Chapter 21: Bowing and not bowing
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto in any way, shape or form. I need to think of some more witty comments...
WARNING: Sasuke is going completely dark in this chapter. This is the one where Sakura starts to lose interest in the emo avenger, like she should have in canon!
Yamato had been yelling at Naruko for a few minutes now, making up excuses as to why she couldn't leave the village to see the Raikage.
"I'm!" Naruko cut in, silencing the man, "I'm not going as a kunoichi of Konoha, I'm just going as Namikaze Naruko, daughter of Tsurenai, Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina. I'll just be a simple traveller that stops the Raikage for a few moments."
"That's-That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Yamato shouted.
"I'm stupid, remember? I'm stubborn too, so if you want to stop me, you'll have to make one heck of a cage," Naruko warned, whipping her tail about.
Yamato bristled at what he perceived as a mild threat. "I am on the team to keep your powers from running wild. Thankfully, I've never needed to do it, but after that strong emotional shock you suffered, the slightest thing can set you off. I have to remain in Konoha to help with the rebuilding, so I can't be there in case you do lose it. I don't care what you say, you are staying-"
"I saw my father..." Naruko muttered.
Yamato and Kakashi blinked in surprise.
"He said that I could do what he couldn't, that I could bring about peace. He told me of what really happened that night, that my human soul was bound to a bijū's body," Naruko said, "he said that I was strong, that I put more effort in than any genius ever could. He...acknowledged me as his child. He said he believed in me." She looked to Yamato, a hard determination in her eyes. "I have to stop the masked man, Uchiha Madara, and I will save Sasuke, not because of some prophecy or because it has to be done, I'm doing it because I want to do it."
"Uchiha...Madara..." Sai muttered. As Ne ANBU, he knew of the man too well.
[Half an hour later]
Naruko checked her supplies out, refusing to wear the cloak because it was just too heavy. She didn't really need extra clothing, since her chakra would just heat up a bit more to keep her warm. She had changed one thing though: she was wearing her flak vest for the first time. It was kind of awkward to wear a robe and flak vest...
"How can you and Shikamaru wear this thing all the time?" Naruko asked.
"You get used to it eventually, as for Shikamaru, you know why he wears it all the time," Kakashi stated.
Naruko nodded. "Too troublesome to take it off..."
"I have to go talk with Sai for a few moments, make sure you're prepared when I come back," Kakashi ordered, then vanished.
Naruko decided that she had enough water and rations to last her, as well as enough bandages and such so she could at least be taken care of for the few hours it would take for her to heal from wounds. She finished closing up the pockets on her vest when Konohamaru showed up.
The Ne ANBU that were watching got introduced to a genjutsu while Kakashi made a joke about them wanting to unlock the secrets of the Oiroke no jutsu. He watched the kitsune and boy speak, smiling a slight bit when Naruko praised the boy on defending the village, if only for a few extra seconds.
[A few days later, the Land of Iron]
"Show yourselves, Konoha rats!" the blond of the Raikage's group shouted.
Kakashi, Yamato and Naruko landed in the clearing. 'So he's a sensor,' the two former ANBU thought.
"Following Samui, you three deserve praise for such a feat," the Kumo-nin sensor said, "so, for what reason have you approached the Raikage?" He noticed Samui clamp a hand over Karui's mouth and he was thankful for small favors.
"Oi, isn't that silver haired one Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan?" a man with a large sword on his back asked.
The large man, the Raikage A, frowned. "It is him... Kakashi, were you sent here on...Danzō's orders?" He would not refer to that man as a Kage.
Kakashi shook his head. "I doubt many follow his orders. No, I'm more of an escort for Naruko here," he stated, gesturing to the redhead.
"Coming here at such a time, it could spell war. You did know that, right?" the sensor asked.
"We are well aware of how this can be taken," Yamato said.
A scowled, or maybe that was just his natural face set. "Let's hear what you have to say."
Naruko thought hard about what she was going to say, remembering how others had been telling her to speak for a while now. "Raikage, please lift the kill order on Uchiha Sasuke's head."
The Kumo-nin around A knew that this was a really bad thing to do around the man. He was every bit as much a bull as the bijū his land had been given. Once the course was set, obstacles were obliterated and things telling him to change direction suffered the same fate.
"I know that this is asking a lot of you, to swallow your pride, but he's my best friend and I want to save him," Naruko said, "I don't want him to be the cause of a war, but I also don't want him to be killed to stop it. Revenge has consumed him, is consuming some of your own ninja, but I was told that vengeance and hatred will consume the avenger until the only thing left is a monster worse than what started it all. I...Nobody wants that!"
The Raikage narrowed his eyes.
Naruko formed all the tails she could, four more in addition to her physical one.
All of the Kumo-nin aside from A got into a combat ready position. "She's a jinchūriki! It's the Kyūbi jinchūriki!" Samui shouted, somewhat afraid. She remembered hearing about the Hachibi's rampages in the past, not even wanting to imagine what would happen if the Kyūbi took over.
