Disclaimer: What I said in every other chapter.
A/N: Review or I will eat your children (if you have children. Other wise I'll just eat you)
Tsunade paced around her office. Something wasn't right. It just wasn't right. Hours before, she had sent a slug with a message to Sakura and still no answer. Tsunade couldn't remember the last time Sakura failed to answer.
She continued pacing. The teacup was scalding her hand, but that was the least of her worries. Five ANBU missions had failed in the past two weeks. That was simply unprecedented. And she feared that Sakura's mission may have failed as well.
Tsunade placed her teacup on her desk and sat down in her chair. Sakura, the girl that was the daughter she never had. She tried to imagine what it would be like not having Sakura running up and down these halls, but she couldn't. Tsunade hadn't been Hokage for even two weeks when the girl walked into her office pleading to be trained.
A cracking sound woke her from her reverie. Tsunade opened her eyes to find her teacup shattered where it lay on the desk, tea seeping into her papers. Something definitely was not right. The Hokage dashed out of her office. The cup was facing north when it shattered, so she decided to run for the north wall.
On her way, she ran into an exhausted Kurenai.
"Tsunade-sama –"
"What's going on?"
"Something has struck the North Wall, and the forest beyond it is on fire."
The experienced Hokage knew what this meant. Tsuande ran faster than she ever had, practically flying up the stairs of the wall. Looking over the edge, she saw what was causing the distress.
There was a catapult somewhere amongst the burning trees launching massive boulders at the wall. Each time a boulder struck the entire wall rumbled, throwing the guards off balance. But something else was bothering her more than the boulders. A forest fire this enormous could never start so instantaneously. There was only one explanation in her mind. Someone was trying to summon a demon.
"Tsuande-sama, what do we do?"
"There are no soldiers here, and boulders like this could never bring down this wall. For now this is nothing more than a distraction. Kurenai, raise the alarm and assemble the ANBU forces and jounin and prepare for an attack on the Western wall. Tell Shizune to summon back all the ninja currently on missions. We are under attack."
"Tsunade-sama, what if they try to summon a demon?"
"When they do, it will be my responsibility to defeat it."
Kurenai knew what the Hokage meant by this. It seemed that the events of twenty years ago were about to repeat themselves. With a sad expression on her face, Kurenai bowed to Tsunade and took off.
Tsunade was about to head back to her office to prepare her jutsu when a frog appeared by her side in a cloud of smoke.
"Tsunade-sama, Naruto sent me here. It seems that the Wave country is under attack."
"I see. So Akatsuki has begun its worldwide invasion without the Nine Tailed Fox. Where is Jiraiya, do you know?"
"He is just north of the Village Hidden in Mist."
"Tell him to make for the Wave Country and defend Naruto by any means necessary."
"Hai, Tsunade-sama!"
With that the frog disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. So Akatsuki didn't have the Kyuubi. That would buy them some time, but if the Wave Country was under attack, then it wouldn't be long.
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Houses burned and men, women, and children ran from their homes screaming in terror as two solitary men in cloaks walked the streets of the Wave Country: Uchiha Itachi and Kisame. Kisame held up a burning torch to yet another house and the two waited as its occupants fled the premises. A total of seven people escaped the burning building, two of whom Itachi recognized. Uzumaki Naruto and the famous Kakashi. The two other ninja with them he never met, but one of them he knew to be the newly appointed head of the Hyuuga clan.
Granted, Naruto had grown a little since they last met and had gotten over the acne that had plagued him during those awkward teenage years, but he still seemed to be the stupid, impatient boy that he always was.
"Kakashi-sensei, please take Naruto and Sai and run," said Hinata. Kakashi nodded to her and was about to turn when Naruto uttered a complaint.
"Wait, Hinata, there's no way you can fight these two alone!"
"I will stay with her," said Sai, "You two go. Now."
Kakashi silently agreed and dragged a protesting Naruto away from the battle scene. Kisame cackled and a self-confident smile spread across his face.
"Well this will be easy, won't it Itachi-san?" Itachi said nothing.
"Sai, you take Kisame, I'll handle Itachi."
"But Hinata –"
"No buts. I have the byakugan, Sai. As long as I have that, I don't need to look Itachi in the eye."
With that, Hinata turned her back to her opponent and assumed her stance, always keeping Itachi in her vision.
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Uchiha Sasuke headed south as the hapless guard had said, but he had little other idea of where to go. If Naruto was disguised as a Sand noble, then most likely he would be staying with family under the pretext of having negotiations with some feudal lord. Question was: where would he be staying?
The moon was now in the highest part of the sky and the summer air had turned cold. Sasuke landed on a branch high up in the thick forest. It was possible that he could search the entire south and never find Naruto. It was also possible that once he did find Naruto, Itachi would not be with him. Sasuke paused for a moment to think what his next action should be.
