Herein lies... well, you'll see.

For all those participating in my art challenge, just get your stuff to me by the end of the weekend if you haven't already. I'm gonna try to get my stuff done by the end of Sunday, but I have grueling amounts of homework already (can ya believe it?!!), so I'm really just kind of hoping here...

disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me, but this plot sure does.

Warning: obligatory language warning. Seems to be a lot of this these days...


Shades was pinned by the silver gunfire. She could run back into the sea of pillars, but she knew the White Eyes of Death was not foolish enough to give chase. It was also a bad idea even as an act of prolonging her life, as the king had zero tolerance for failure and his… machinations resided within the endless rows of columns. In short, she had no future. Fear began to cloud her suppressed red-eye mind when she saw Trench burst from his cover, followed closely by Uzi wielding a previously unseen energy blade.

She raised her modified rifle against the blonde as her mind went into automatic mode. A salvo of glowing bullets left the chamber and whizzed by a ducking and dodging Uzumaki. Her autopilot consciousness was purely focused on taking out at least one enemy to gain the tyrant's apathy and failed to instantly register the sound of the firing pin clicking against an empty magazine. "Shit…" she thought as she absentmindedly reached for a new clip…

And was her final before Hinata rounded the corner of her cover and plastered her body with globular silver. The converted chakra killed her on contact and her warm corpse slumped to the ground.

"Tch," Trench grimaced when he saw the female intelligence officer fall in the corner of his eye. "Well, she bought me some time…" he observed as he leapt forward toward a recovering Naruto and thrust his sharpened shovel towards him.

Uzi punched inward with his right arm, stopping the unique blade by impaling the metal head with his energy blade. The treacherous red-eye responded by firing his edged clamp at him at point blank range, burying the tip of the weapon into the blonde's gut.

The crimson-eyed easterner shoved his right arm forward to push his wedged chakra into the traitor. His enemy foiled the attack by pulling his right arm in front, catching the corporeal energy in the gears of the launching device of his fastener. The inner workings of the machine strapped to his arm shrieked as they were rendered useless and the full length of steel cable attached to the sharpened vice uncoiled onto the ground.

"Hinata!" Naruto called. "Anytime now…!"

"You're in the way!" she answered. "I don't have a shot!"

The blonde obliged her by applying energy to his legs and leaping back as far as possible. Unfortunately, Trench was wise to the fact that distance between them meant death for him, so he flew forward as well to keep the unstable status quo.

Uzi extended his blade by another foot and delivered a wide swipe. The backstabbing red-eye ducked impossibly low to the ground as the protruding chakra burned the air above him. As soon as it passed he lunged forward with his trench shovel to slice into the blonde's stomach.

Naruto parried the weapon and initiated a stream of strikes and counterstrikes. He wasn't trained at all in the ways of close combat weaponry such as this and thanked his stars that he was at least able to keep up with the enemy specialist. But for every move he made, Trench made three. In a test of pure endurance without the use of chakra the traitor would win hands down.

After a few minutes of intense fighting, the blonde suddenly thought of a plan. It was the most unorthodox, off the wall idea he had ever conceived during a battle, but with the Hyuuga woman backing him up it could work. While fending off the assassin's rapid advances, he grasped the steel line trailing the clamp in his gut and began twirling the length of the metal cable around his left arm. After what seemed like several feet's worth bound to his arm, he concentrated on his enemy's next strike. It was a wide swing. At the last second he punched through the blade again with his crackling chakra blade. This time, however, he strained the energy, causing it to curve around the shovel head in an iron-tight grip.

"Gah!" Trench was rendered speechless upon realization that his favorite weapon was incapacitated. His immediate thoughts shifted to his broken secondary tool of death when he noticed that part of the loosed wire was coiled around Uzi's arm. "What in the hell?" he wondered before the blonde commenced his move.

Gripping the cable tightly, Naruto began to spin in place. He centered his weight to counterbalance with the assassin so his footwork wasn't as awkward. As he picked up speed, the traitor realized what he was trying to do. The treacherous red-eye attempted to wrench the shovel away, but the chakra blade held it firmly in place. As the blonde red-eye's velocity increased, the slightly lighter royal killer lost his grip on the shovel's handle and jolted back.

Uzi grunted when his enemy jerked back and produced a sudden force on the cable. "This is it…!" he thought. He began feeding energy into every muscle of his body to increase the speed of his spin. Through his ensuing dizziness he observed the traitor panicking as he struggled against the acceleration, desperately clawing in vain to unsheathe the busted gauntlet on his arm that held onto the steel line.

"Ahh!" Trench shouted in panic when he felt the incredible force on the cable begin lifting his feet off the ground. His arm felt like it was going to rip off when he became decidedly airborne. "Lemme go, lemme go!!"

"That's it!" Hinata shouted. There was now enough distance between the connected combatants to fire on the traitor. She let loose a barrage of sharpened silver into the blurring shape of Trench and didn't stop until said blur began changing color. "I got him Naruto! You can stop now!"

The blonde took a solid thirty seconds to slow his spin enough that he wouldn't hurt himself. As soon as he stopped and tried to take a step, however, he collapsed. "Oh, damn…" he mumbled. "Dizzzzy…"

The Hyuuga ran to his side and carefully removed the clamp from his stomach after determining that it was safe to do so. The wound immediately began to smoke shut from the residual chakra coursing through his body. "Are you okay?"

He laughed like a person in shock. "Never been better! You get him?" he asked as he lifted his wavering head.

She glanced back at the blood and silver coated corpse of the former assassin. "Yep. Now all that's left is…"

"Me!" sounded a voice from seemingly everywhere. The condescending exclamation of the tyrant echoed throughout the entire chamber while leaving the ruler unseen. "I must congratulate you two for coming this far! I never expected too much from my… servants, but I at least expected them to mortally wound one of you. Looks like you exceeded my expectations! I would offer you a position under me, but since you seem so… determined to dethrone your king, I have no choice…" he trailed off for a moment and the mighty roar of organs reverberated from the sea of pillars. "But to end your journey here and now!!"

Naruto got to his feet, disorientation slowly leaving him. He looked worriedly into Hinata's lavender eyes. "You ready for this?"

She nodded nervously. "Yeah, let's go."

They turned to the now empty throne and their eyes widened when they saw movement coming from every space between the columns.

Incredibly long spine-like protrusions snaked through the sides of the chambers. There were thousands of endless metal bony tubes that had no discernable source hidden somewhere within the cavalcade of pillars.

Uzi leaned his head back and groaned. "You've got to be kidding me…"

The Hyuuga hung her head as she sulked as well. "All over again…"


Ahhhh... 5 a.m... sleep.

Catch y'all round.