A/N: Sorry I haven't posted in a few days but I got a little side tracked plus I'm sure you've noticed if you follow me that I tend to post everything together… It saves me the hassle, I really don't like computers :D. So here's a little filler chapter slowly leading up to the final battle AAAAHHHH! I can't believe this is nearly the end, I think there are six chapters max left so I hope you enjoy
Chapter seventeen
By the time Naruto woke up, Skylar was already long gone again. He knew they didn't have any missions for either team with Sakura still being in hospital and Sai healing his broken bones and Skylar's team was also off. She was planning things out with the new information they received from Kabuto and she was probably off somewhere reading or training to the max since being a ninja for Konoha took up most of your time with missions and she wasn't just free to train twenty-four seven like she was able to during the Tsukuyomi.
Skylar was actually at the Hyuuga complex having a quick lesson on the gentle fist and the chakra points as they interested her… She considered the Hyuuga clan a powerful clan that could disable anyone within one attack, you just needed to know where to hit. Every clan had been so generous to her so she decided to take a little advantage of it as she made her way out of the complex later that morning and Hinata caught up to her.
"Oh, morning Hinata, how are you this morning?" Skylar asked happily as she walked with Hinata to her team's meeting place.
"I'm good thank you for asking. What were you doing around the complex so early in the morning, don't you have to meet up with your team?" Hinata asked.
"We just came back from a difficult mission so we've been given a day off so I decided to spend it studying, the gentle fist technique is rather interesting to learn about… Which reminds me, would you mind showing me your Protection of the eight trigrams sixty-four palms, I've gained some inspiration with it and I just wanted to see it up close if you wouldn't mind?" Skylar asked as she smiled up at the clear sky with a few puffs of white floating by.
"Sure no problem, we're doing some training this morning anyway and I'm sure Kiba and Shino want a rematch with you and Kurenai-sensei." Hinata said with a smile at Skylar.
"By the way… I'm sorry about stealing Naruto from you after you have liked him for so many years but thank you for supporting him silently." Skylar said guiltily.
"I'm just glad he's happy… Sure I'll always love him but you're happy together and it makes me happy to see that he's happy so don't feel guilty Skylar." Hinata said with a smile.
"Thanks… Just promise that if anything happens to me you'd take care of him like you've always done." Skylar asked and Hinata hugged her tightly.
"Nothing will happen to you, you're to powerful and you've got Naruto-kun there to look after you so cheer up." She said determinedly, making Skylar feel better as she promised her. Skylar spent the rest of the morning training with Team Kurenai and winning all of the rematches hands down much to Kiba's annoyance and she observed the Protection of the eight trigrams sixty-four palms and Hinata even did it slowly for her as well as Skylar headed back home again.
"You look like you've been through hell and back." Kakashi commented from the couch, looking over his Icha Icha.
"Yeah, Kiba doesn't hold back against me." Skylar said as she picked the pieces of bush out of her hair.
"You're suppose to be relaxing on your day off." Kakashi stated and Skylar just waved it off as she headed into the kitchen and Kakashi followed behind, putting his book back in his pouch.
"Have you ever heard of evil or bad guys taking a day off? I think not besides it was just some rematches owing to me anyway from when I first got my sight back." Skylar said with a shrug as she pulled out a bottle of cold water from the fridge and leaned back against the counter. "What's up? It seems like there's something on your mind." Skylar asked as she held the cold bottle to her hot head and neck.
"Maybe you should take the rest of the day off, maybe see if Naruto wants to go swimming again." Kakashi suggested.
"I don't have the time to right now, I've got some studying to do this afternoon besides, Naruto's not here so he's probably busy with something already anyway." Skylar said with a shrug as she downed the rest of her water, filled up the bottle again and placed it back into the fridge as she left for the bathroom to shower before doing some studying… In other words, back to the forbidden archives again.
That late afternoon Skylar sat at her desk with Byakko curled up around and on her lap as she studied some scrolls he brought for her when she summoned him and petted his head as he snored lightly on her lap. There was only one technique that interested her but it was dangerous. It was a lot like Sakura and Tsunade's Strength of a Hundred Seals but instead of chakra to heal themselves it works on the life force of the person. It's kind of a loose-loose situation to use it, if you have a fatal wound and use it, you shorten your life span but if you don't use it you die anyway, Skylar's life span was already shortened thanks to the rinnegan ripping the Jyuubi apart and ripping her chakra network apart.
"Do you think Seiryu would agree to putting the Life Curse on me?" Skylar asked Byakko resting on her lap.
"He's very protective of you so he won't do it willingly but he is the only one who can do it. You'll have to have a very convincing story." Byakko growled out as Skylar continued to read about all the other techniques on the scroll.