Naruko lowered her tails to the ground, her head dipping to meet the snow covered ground as she dropped to her hands and knees. "Please!" she begged.
"Uchiha Sasuke's life is forfeit, and I will be the one to take it!" A boomed.
Naruko ignored Karui's verbal jabs and the Kumo sensor's boredom. She would stay this way, in the ultimate position of submission and humiliation for a human or a fox, she would remain this way until A reconsidered. She didn't even flinch when Yamato spoke of the Hyūga affair or when Kakashi tried to reason with the man, to make him see and hear Naruko.
"Get up! A shinobi only lays down to rest, recover or die!" A shouted. He went on a speech on the history of war, of how Akatsuki would become a bitter memory soon enough, Sasuke included. He ridiculed Naruko's willingness to try and defend a criminal, calling her a mentally and emotionally weak person, someone who had no clue how the world worked. "Reality and war are harsher than you can hope to comprehend," he finished.
Naruko grit her teeth and lifted one hand up, clenched it into a fist and then slammed it into the ground as hard as she could. She did it again, and again, and again. Each time her fist hit the ground, her anger increased, each impact seemed to send a ripple down the chakra that formed four of her five tails.
"Did she lose her mind? Maybe Karui broke something when she kneed her in the face," Omoi muttered.
A looked to the man, then the redheaded woman. "You attacked a jinchūriki...and you're alive?" he asked. That shouldn't be possible.
"I know nothing of war? Nothing of how harsh this world is?" Naruko asked, dragging her nails through the snow as they lengthened, "I know all about war, about how harsh this world is." She started to growl as she stood up, glaring at the ground. "I'm...I'm...different...from everyone else, and they decided to show me, tell me that everyday. My whole life has been a war against what people think of me, the world has been nothing but harsh to me. I wanted to destroy my village once, wanted to just wipe its hypocritical existence off the face of this world, but I didn't do it because I found one of those tiny embers of light in this world." She bowed her head slightly. "I just want one more chance, one chance to save him. Can I have that?"
A thought long and hard for a few moments. "If you pass a simple test, I will consider it."
Naruko looked to the man's face. "What test?"
The Raikage didn't like to do this, but it had to be done. "If you manage to dodge one of the three punches that I will send your way, I will lift the kill order on Uchiha Sasuke's head."
Kakashi and Yamato both knew that this was a very, VERY one-sided deal. "Naruko, don't ac-" Yamato started.
"Alright," Naruko said, her chakra tails receeding.
Before anyone could react, A practically vanished and Naruko tilted over, nearly falling to the ground. She blinked in surprise, "I didn't-"
Naruko was rocked again as A vanished, her body reacting to a blow she couldn't even sense. She managed, with some difficulty, to find A again, right before he appeared before her, his final punch laying her on the ground.
"I held back almost all my strength," A said as he started to walk away, "if you want to save him that badly, then make sure you can dodge my punch next time. If you can do that, you will get to him before anyone else and 'save' him."
[That night, an inn]
Naruko had a guess as to why Sasuke never returned home after killing Orochimaru. If she were in his position, she'd never even look towards the Land of Fire again. For Sasuke, Konoha had been a cage that was restricting him with the morality that pushed onto him, morality that conflicted with his 'nature' as an avenger, as a person who would one day be consumed by his anger and become something worse than anyone he killed.
"Konoha...for me...it was a barbed chain, choking me, bleeding me all the time..." Naruko muttered to herself. She knew that, if someone had come to her before Ino was able to make it so that she could stand the bite of that chain, if someone like Orochimaru had appeared before her with an offer to escape that chain entirely, she would never return to it, nothing could convince her to return.
Naruko closed her eyes as she rolled away from the window. 'I might have no choice but to ki-'
"Good evening, Namikaze Naruko," a male voice said from the window, "do you mind if we have a little midnight chat?"
The room was decimated as four chakra tails shot in every direction, blades tearing through the wood and concrete with ease.
Tobi stood atop part of the ruined wall. "How strange for a 'savior' to answer a simple question with such violence. Well, not like you can harm me with such attacks."
Naruko watched as a wooden cage appeared around her, her two sensei appearing, one wrapping Tobi in roots while a raikiri crackled on Kakashi's right hand.
"Amazing speed, but no where near the level of your sensei, Kakashi of the Sharingan," Tobi praised, though he did have a mocking tone as he mentioned Kakashi's name and title.
"Uchiha Madara, you won't capture Naruko while I'm around," Kakashi stated.
"You should stop wasting your chakra. Everyone knows that I easily rivalled the power of the Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama. Even in my weakened state, small fries such as you two wouldn't be able to harm me," Madara stated.
"Even if we don't know how you become incorporeal, whether through a kekkei genkai or a jutsu, you need to be able to touch her to capture Naruko, meaning you can be harmed during that time as well," Yamato stated.
