking hurt!!"

Naruto's eyes widened. Was this a hallucination? Was he already dead and seeing what he wanted to see?

The priest's grin returned to his face. "So I see the lass has also seen the light!"

"Damn right," Hinata said, hand clutching her recently healed mortal wound. "And it wants you back."


Such a cheesy line, eh? Oh, well.

I actually wanted to keep Hinata dead for a while, but ran out of ideas to keep things going(pathetic, eh?). So, out of desperation, she's back.

Am I still 3\/1L?