"It's the only technique that interests me anyway, thanks for the scroll Byakko." Skylar said after a while as she rolled up the scroll and tied it closed again and it disappeared in a poof back to Byakko's dimension.
"So forbidden jutsus are your thing these days?" Byakko asked as he uncurled himself from around Skylar and hovered next to her as she moved to the kitchen with her being the only one there at the moment.
"Yeah… Kabuto's become way to strong and using forbidden jutsus with easy and the only way I can see myself beating him is with forbidden jutsus of my own that I'm working on at the moment, both heavily involving lightning natures and hopefully devastating when I complete them… I'm also working to improve my current techniques as well but that's not working out well except the Hiraishin." Skylar explained as she began making herself some cup ramen.
"Which is why you asked for my forbidden scroll." Byakko concluded and Skylar nodded as she sat at the table and waited for her ramen to be ready. "Seiryu will refuse to allow you to read his but your power is also very close to fire, you should talk to Suzaku as well for hers." Byakko suggested.
"Yeah I will once I get there, thanks for your help Byakko, you're dismissed." Skylar said and the black dragon nodded and poofed away as Skylar dug into her ramen. She played with the senbon she retrieved from the archives after finding nothing in her fingers as she half-heartedly ate her ramen
"Why so down?" Kakashi asked from the kitchen window as he jumped in and sat down with her and noticed the senbon she was playing with.
"Just not hungry I guess… Where have you been for most of the afternoon?" Skylar asked as she pushed her half eaten ramen away and passed the senbon to Kakashi to play with.
"Guy dragged me out for a challenge or three and to train with his team even when I refused he picked me up and carried me over his shoulder all the way to the training ground… I have a feeling I lost fangirls today." Kakashi said with a sigh as he passed the senbon back but she refused to take it.
"Keep it, I don't need it at the moment anyway… So any idea where Naruto is?" Skylar asked and she felt him come up behind her and cover her eyes.
"What are you doing wasting perfectly good ramen?" Naruto asked with a laugh as she pulled his hands away from her face and pecked him on the cheek as he moved to sit in the third chair and finish off her ramen. "So anyone do anything interesting today?" Naruto asked after a short and awkward silence.
"Some studying and rematches with team Kurenai… Where have you been all day?" Skylar asked back.
"I've been at Mount Myoboku training the whole day… With Baa-chan's permission of coarse. It's the only place I can train to my full potential safely… You barely slept last night, you should turn in early, you're looking tired babe." Naruto said as he rested a hand on her cold cheek that she instantly leaned into and closed her eyes tiredly.
"Yeah, I guess you're right, I'm going to do some more reading then I'll turn in for the night… See you in the morning." Skylar said as she stood up and headed for her room and summoned Suzaku for her scroll as she hovered around excitedly as she talked the whole time Skylar read her scroll and found some interesting techniques. Fire so potent it will melt anything right off as the flames could burn as close as a thousand degrees Celsius depending on the chakra concentration.
"Alright, come on, enough studying for the night." Naruto said, pulling her chair out from the desk and turning her around to face him.
"Thanks Suzaku, you can return with your scroll, I'll summon you later." Skylar said with a wave and yawned as she gave her an over excited good bye and disappeared with her scroll. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he picked her up and fell onto the bed with both of them and stayed like that as they fell asleep together after a tough few days.
Team Kakashi were standing by the mission desk with Tsunade giving them their mission for the day a just over a week later when the lights in the room dies and Skylar looked out the window to notice the whole village had gone down. They hung around in the room while Tsunade went to check what was going on and came back not looking very impressed as she sighed and changed their mission.
"Since your team can use fire and wind I'll be sending you four on this mission instead. The main furnace at the major power station a days travel from here has exploded and no longer usable. A new one is being made and will be delivered as soon as possible but will need some strong fire jutsus to light it and keep it lit. A few main boards have also exploded and Skylar's skills with computers will also help out with those… You can leave when you're ready, see you in a few days." Tsunade said as she wrote up a mission scroll and tossed it to Kakashi and they began walking for the gates.
"Why is Tsunade so down about a little power failure?" Skylar asked.
"The furnace is huge. We're lucky we're as powerful as we are or she'd be sending four more squads with us to light that damn furnace, it'll take days for us to light it so that it stays lit. Most of Konoha and it's surrounding areas will be out for days until it is burning on it's own again." Kakashi explained with a sigh as he double checked the details and stuffed the scroll into his pouch. "Since the main boards also need fixing we'll leave right away so by the time the new furnace arrives those will be up and running so electricity can get back to everywhere quicker. We'll be alternating in teams of two, Sasuke and Kiiro and Skylar and I so we can keep going until we run low on chakra and keep swapping like that" Kakashi explained as they were already jumping through the trees to their destination.