"Capture Naruko? When did I say that I was going to capture her? While it would be exceedingly easy to not only capture her, but to kill you two, I am merely here to have a chat with Naruko, one about her 'best friend,' Uchiha Sasuke, among other things," Madara baited. He stared down at the girl. "How is it that you made Nagato and Konan betray me? I made sure to fill them with so much hatred that they could barely hear their own guilt anymore."
When she didn't talk, Madara began to talk about Sasuke and Itachi, telling Naruko the truths he kept from Sasuke, about how he manipulated things from the background a little to push things in his favor. After a bit of time, he started talking about the Rikudō Sennin and his children, two men who were basically the founders of the Uchiha and Senju clans.
Madara chuckled. "Sasuke is filled with the Uchiha's hate, has it practically burned into his bones and written in his DNA. Your soul overflows with the Will of Fire that the Senju admired, but I sense something else in there...Could you have some hatred within you? Are some of those flames dark? Maybe you don't want to save Sasuke, but find out if your own path is right. Interesting... I wonder if you truly will follow the Senju before you, or will you fall to the hatred I see burning deep within your eyes. If you do fall, I wonder who would be worse, you or Sasuke. What type of salvation will this savior bring: peace among men or a silent, dead peace."
Naruko lowered her head in shame, knowing of her own darkness. It was becoming stronger and stronger ever since she revealed her past to the world. She could hear a cold, sinister and cruel whisper in her ears sometimes, her own voice calling her a hypocrite that was worse than all of Konoha rolled into one. It told her to just let go, follow her dark desires and raze Konoha, finish what Nagato started, but she always ignored it, told herself that the voice was wrong.
It was becoming more difficult to ignore that voice with each passing day.
"Well, I guess I should go about now, but first..." Madara locked his sole eye with Naruko's and tried to control her. When she wasn't drawn under his control, he scowled a bit. 'She's delusional. If she really were Kyūbi, she'd be gutting Kakashi by now,' he thought. "I'll leave you with one bit of knowledge, something that you are dying to know."
"What?" Kakashi asked.
"The reason I am collecting the bijū. I will use them to become complete, so to speak," Madara stated as he started to warp, "I enjoyed this brief moment of peace, let's have one more before the world goes to Hell." And he was gone.
Naruko had been sitting on top of the ruined inn she had been staying in, staying still for hours in fact. She didn't notice the cold, didn't hear Yamato yelling at her, didn't even notice when her stomach started asking her to go find a ramen stand. Naruko was busy trying to draw natural chakra to herself, but it was failing like always. Part of it might be that voice she kept hearing ever since she was taught how to meditate properly. She hadn't asked anyone about it, since it might be something really bad, something that would have people stop trusting her.
"NARUKO!"
Said girl reacted quite animatedly, so much so that she fell back, hit the roof, slid back and fell to ground level on her shoulders, a ton of snow falling on top of her.
"Kiba..." Naruko growled as she glared at the Inuzuka who caused this mess. She noticed he wasn't alone. "Sai? Sakura? Bushy Brows? What are you guys doing here?"
Sakura looked worried. "Naruko... I want to talk with you for a bit."
A few minutes later, everyone was, to some degree, quite shocked at what was happening here.
"What?" Naruko asked.
Sakura swallowed hard. "Naruko...You've become more important to me than Sasuke ever was. I know that you're with Ino, and I don't think I'll ever...lo-love you the way she does, but you're just as important to me as you are to her. You're my friend, one of my best friends."
Lee perked up slightly. 'YOOOSHHHAAAA! I HAVE A CHAAANCE! YOUUUUUUTHHHHH!'
'Hahaha!'
Naruko's eyes widened as a cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. She had never heard it this clearly before when not meditating.
'Stupid, lying little bitch! She thinks that saying those words NOW means something? She just wants you to stop chasing Sasuke so she can do it! The little whore always did love him and smashed you around for not being him! Don't believe this lying slut at all, she doesn't care about you, Kakashi or anyone other than that little bastard Uchiha. You'll never be anything more to her than a little lap dog. Watch, bring him back and she'll thank you, than go off and marry him after tossing you aside like a diseased mutt!' the voice rasped, rage and bitterness dripping from it like potent acid.
"Naruko, are you okay?" Sakura asked, having noticed the kitsune going pale, sweating and the look of what appeared to be panic creeping into her eyes.
Naruko shook her head. 'I shouldn't listen to the voice at all-'
'She's a liar! She's a liar! She's a lying little WHORE!'
'-but-'
'She'll toss you aside like every other time! Like back in Wave! Back during the exams! After you were brought back with a fucking scar the size of a fist in your shoulder! SHE! WILL! ABANDON! YOU! ALL FOR HIM!'
"Sakura, why?" Naruko asked.
"Wh-Why?" Sakura asked, confusion showing on her face. "I-I just...realized that Sasuke never...cared, ever. You did, and I..."
'BEAT NARUKO FOR CARING, YOU WEAK, USELESS LITTLE BITCH!'
"I can't love a missing-nin, no matter what, so I gave up on him. I'd rather support and care about the one who has always been there, protecting and helping me," Sakura said, then looked down, "you two were always in front of me, but only you ever looked back at me to make sure I was alright." Sakura sighed.