Itachi. That goddamn brother of his. The man was undoubtably a plague upon this earth. Everything Sasuke had ever known and loved in his life was wiped out in a single night. By Itachi. His mother, his father, aunts and uncles and distant cousins he never met. Sasuke had nothing. And now his mind was broken. Sasuke knew this. He knew that he was psychopathic. Just like his brother had been. But that didn't matter. Only one thing permeated the Uchiha's mind, and that was his brother's blood.
A little ways off in the distance he could hear a river. He decided to find the river and refill his canteen. No point in finally meeting Itachi on the battlefield and then dying of thirst.
He arrived at the river and took a long gulp of the cold water. It was a little muddy and the mud sat heavy in his stomach, but it was better than nothing. After refilling his canteen, he stood up and wiped the excess water from his mouth with the back of his sleeve and took a look at his surroundings. With his sharingan, he could see an object lying on the bank of the river quite a distance downstream. He couldn't make out what it was from this distance, but his instinct told him to find out. His instinct had served him well in the past, so he took off downstream.
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Kisame struck first. He lunged forward, his massive sword grazing Sai's arm. Even as the shark scales on Kisame's famous sword passed through his skin, Sai could feel it drawing chakra from his body. Sai dodged a second blow and pulled an empty scroll and a brush from his vest. He scribbled something on the scroll and five inky snakes leapt off the paper, entangling Kisame in their grip.
Itachi lunged at Hinata. Even with her back turned towards him, she could still see Itachi's movements. The byakugan's vision pierced in every direction. She blocked his blow and tried to hit him with her juuken, but Itachi grabbed her wrist before it made contact. He tried to kick her in the stomach, but Hinata leapt backwards away from the strike.
Through sheer brute force, Kisame tore the snake from his body, freeing his limbs. Shocked (for he had only seen Sakura overpower his jutsu in such a way) and with little time to react, Sai could not aviod the sword as it tore through his abdomen. Sai watched as the blood gushed out of his stomach. With no strength left, he collapsed to the ground.
Kisame raised his sword for the finishing blow when it was knocked out of his hands by a very powerful kick from Hinata. The sword spun through the air and finally lodged itself in the wood of a burning building. Kisame made several hand signs and a torrent of water gushed from its mouth sweeping away everything in its path.
As the water level slowly fell, the destruction it had on the village became apparent. Entire houses and trees were washed away, leaving nothing but wet earth in its path. However, Hinata and Sai were still there, Hinata standing in a circular ditch in the road.
Itachi knew this technique well. It was something only the most talented Hyuuga could master. The Hyuuga spins in place rapidly, expelling so much chakra that it becomes a sort of shield. It seems that the girl had used it to protect herself and her companion from the water.
Hinata leapt forward with incredible speed and struck Kisame square in the heart with her juuken. His heart completely destroyed, Kisame was dead before he fell to the floor.
"Well, well, Hyuuga," said Itachi, "Let's say we determine once and for all which is the most powerful clan: Hyuuga or Uchiha."
"Very well."
Hinata did not intend to mess around with this one. She took up the stance for her most powerful jutsu: the sixty-four palm strike. Hinata leapt at her opponent and with her forefingers jabbed him in every one of the sixty-four pressure points on his body. Itachi groaned and collapsed to the floor.
Then something unexpected happened. Itachi's crumpled form uttered a sickening laugh and lifted itself onto his feet. How was this possible? Hinata had sealed every one of his pressure points. He shouldn't be able to breath, much less stand!
Itachi uttered another laugh and turned to face her.
"I see now. So that's what those are!'
"What do you mean? And how are you still standing?'
"My sharingan can see what you are about to do before you even do it. Each time you struck, I moved just a little so that you would miss your target. But now that I have seen the sixty-four palm jutsu, I finally know where the pressure points are. I've always been able to see them. Chakra eddies and swirls around them. But I never knew what they were. Now that you've shown me, all I have to do is copy your movements."
Itachi assumed the stance that Hinata had used only moments before. With his forefingers, he aimed at all sixty-four of her pressure points. Hinata managed to block most of the blows, but her left arm still fell useless to her side. Hinata managed to hit Itachi in the stomach with her juuken and move back a safe distance from him.
Itachi coughed up a little blood and clutched at his stomach. Then Itachi's sharingan began to change. In his right eye, the three blades of the sharingan converged on one point and a stream of black fire gushed out of his eye. Hinata barley managed to dodge it in time, having to fall to the floor to avoid the sinister flames.
Itachi approached her with a kunai in hand. Hinata tried to move her left arm to block it, but it wouldn't budge. Hinata's world turned black.