"We can borrow Suzaku and Seiryu's help plus I have a new and powerful jutsu I can try out… It's been to dangerous to actually try in the forest and training fields if you don't mind." Skylar said with a smirk.
"That will be a good idea but I don't want you to work to hard on testing this new jutsu so Sasuke and Kiiro can take it after you've had your test and we can swap out quickly… Anyone got soldier pills on them?" Kakashi asked.
"I do." Skylar said.
"So do I and Sasuke." Kiiro said.
"Good so we all have for the next few days, we'll get to work as soon as we get there, especially you Skylar." Kakashi concluded and the group carried on towards their destination.
They arrived at the mines and power station late afternoon just as the sun was getting ready to set and Skylar couldn't stop staring at the big empty space where the old furnace use to be. She felt like she was staring at the aircraft hanger for an Airbus A380, that's how big the space was that she was standing in at that moment.
"The main switch boards are this way Uzumaki-san." Kenji, the manager of the power station motioned to Skylar who was following, still looking up into the empty space. She snapped back to reality as they entered corridors with pipes running down them and round corners as he led her through a maze to a room full of flashing boards, most of them flashing green or orange but there were some staying on with red as she moved to them and slid them out and flinched back from the burnt smell of the overloaded boards.
"These whole entire boards will have to be replaced… All circuit have been shorted and blown from the slight overload caused by the explosion… You have engineers to do that right?" Skylar asked as she missed the destroyed boards and began inspecting the ones that can be saved.
"Yes, I will alert them right away about them… Are these boards saveable?" Kenji asked as he examined the boards Skylar was currently inspecting.
"These are fine, you'll just have to replace a few fuses and some of the melted wiring but they should work like a charm afterwards but we'll start things up slowly again so we don't blow anything else in case there are hidden problems but for now let's get these boards removed and replaced using the muscle we have here already." Skylar explained to the man who was looking at her like she was a god as she waved to the rest of her team and they began removing the destroyed boards.
"You lucky bastard, I lost my sense of smell hours ago." Skylar complained a little later after removing most of the destroyed boards that Kakashi and her were currently carrying to the junk pile.
"Yeah, I'm starting to loose mine as well even with my mask… The smell of these burnt out boards and the burning coal is ruining my sense of smell, it'll take me days to get it back… But at least I won't be blowing black out of my nose for the next few weeks." Kakashi added with a smirk and Skylar tripped him onto the pile with the board they were carrying and left him there as she ran for her life from Kakashi.
They all collapsed into the hammocks set up for them after replacing all of the boards and leaving the engineers to set them up back into the system again. They were all covered in black and couldn't smell anything anymore but at least they could get some sleep that night until the furnace came in the next day so after a shower they were all out like lights quickly, dreading the work ahead of them.
The new furnace was there the next morning as they woke up and it fit into that same space Skylar was in the previous day perfectly. It was going to take some major power and chakra to light it and keep it lit and luckily for them and Skylar she had just the jutsu if she could get it right.
"I need to enter sage mode so be patient for a few minutes will you." Skylar said as she sat down in front of it and mediated to feel sage mode beginning. Suzaku slithered off of her coat and she went over a few more things about the jutsu as she prepared and formed the hand seals quickly as she focused the massive amount of chakra and took a deep breath, the tiger seal holding up to her mouth as she mixed the chakra with her breath. "Fire style: Grand Phoenix Extermination Fireball." Skylar said as she released the breath and the massive amount of chakra in a burning blue flame like a blow torch on the large area, loosing sage mode as she came to the end of the jutsu and she fell down and looked at the shimmering blue blaze spreading through the furnace but dying quickly. "Keep it going Sasuke Kiiro." Skylar called as she took a few breaths and began resting to try it again later.
"That… Was one hell of a jutsu… Where did you learn it?" Kakashi asked as he stood next to her and watched Kiiro and Sasuke keeping it going with regular fire and wind jutsu combinations.
"The… Dragon… Scrolls." Skylar breathed out of breath as her lungs burned and she felt very drained of chakra. "I… think I… over did it a little." Skylar said sheepishly as she was passed some water and relaxed sipping it.
"Just a little but once Sasuke has had enough, I'll take over with Kiiro and the inhuman chakra she has like Naruto until you can do that again… Put it this way, one more time with that jutsu and we could be going home tonight… It's viscous but effective for this task, just don't use it again, something tells me you shouldn't know such a powerful and dangerous jutsu." Kakashi warned, looking down at her with his arms crossed. He peaked down at her and saw the guilt written across her face… She had been doing something she shouldn't and he'd keep a closer eye on her now more than ever.