'And here it comes! Here comes the biggest fucking lie this girl will ever tell you! You can smell the lies on her, hanging about her like a putrid stench! Even a human can tell that this is all a load of bullshit! Reject her, break her! Make her feel every bit as useless and alone as she is and always will be! Make her feel a bitter, jagged fragment of your pain slam deep into what little heart she has!'
"Let's forget about Sasuke and move on with our lives, as Team 7, as friends. Sai is a far better person than Sasuke ever was, even with him being...awkward. That promise, forget about it because it doesn't matter to me anymore," Sakura said.
Naruko wanted to say something, but she felt something burning inside of herself. It stole her voice and made her head hurt a bit.
Sakura hugged Naruko. "This is how it feels to hold a person who cares. I'd never get to feel this with Sasuke, didn't ever feel it when I held him, that's why I've given up on him," she said with a light sigh, "how come it took me longer than the villagers to see you for what you are? You've been saving me for years and I only realized it a few days ago. How stupid was I to never notice, to never care? Naruko, I-"
Naruko shoved Sakura back, gritting her teeth hard. Her eyes were hidden behind her hair and it seemed like she was straining herself to just stand there.
"N-Naruko, what's wrong?" Sakura asked, scared at the feel of Naruko's chakra.
Naruko glared down at Sakura, her irides looking like flame radiated from the pupils and her eyelids black. "Liar."
Kakashi and Yamato noticed the shift in Naruko's demeanor and rushed the girl, only to grab nothing as she vanished in a dark red blur, leaving Sakura standing there.
"Every last fucking one of you," Naruko growled from atop the inn, "it took someone nearly crushing your homes and killing you all to realize that, though I'm a monster, I was also a hero? That I was a half decent person?"
"What's going on with Naruko? Her voice sounds strange?" Kiba asked. He'd never seen her like this, ever.
The wooden beams Yamato had created formed into dog heads and rushed at Naruko, who vanished again. She appeared behind Yamato and struck him with an open palm in the back, making him topple over in pain as her potent, poisonous chakra ate away at some of his reserves. "You can't seal my power with a stolen power. I won't be controlled by ANYONE, least of all HER!" Naruko snapped, pointing at Sakura.
"What? I don't wan-" Sakura started.
"SHUT UP!" Naruko roared, the air around her violently vibrating from the enhanced sound waves, "you bound a barbed collar around my neck three years ago, a collar called a 'guilty promise.' Now you're trying to add a new collar to it, called 'failure.' I won't have it! I will find that little asshole, and I will bring him back to you, IN PIECES! You'll finally have his heart, you BITCH!"
Kakashi managed to catch Naruko off guard and pushed her to the ground, immobilizing her. "Calm down now!" he ordered.
Naruko ignored the man and glared at Sakura, her eyes filled with bitter malice. "I hate liars more than anything else. I curse you to a life of loneliness and bitter pain, because that is all you deserve!"
Yamato manged to absorb some of Naruko's chakra with his wood release, making it return to normal as it was depleted. The girl's eyes returned to their normal color as she passed out.
Kakashi released Naruko's unconscious form. "Sakura, what was that about?" he asked.
"I-I don't know what it was that just happened to her. Bijū physiology is way beyond me experti-" she started.
"Not that, I was asking about the lies you told Naruko," Kakashi sternly stated.
Sakura flinched slightly, then looked down and away. "I've been hurting her for years, I just wanted to stop. I know that the promise hurt her, as did me chasing Sasuke all this time."
"But you don't want to stop chasing Sasuke, right?" Kakashi asked.
Sakura lowered her gaze even more, then shook her head.
"I see," Kakashi said, "no wonder this happened."
"What?" Sakura asked, her gaze snapping back to her sensei.
"Sakura, even I know that Naruko has the ability to detect lies and, unlike you, I've seen what Madara has seen in her: a burning darkness, a rage struggling to find its way through her kindness. You, the person she trusted so much, blatantly lying to her in broad daylight gave that darkness a clear and easy path to the surface," Kakashi said as he picked Naruko up, "plain and simple, in trying to relieve your own guilt and ease her suffering a little, you hurt her tremendously, dug your own hole deeper and made that darkness much, much stronger than before."
Sakura fell to her knees as she felt hot tears run down her cheeks. She didn't want this to happen. Why was it that whenever she tried to help one of them, she just made it worse and hurt them more? Was she just that much of a screw up, that unsuited to being precious to anyone at all? Was she going to be alone for her whole life? Naruko didn't need to curse her to loneliness or anything, it seemed to be Sakura's lot in life.
"Naruko isn't chasing Sasuke because of you or the promise between you two, Sakura."
The pink haired medic turned, seeing Sai standing there. "What?" she croaked out.
"Naruko is chasing Sasuke because she wants to, because she wants to bring him back to Konoha. She's not doing it for anyone other than herself now," Sai said, "as much as I hate to think of it, Naruko feels that Sasuke must return to Konoha. She wants to save him to ease her own guilt, not to make anyone happy."
