Phew. A little longer than the norm. Good thing, too. Gets more out of the way. I can pretty much guarantee a bare minimum of 2 chapters left!
same old crap: I don't own Naruto. But let's face it, it'd be so much better if I did!
"Damnit, Naruto!!" Sasuke yelled. "This is my fight! How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of it?!"
The blonde easterner swung his head around and glared at the younger Uchiha. The only indication that he even turned at all was the swiveling of two glossy dots that were in place of his eyes. Before the ebony mist completely enveloped and obscured him from view, he replied, "How many times do I have to tell you to shut up?!" Uzi's familiar voice was now comprised of thousands of shouts and whispers speaking simultaneously. "You're too weak to survive him, and you don't even realize it!! Fool!!" The sickly yellow eyes disappeared as the unholy fog engulfed the red-eye and began to move with a life of its own.
"You son of a…" the avenging man thought as he manipulated his Sharingan to enter the interloper's mind and suppress his chakra. He blinked and found himself standing before what appeared to be a massive gate. Squinting through the darkness, he observed the nine-tailed fox standing behind the bars, pouring energy to a figure seated at the base of the jail. "Bingo," he mused inwardly as he started towards the silhouette.
A grin of morbid satisfaction crossed his face as he brought his arm forward and prepared to temporarily seal away the blonde's power. His revelry, however, was short lived. The moment he approached the man seated at the gate, he heard a cascade of voices.
"Who the hell is this little turd?!" thousands of intense screams and dulcet murmurs spoke ate once.
"I don't think he's supposed to be here…" a bored ensemble answered. "You guys can take care of him."
Sasuke felt a trail of… something swirling around him. "That's a really nice sword," a soft-spoken multitude commented. "And such a pretty shade of purple on your belt…"
Another wisp of impossibly dark smoke caressed him. "He's a handsome young man." This chorus spoke in alluring tones as if it were trying to seduce him. "How about we let him… stay… for a little while?"
"Hey, can I have that sword?!" an excited 'voice' interrupted. "How about those tattoos?!"
"Cram it, Invidia," a high-and-mighty chorus scolded from a distance. "We should probably get rid of him. I don't care to get my hands dirty though, so one of you do it."
"Not it," the lazy ensemble instantly called.
"I'll do it!!" boomed a boisterous choir from an uncomfortably near distance. "I'm starving!!"
"He's mine!!" a spiteful multitude shrieked. "I'll kill this little shit!!" A sound similar to the rushing of wind drowned out everything else and an intense cloud, invisible in the pitch black chamber, shot forward with freakish tenacity.
The Uchiha began to panic. He reflexively backed up as he felt the air displaced by the murderous mist brush against him and his mind stopped when he almost stumbled over the sitting figure. His head darted back to the silhouette as it lifted its head to gaze at him with azure and crimson eyes.
"How you likin' it now, Uchiha?!" Naruto asked with a smirk on his face. His lips parted as he leaned his head back and began laughing like an escaped mental patient. The uncountable thousands of voices began laughing in turn before the Sharingan user dispelled the technique and returned to reality with a sudden sigh of relief.
While no time had passed in Uzi's mind, the blonde hidden inside the cloud was still laughing, albeit his voice now being a chorus of thousands. "What the hell was that?!" Sasuke wondered. "Did he just repel me from his subconscious??"
The snickering died and the mist suddenly shot towards Itachi with ink black tendrils emerging from within to snatch the older man. The eastern criminal leapt back and landed on the side of a nearby ruin. The sharp non-corporeal tentacles angled sharply as if underwater and continued their pursuit with the all-encompassing fog following closely behind.
The rogue Konoha ninja merely replaced his body with a lump of concrete at the last second and disappeared from sight. The inky strands corkscrewed into the debris before the cloud smashed against the building. The weakened structure's supports gave and it crumbled to the ground. As the dust rushed outwards, the unholy mist rose with it, spreading itself in every direction in search of its target. In the center of all this stood the likeness of a man shrouded in the darkest of voids, uncountable numbers of shadowy fibers reverberating around him like an untamed fire. The glossy eyes slowly wandered from side to side in an attempt to find their prey. Unsatisfied, the figure recollected the ebony fog around itself and billowed through the wreckage like a tidal wave.