Kakashi took over six hours later and Sasuke plonked down next to Skylar who passed him the water and a soldier pill as she was regaining her chakra after consuming four soldier pills so far… Not a good idea but she wanted to get back to her plans after the success of the fire jutsu she used earlier. A little while later, Skylar began sage mode again and tried the jutsu again but it ended up with the same result but at least the furnace was now burning properly and their mission complete as they headed home at a slower pace.
They set up camp once it started to get late and Skylar lay down on the grass next to Kiiro and Sasuke as Kakashi made the fire after using the least amount of chakra for the mission.
"Well that jutsu was both a success and a failure but at least we finished earlier than we should have thanks to it." Skylar said and she and Sasuke began talking about fire and blaze jutsus until they went to sleep with Kakashi on the first watch. Skylar took the last watch and was stiff and sore from the slight chakra exhaustion and too many soldier pills as she watched the sun rising. Kakashi jumped up and sat on the branch next to her as they both watched the sun rise.
"Where'd you get that jutsu Skylar?" Kakashi asked sternly.
"It's one of Suzaku's I've been studying on but as you can see it can't be used lightly." Skylar said, both set of eyes on the sunrise in front of them as the atmosphere stayed serious.
"What else have you been learning?" Kakashi asked coldly again.
"A lot of others… You don't need to know." Skylar said coolly but Kakashi knew the hidden meaning.
"Forbidden jutsus are forbidden for a reason… If you were caught, you would have been killed." Kakashi scolded her as they faced each other.
"I know they are but I need the power besides ANBU has gotten slack." Skylar said and confirmed Kakashi's suspicions.
"I should kill you myself right here, what's stopping me Skylar?" Kakashi asked as he raised his killing intent and started up a lightning blade as he sat on his haunches, ready to strike at her.
"You're inability to defeat me, that's what." Skylar said with dark purple eyes as her killing intent and chakra drown out his own with ease and he stumbled back against the base of the tree. "Besides, I'd rather run than kill my friends even if I've been doing something so shady as this… Just don't tell Naruto, he'd be heartbroken." Skylar said as she died her intent down and became slightly saddened at what was happening as she faced the sunrise again. "I know how loyal you are to Konoha and if you have to report this to Tsunade once we get back, I'll be running, I've done it once before anyway." She said as she closed her eyes tight as she clenched her fists on her lap. "There's not much time left until Kabuto targets Konoha anyway and targets me, it would make things easier for me and yourselves so do what you must do… Hate me, detest me and come after me if you have to but I will not kill any of you, no matter how much you hurt me." Skylar said as some tears began out of her clenched eyes and gritted teeth.
"I don't want a repeat of my brother." Sasuke said from in front of her and she opened her surprised eyes to see Sasuke leaning up against the tree trunk in front of her with Kiiro hanging off of him. "I myself know many forbidden jutsus from Orochimaru and Tobi. Konoha, Tsunade and the Great Nations know it but I'm still free and on their side now just like Skylar always would be… Don't do this Kakashi, let it be." Sasuke stated coolly.
"Besides… You yourself would follow Skylar anyway after you reported it." Kiiro said with a knowing grin and Skylar cracked a slight smile as she turned her head to look at Kakashi once again. Kakashi couldn't deny what they were saying, even if he was the one who ratted her out, he would still follow her, he cared and loved her too much even if she had been involved with this as he slumped down against the tree trunk in defeat and Skylar was hugging him in an instant and sobbing quietly into his jacket and kept mumbling how this was the only way and he knew right then that she wanted to live and survive after fighting Kabuto and it killed his disappointment and guilt right then as he let her get rid of her guilt on his jacket in the form of tears and broken apologies.
She slept on Kakashi's back for the rest of the trip home as she cried herself to sleep, showing Kakashi what a strain this was doing to her and her conscience. He smiled with nostalgia carrying her on his back again, it had been nearly four years since he carried her like this and it made him strangely peaceful as they entered Konoha's gates and headed for Tsunade's office to report about the mission.
"Is she okay?" Tsunade asked straight away as soon as they walked in her office.
"She pushed herself to the limit and even used sage mode explaining how we completed our mission so quickly, she just needs some rest for a while." Kakashi explained as she snuggled her head closer to his neck and collar of his flak jacket.
"I see well then the power is back on so job well done, you can rest for the rest of the day. Dismissed." Tsunade said easily as the group headed home for some rest.