The two jōnin walked away to get Naruko into a bed until she woke up again, leaving Sakura's team behind. The whole time, Sakura wondered what Sai meant about Naruko's guilt.
Luckily, Naruko woke up quickly enough, almost like she had just fainted rather than anything else. More interesting was that she had no memories of what happened after Sakura hugged her.
An ink clone of Sai appeared and told them of Sakura's true goal: the execution of Uchiha Sasuke. It seems that, knowing how she was, Naruko had been left out of the loop to spare her the pain and frustration of being outvoted.
Naruko listened to the reasoning, but no matter how much logic Sai threw at her, it was illogical for Sakura to throw her feelings aside and kill Sasuke. It wasn't until Sai told Naruko that what tipped the scales was Sakura's feelings for Naruko, her desire to no longer hurt her, even if that meant killing the one she loved with her own hands.
'Again... No matter what she does, she always hurts you,' the voice muttered with a dark, but calm snarl, 'it is like she exists solely to hurt you, but you still care about her, still...love her. You have someone who cares, who loves you, so why does this one matter anymore? She is unneeded.'
Naruko knew she didn't need to answer the voice at all, it was just goading her into admitting to things that would somehow help it out in some scheme she didn't understand at all. Naruko just thought of herself giving it two middle fingers, figuring that was a good enough reply.
Sai went on about what he believed was Sakura's true reason for wanting to be the one to kill Sasuke. Every word he spoke had that voice add in its own opinions, mostly insulting Sakura or Naruko herself. Naruko did agree with it on one thing though, hearing of how far Sakura would go for Sasuke hurt and she drew her own opinion.
"Sakura..." Naruko muttered, "she's given up on Team 7."
Kakashi blinked. "What?"
"She's going to kill Sasuke to end what he's done, and she knows that I won't forgive her for that. If Sakura really does kill him, Team 7 will be over because I'll never trust her again with anything. I'll turn my back on her for the last time and unlike before, I won't look back," Naruko said, chakra starting to form into her armor as her clothes, surprisingly, didn't burn away.
"Na-Naruko?" Yamato stuttered, wondering why she was going to her full power already.
Naruko looked back, some red creeping into her right iris. "I won't let Sakura turn me into a new Sasuke. I don't want to hate her, hate my friends. I don't want to hate Konoha anymore than I already do," she said, "I'm going to stop Sakura from killing Sasuke, even if I have to die instead."
Gaara and his siblings showed up to deliver even more bad news to Naruko. The more she heard, the more she felt that the voice was growing.
"I have to go. NOW!" Naruko growled, her chakra running out of control with her rising anger.
Roots burst from the ground and wrapped around her once, then more came out and bound her further as a dome of wood formed over her.
"Going a little far, aren't you, Yamato?" Kakashi asked.
Yamato sighed, wiping some sweat off his brow. "After what happened with Sakura, I don't think it'd be a good idea for her to see any stressors in her current state."
"What's going on with her?" Kankurō asked.
"Yamato, you explain to them what happened and keep Naruko here as long as you can. Naruko was right, Sakura needs to be stopped, but it will be me and Sai that do it, not Naruko," Kakashi said, then he and Sai's ink clone vanished in a shunshin to try and catch up with Sakura.
[Less than an hour later]
Sasuke lost his sharingan for a few minutes, having gone too far with the use of the mangekyō and its powers. Despite his blurry vision, he was able to easily sense the kunai at his back and he found himself facing Sakura again. He managed to get the kunai from her, but she kicked loose and backed off, prompting Sasuke to run chidori over his arm and the kunai so he could finally get rid of her, once and for all.
Sakura saw the charged kunai coming and flinched back, realizing that Sasuke really wanted her dead. She never thought he hated her this much. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.
Once more, Sakura was covered in blood, but it wasn't hers this time either. She opened her eyes and saw light purple chakra armor torn open from the arm and kunai that had torn through them, purple and red chakra crackling along tear.
"Naruko?!" Sakura gasped. After what she did, Naruko still came to rescue her?
Naruko growled through the pain, but she still grabbed Sasuke's arm to keep him in place, hooking her sharpened nails into his skin. "You...tried to kill her..." she panted, blood coming out of her mouth as well.
"It is called 'culling,' dobette. Look it up and you'll see the merit of Sakura's death," Sasuke said.
Naruko's eyes turned red and, while still holding his arm, started driving harsh punches into Sasuke's torso. After a few blows, Naruko slammed her forehead into Sasuke's face, released his arm, grabbed his head and then drove Sasuke's face into her rising knee, making Sasuke actually take to the air for a second with his recoil.
"I told the others that I couldn't forgive Sakura, that I would turn my back on her if she killed you," Naruko said, shaking in an effort to control herself, "the reverse is the same for you, bastard!"
Sasuke chuckled as he backed up. "Finally, your eyes say that you can kill me."