Hinata crouched in terror where Naruto left her. She heard the mad laughing of her crush and couldn't help but feel fear for her life as well as the blonde's. Tears tugged at her eyes begging to be let loose, but she held them in check simply because she was too frightened to cry. She saw that the brothers promptly vanished as soon as Uzi went on the move, but she knew she couldn't do anything about it due to her severe chakra drain. When she saw the unbound shadows rolling towards her, her instincts told her to run or otherwise get out of the way, but her feet were bolted to the ground. Her mind went blank as the shock of everything that day finally caught up to her alongside the approaching mass of dark mist.
As soon as the unholy cloud reached her, several tendrils flowed forth and settled onto her skin. She froze when she felt cold and hot sensations simultaneously wherever the black veins touched her. Feeling the evil energy attempting to enter, she unconsciously resisted and pushed back. "This is it," her brain coldly concluded. "I'm gonna die now." The tears were granted freedom as they began to flow down her cheeks with a soothing coolness.
"Hinata," a familiar voice spoke inside her mind. "I need your eyes. Could you lend me a hand?"
"N-Naruto?!" she responded mentally. "Is that you?!"
He chuckled. "Of course it is! Who else could it be?"
"But… but there's darkness and… evil…" She struggled to inwardly vocalize her thoughts.
Her worries warranted another light laugh. "Don't worry about it. I'm in control of it. Things just look a little weird on the outside."
The Hyuuga said nothing in return as she turned over his unspoken words in her mind.
"Please, Hinata." An image of the smiling blonde flashed in front of her for an infinitely small moment. "I need you to trust me on this one. Could you do that for me?"
Her fears began to wane as his soothing words consoled her. Her terror at the sight was still there, but it felt detached from the rest of her. For that one small moment, all she cared about was being with Naruto regardless of form. "Yeah," she smiled. "I can do that."
She stopped pushing back the unholy energy and the tendrils slithered into her harmlessly. She shivered at the odd feeling when the strands cut off from the cloud and coursed uninterrupted through her veins. Her body suddenly felt incredibly light, even more so than if she was perfectly rested. Feeling her chakra spike to unimaginable levels, she activated her Byakugan to find the dueling siblings. She jolted back in surprise when she realized that her roundabout vision could see everything, living and inanimate, in perfect clarity for a hundred miles in every direction. She lifted her arms, glanced at them, and found that the dark energy had mixed perfectly with her own chakra and showed no signs of diminishing any time soon.
"Pretty crazy, huh?" Uzi's voice spoke again in her mind. "But that can wait. Do you see them?"
"Oh, right." She took in their surroundings and instantly saw the brothers hacking away at each other a few blocks away. She pointed in their direction even though she somehow felt that the blonde knew. "Coupla' blocks that way."
"Then let's go!" his multilayered voice said excitedly before the mist shot away in a basic spiral pattern with the blue-haired woman in tow.
Hinata was surprised at her progress. She expected each step to feel like one; her strides only going as far as her limbs could reach. Instead, dark fog tapered off from Naruto's form and planted itself at her feet, propelling her forward at incredible speeds while acting as a physical stepping stone. She kept pace with the new Master, wisps of inky smoke trailing from the veins in her eyes and from random points along her slender form. In what had to be no more than four seconds, the supercharged duo was right on top of the brothers.
The Hyuuga made eye contact with Itachi as she glided over the half-destroyed wall. She blinked and suddenly found herself in a bizarre world.
The colors of her surroundings were sharp and heavily contrasted. A red moon hung in the sky and cast a bloody crimson over the endless rolling hills. She looked forward and found an ebony silhouette of the older Uchiha outlined in pristine white.
"It appears I performed the technique in time," the eastern criminal commented quietly.
"What is this place?!" she demanded when she realized she was strapped to a heavy pole.
"This is your subconscious," he explained. She looked around and recognized the distorted scenery. "I have performed the Tsukuyomi technique on you."
"What the hell is that?!" She struggled against the immobile ropes.
"This can only be performed with the Mangekyo Sharingan and allows me to control the passage of time within this world."
"And…?!" She was begging to become irritated at his calm demeanor.
"I do not have the time or patience at the moment to use it to its full potential, so I shall only keep you here for one day while you endure the torture."
She laughed in his face despite being in no position to strike back. "Is that so? Looks like there's something you forgot…"
The elder brother pondered the meaning for only a moment before attempting to raise his sword. Upon doing so, he realized he couldn't move a muscle and glanced in every direction.
"Aww…" a feminine voice spoke into his right ear. "Looks like he's past his prime. Such a shame too…"
The Hyuuga, suddenly no longer bound to the post, strolled up to the frozen man with a triumphant grin on her face. "I have some friends now," she claimed quietly as the sky clouded over and shrouded the red moon behind a veil of impenetrable darkness. Inky clouds began to drift downwards and sharp non-corporeal slivers shot out and buried themselves into every pore of his body.