Sakura noticed that Sasuke was having trouble with his vision and, if his actions were an indicator, he was low on chakra too. Naruko's left shoulder was still wounded, her arm only able to move from the elbow down. Sakura didn't understand why Naruko wasn't healing, or how she had gotten here so quickly without a tracker assisting her.
Sasuke smirked as he watched Naruko's internal war play itself on her face, in her eyes, in those tremors her body was experiencing. "Give in Naruko, give in to the hatred I've always seen deep within you. If you did that, you'd be more than powerful enough to defeat me, to become Hokage and get everything you ever wanted."
Naruko growled at Sasuke's words, her chakra spiking more and more, her armor's left side growing more demonic, even starting to spread to the right side slightly. Red chakra, almost like weak flits of flames, danced off of Naruko as she struggled to contain the growing anger within her. After a few moments, Naruko roared, unleashing a blast of red chakra, the demonic creep on the right side of her armor crawling back. Her eyes returned to being purple, but like when Sakura lied to her, they looked like frozen flames radiating from her pupils. "I'm done, Sasuke. I'll defeat you, but I won't kill you."
"Hmph. Still weak and sentimental, I see," Sasuke grunted, disappointed.
Naruko glared at the Uchiha, the same hatred she had for Konoha reflecting in her eyes at the sight of Sasuke. "I'll tell Tsunade and the council to punish you to the full extent of the law and I'll sit there on the day justice is done, watching your head roll across the ground after the ANBU cut it off. I'll also be the one to strike your name from Konoha's records and I'll personally destroy the Uchiha compound, with extreme prejudice."
Everyone, including Sasuke was shocked at that statement. Naruko had only ever shown real malice for two men before: Mizuki and Gato, and she only did that because those two were completely gone. Did this mean that, to Naruko, Sasuke couldn't be redeemed anymore.
"Then again, we could just wait for you to die in a cell and leave your body to rot. Shouldn't take too long," Naruko said.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "I finally started to truly avenge the Uchiha clan, avenging all the wrongs done to my brother. I won't be captured or die until after Konoha is a burning wreck, including that prison called the Uchiha compound!"
Kakashi appeared, moving to stand between his team and former student. "You two, stand back. As his sensei, I will be the one to finish this."
"But sensei!" Sakura shouted.
"I won't lose either one of you, to death or to hatred," Kakashi said, "I watched it happen twice already, I won't sit back and let it happen again."
Kakashi was about to respond to Sasuke's sudden chidori activation, but a chakra tail with a claw on the end grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back, Naruko charging forward with flames sputtering on her right hand.
Naruko knew that the two of them could have been on the others side, that she could have given into her hatred and Sasuke could have stayed in the village. But the fact was...
"Chidori!"
"Yakekurō!"
The lightning and flames met, water and steam blasting away from the two. Sasuke's eyes widened because, unlike the last time their attacks met like this, Naruko's hatred was overriding his and blocking the unwanted connection he used to feel to the girl.
'She's...abandoned me,' he thought in shock, the image of the girl before him briefly becoming his brother's, causing his eyes to widen in fear and shock. He realized that Naruko had become Itachi, the false image his brother had built up in his mind. Naruko had become hard, cold and, which Sasuke only realized just then, was holding her power back because...
Because he wasn't worth her full strength.
Naruko drove her scorch claws down, throwing Sasuke back with four burning lines on his chest. Sasuke managed to roll himself, the flames being put out by the water he slid across.
"I didn't give in to my darkness, Sasuke, I just let go of you and the past," Naruko growled, "that's why I'm stronger than you will ever be."
Sasuke glared at the girl, his anger reaching its peak. "I'm not weaker than you! I killed Itachi, Danzō! I am an avenger and I will get revenge for the entire Uchiha clan, by killing the Hokage and you, stupid bitch of the Senju!"
Naruko charged at the Uchiha, her left hand burning with a ball of flame, her right hand forming a wind release rasengan. Sasuke, being a smart person on occasion, dodged the attack in time to watch the air violently explode when she ignited the rasengan impact with her scorch release.
'Shit! If I had my sharingan right now, she'd be nothing! She's taking advantage of my temporary weakness to flaunt what little power she has!' Sasuke growled in his mind as his hands worked. "Katon: Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu!"
Naruko's tails extended, batting the fireballs out of the air before they hit her. "Is that all? Did Orochimaru teach you nothing?" she asked.
"He taught me how to kill the likes of you!" Sasuke shouted, rushing forward with his sword. Naruko summoned her own sword, blocking the black sword. "Dammit! Why won't you die?!" Sasuke roared in frustration.
Naruko shoved hard with the assistance of a tail blade, panting slightly from all the stresses she had undergone today. "Give it up, Sasuke, you'll never harm anyone here while I'm around."
The cliff wall behind Sasuke morphed as Zetsu slid out of it. "Sasuke, we have to retreat. Your eyes and chakra-"
"I can do this!" Sasuke snapped.
'He's bitten off more than he can chew. Better call the 'master' here,' Zetsu thought.
Madara appeared in his usual fashion. "Sasuke, you should come back when called," he chastised, then saw who the opponent was, "ah, if it isn't Naruko. I rarely meet the same people this often."
"Why are you here?" Sasuke wheezed.
"The venue for a grand battle is somewhere else, Sasuke. For now, we must withdraw and get you ready for the coming tide," Madara stated.
Numerous Zetsu came out of the ground. "How about we take Kyūbi as well? We need it anyway, why not rip it out of her and take the Hachibi during the war?"
"War?!" Kakashi gasped.
Madara shook his head. "No Zetsu, we'll let Sasuke capture her. And I doubt you'd be able to capture her anyway, she's quite powerful for a broken jinchūriki." It couldn't be seen, but everyone knew he was smirking. "Yes, I've declared war with all the shinobi in this world, all for the final two pieces to the puzzle: the Kyūbi and the Hachibi."
Naruko turned away from Sasuke and the other members of Akatsuki. "I used to want to save you, Sasuke, from the darkness and your past, but now I'll make it so that you're one with them both: unseen and long gone." She looked to her sensei. "Next time Sasuke shows himself before me, I will kill him."
"You've finally given into your hatred. Good, feed it, feed off it, grow stronger and, soon, you'll become the perfect tool for my revenge," Sasuke said, a sick grin on his face, "when the time comes, your desire to erase me will become the desire to erase everything. You and me, we aren't different at all! We both want revenge on those that wronged us! I am your future!"
Naruko shrugged her shoulders. "Whatever carries you to the day I kill you, keep it up so you don't break before I break you completely."
Madara chuckled. "Well, well. Things couldn't be better for me. And Kakashi, I thought I told you that ninjutsu doesn't work on me, so why try to use your dōjutsu on me?" he asked, a taunting tone in his voice, "come now, Sasuke, we have things to do so you can achieve your revenge in full."
The three were consumed in Madara's jutsu, vanishing. Naruko hissed as her armor gave out, her clothes revealed to be mildly damaged from the armor. Sakura rushed over, catching Naruko as her knees gave out. "Naruko, why?" she asked.
Naruko looked to what she could see of Sakura, which was just matted pink hair. "What?"
"Why did you come and save me? How did you save me?" Sakura asked, sure that Sasuke would kill her earlier.
Naruko leaned back so she could face Sakura, gently touching Sakura's shoulder, an invisible mark flashing purple for a brief moment. "I marked you, like I did Ino-chan and Baa-chan, so I could come to them in a red flash to punish whoever tried to harm you three," she said.
Sakura blushed slightly. "B-But I..." she stopped, feeling pain in her throat, "you put it on me before I tried to trick you, didn't you?"
Naruko blinked, then half smiled. "I put it on you just today, right after you lied."
"Then why help me?" Sakura asked, wishing she could cry to get rid of the pain in her throat and eyes.
Naruko placed a hand on Sakura's cheek and lightly kissed her forehead, making the pink haired girl turn crimson. "Didn't you hear me before? I wasn't calling just myself a beauty when I came back, I was talking about you too," she said, "it is the duty of all Kage and heroes to protect the beautiful girls of the world, and I know of two. One's a hime and the other is a long time friend of mine."
Just as everyone thought of how cool and strong Naruko was, she tilted forward, bounced off her teammate's shoulder and fell into the lake with a splash, slowly sinking. Sakura remembered exactly what happened and quickly saved Naruko from drowning and, with her medical ninjutsu, cleared the poison from Naruko's blood, poison that had been on the kunai she intended to use on Sasuke.
Eventually, they found the rest of the team Sakura had formed and, well, Naruko joined them for a nap. Disturbingly, Lee looked like he was sleeping in mid cheer. After about half an hour, they were all awake and began doing their usual bantering.
Karin stared at Naruko, examining the girl's chakra with the last bit of her own chakra. 'Bright... Warm... But...some of it is...worse than Madara's' she thought as she dozed.
The banter continued all the way back to Konoha, seemingly exploding when everyone learned of Naruko's new goal: killing Sasuke on her own. Arguments were made about almost everyone being ready to do the same, though even Shikamaru was surprised when Sakura agreed with him.
Shikamaru wondered if Naruko was going to pull a stunt similar to Sakura's, but the redhead told them that Sasuke's days were numbered and she was the one who would stop the clock. When others started to ask why she hadn't killed Sasuke already, she told them that she did try, but Zetsu and Madara showed up to protect him.
Naruko excused herself to go have some ramen, since she had been wounded, drained, used Savior and been poisoned all in one day.
Good news spread across the village: Tsunade had awoken from her coma. With the happy news, and free ramen, Naruko decided to eat the remaining ingredients that Teuchi had for this month.
Or at least she would have if she wasn't summoned to a table that was host to frog food. After crying a bit because her ramen had been replaced with something that wasn't edible to anything aside from frogs, toads and probably goats, Naruko found out why she was brought to Mount Myōboku again: the Great Toad Sage wanted to see her.
So here she was, standing before the old toad, who suddenly forgot who she was. Sadly, she was used to him not remembering her name, as was everyone else.