He felt the reflex to choke, but it felt as if every muscle fiber in his body was held in place. Pain unimaginable surged through his body as the tendrils burned like lava in his veins.
"Dance puppet, dance!" an arrogant voice shouted and Itachi began moving against his will. Every movement felt as if his bones and muscles would tear apart and the fire within burned with impossible ferocity. He wanted to scream against the pain, but his jaw was held shut by the absolute grip of unholy agony. His arm lifted the sword and promptly jammed it through his abdomen. The blade was so cold that the sensation of heat was greater than the lava boiling in his veins. His arm retracted the weapon and the wound closed as the frozen metal left his body. The disobedient limb repeated the process two more times in varying locations before the white-eyed woman leaned forward to say something.
"You really can control time in here, can't you?" Hinata taunted. A strand of shadowy dust passed by her ear and whispered something. "That was only one second by your watch."
The Uchiha screamed mentally, seeing as that was all he could do before the limb plunged the sword into his leg and slowly twisted.
-----------------------
The elder easterner suddenly gasped for air and faltered in position. He took several deep gulps of refreshing atmosphere before peering up at the cloud of unholy fog that was almost on him. He pulled himself together to replace his body with a nearby object, but he knew it wouldn't be in time...
Until a wall of electricity came between him and the misty entity. "Don't you dare!!" Sasuke shouted as his free hand extended a chakra spear into the center of the dark mass. "Where the hell is Naruto?!" he wondered, as even his Sharingan couldn't penetrate the inky fog. "He's gotta be in the middle of all that…"
His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a gaping hole that opened around his energy blade. The opening formed tendrils for intermittent teeth and bit down. The revenge seeking man dispersed the temporary sword before it got sucked into the void. Upon closing, the dripping mouth reformed against the electric barricade and repeated the process of swallowing chakra.
While Uzi dealt with the younger brother, the Hyuuga dashed past them to catch Itachi, only to find him switch places with another lump of concrete. Her superior vision instantly found him and she angled herself towards him in midair by using a smattering of evil mist for a makeshift launching platform.
Naruto decided to bypass the younger brother and repositioned himself directly behind Hinata. He followed her into a hollowed out building as she stepped rapidly through the air on wisps of smoke and charged effortlessly through the empty floor. He could feel his energy in her mind telling him that the target was on the other side. A sudden impulse told him to cover the building in smoke and he obeyed the urge. The supports crumbled like old bread as his dark tendrils passed through them and the impenetrable fog deteriorated the concrete without issue.
The duo flew out unharmed on the other side of the structure as it collapsed. The older Uchiha was standing in an opening in a small glass skyscraper across the street awaiting them to fall into his trap. He felt a smirk tugging at his lips as the duo got closer…
But it faded when he saw Sasuke flying over the demolished structure on wings comprised of massive fingers. Uzi and his companion also noted the younger sibling along with his new appearance. The supercharged easterners stopped in midair and eyed the oncoming avenger.
The transformed Sharingan user, in addition to his bizarre appendages, now possessed a beastlike mane of dark hair, discolored flesh, and murky eyes. He sheathed his sword while his wings flapped in the wind and his body crackled with reflective onyx lightning. "Itachi is mine!!"
Hinata regarded the former comrade with cold eyes. She now knew that he had forsaken too much to be brought back. Even Naruto and she, despite housing a portion of the powers of the seven deadly sins, merely manipulated it to their bidding. She glanced at the blonde next to her and could easily see his shadowy form within the cloud. Her eyes widened ever so slightly when the mist began to fall behind him and his face appeared amidst the receding fog with an ink like smile.
"Now this is more like it!" Uzi's chorale voice exclaimed. His glossy yellow eyes shined with excitement and the Hyuuga couldn't help but be caught up in his enthusiasm.
"Yes it is!" she yelled ecstatically with a wide grin. She knew the darkness in their minds was influencing their moods, but the adrenaline rush was too great to ignore this time.
The blonde's smiling face turned to hers as the mist enveloped him again. "Let's do this thing, Hinata!"
She smiled back with an intensity she never knew she had. "Lets!"
Alright! My little piece of shi... artwork is as done as I care for it to be. Like I said before, I'll post it with the other contestants upon completion of this story. For those of you who asked for an extension (you know who you are), you know I don't really care how long it takes. Just get it to me whenever you feel it's ready and I'll post it with the rest.
Rock 'n Roll!