First, Naruko would meet and octopus. Weird.
Second, she would fight someone with powerful eyes, who she figured was Sasuke. That would happen anyway, one way or another. If he went the same route as Orochimaru and went into hiding, she'd look under every rock until she found him.
"And one last thing," the old toad said.
"What?" Naruko asked.
The toad opened his eye slightly and looked down on the girl, sadness in his eye. "You will face a powerful shadow. If you defeat it, you will bring about light. But, if you lose to it..."
"Everything will be destroyed, right?" Naruko asked.
The toad nodded. "And it will be you who destroys it."
Naruko felt a cold vice wrap around her heart. She remembered Sasuke and Madara's words, about how she could bring about two forms of peace: prosperity and death. She didn't want to become the monster the world thought she was. No, she wouldn't allow herself to become like that.
The Great Toad Sage smiled. "I'm sure that you'll be okay. The octopus will be key to defeating that darkness. That and I saw a tiny green light that has always been by your side, protecting you and keeping the darkness at bay. It will help you meet those who cannot be met anymore as well."
And now Naruko assumed that the toad was back into senile mode, something that happened almost as often as him forgetting her name.
"I have faith in you... er, who are you again?" the toad asked.
Everyone present sighed.
A/N~
I know this chapter is short, but there is something about this chapter that just makes me want to move on to chapter 22. I decided to cut it short and start the next chapter already, that and I've also been keeping this chapter from you guys for a long time.
Anyway, I have no comments on Naruto's ending, other than it being total bullshit, Kishimoto and his asshole tendencies when it comes to women's rights, empowerment and all those wonderful things that make them the superior gender (they pop kids out of their genitals, us men scream like bitches when we pass a kidney stone, so they win by a landslide) I'll just tell you that, if you want the full story, go and read 'You've opened my eyes' by JTZ29 for the whole story from Kishimoto's reasons for not hooking Naruto and Sakura up. Let's just say that he believes it is okay for a woman to remain with an abusive man.
Responses-
Krazyfanfiction1: That didn't happen at all, not in the manga. In the manga, Hinata got an enhanced chakra cloak and had enough power to knock one of the Jūbi's tails back with a single vacuum palm, and she also went and hit something with the sixty four palms, once. Then she spent pretty much the rest of the manga doing jack shit, like virtually the rest of the manga.
MizoreShirayukiFan: My favorite character from Rozario Vampire... Ah, the proposal. Yeah, I figured that it was very Naruko style to do it that way.
Shinkicker: Yeah, I really need to speed up with this fic. I needed a bit of time to get over Kishimoto's craptastic, shock value ending. Oh well, I rarely find myself agreeing with canon anyway.
God of all: Updated.
P.H. Wise: If that's the case, a ton of stories should be deleted. Besides, I respond to the feedback with something a bit more personal than a broad 'thank you.'
Have you read Naruto lately? Naruto basically goes Super Jinchūriki during the war, then he goes Super Jinchūriki 2 after meeting the Sage. It isn't me who is introducing DBZ to Naruto, it was Kishimoto.
Bakaneko-chan11: No, Naruko and Konan, as hot as mixing red haired hottie and blue haired cool beauty is, they will not get together in this fic. I do have a new idea that features Naruko getting quite a few lovers, Konan being one of them, but that's way down the line.
SithLordNilis: I'm more angry now. Personally...I don't really know what I eat when I get sad... I guess... well, I guess I drown my sorrows in soup, preferably mushroom soup or chicken noodle soup.
The Keeper of Worlds: Sakura did some to develop an empathic link with Naruto in canon, and not for shock value BS.
Harlequin320: Thanks for review.
Dragon and Sword Master: Here's a new chapter, sorry it took so long.
Gaara king of the sand: Well I (Excele was mercilessly beaten to prevent spoilers)
DragonSword35d: Okay, Haku is actually going to appear next chapter. Konan is still opening Ame up to the world, so news would be slow to reach her. (Danzo was only a Hokage candidate for a few days, a bit over a week at best) As for the tail thing, Naruko amended that law and made it more like how humans do things, and she still has to wait til Ino's sixteen or else it won't be official in the eyes of humans.
Spikesagitta: Glad you like this story.
Thedarkpokemaster: Yes, I was actually thinking of ending this fic with the wedding, or maybe the kids. As for how the kids are made, Naruko can just infuse her chakra into her lover's body, concentrating it to the area over the womb, and cause the egg to start dividing to eventually grow into a child. It is sort of like the kid has the mother's DNA, with some alterations caused by chakra infusion, but the chakra is a mix of the mother and Kyūbi's. It is something that CAN happen with a woman, becoming pregnant without a man, so I just had it so that Kyūbi like Naruko can cause it to happen.
Guest 1: I left Danzo alone. He's completely canon.
Matsukaze Tenma: Updated
Guest 2: Here's some more to read.
EvilServant1094: It is out, sorry for the long wait.
Typhoon-voidhog95: That meeting will happen soon, but Naruko needs to meet the octopus first.