Cliffhangers…what would a good story be without them? ;D

Xelacy – welcome! :D your wish is my command B3

Moonlttiger – suspense is what makes a great story ;) and don't worry, all your questions will be answered shortly :D and this story will never be left hanging, you guys are too good to me for that (never mind the fact that it seriously bugs me if I don't update at least once every two days) :3

MidnightheartXxX – no…it won't be long at all…in fact…we get to see what happens…right…

NOW! :D

**Chapter 19**

Deidara struggled wildly in the clutches of the gigantic shadow wrapped around him, pinning his hands to his sides. Hidan started to swear profusely, but another tendril slapped itself over his mouth. Shannon had had enough of his foul language.

Tobi squealed, thrashing around wildly as he was hoisted off the ground. Shannon – not wishing to have his high-pitched voice drilling into her skull in the heat of battle – tossed him to the ground. In seconds, the orange-masked man had scampered from view.

The whole time, Shannon never broke eye contact with Pein, standing a few hundred meters away. Both of them were as still as stone, neither willing to admit defeat in this heated battle of wills.

Suddenly, there was a loud boom as a figure smashed through one of the crumbling buildings, showering everything in a cloud of dust. Shannon's gaze snapped to the intrusion, as did Pein's and all the assembled Akatsuki's – bar from Sasuke and Itachi, who were battling each other near the outskirts of the compound.

Kakuzu slid along the ground from the force of whatever had sent him flying, arms raised defensively. About ten of Naruto's shadow clones bounded after him, shouting war cries. The rest of the cavalry soon arrived – Shikamaru, with his kunai at the ready, Sai surrounded by a small army of ink creatures, Hinata with her Byakugan activated, and Naruto bringing up the rear, teeth bared fiercely.

As the blonde ninja continued his assault on Kakuzu, Sai shouted to Shannon, "Focus on Pein! We can handle the others."

Nodding tersely, Shannon turned her attention back to the writhing Akatsuki in her grip. She caught sight of Pein beginning to mutter something under his breath – a phrase she felt certain she knew. Before he could complete whatever her was about to say, she wound another shadow tendril around his mouth, choking him.

"Now, now," she scolded mockingly, her voice as calm and icy as before. "There'll be no Shinra Tensei here. That's just not fair."

Pein's silver eyes merely narrowed to angry slits. He raised a hand to rip the shadow away from his mouth, but another one latched onto his wrist. Before he could even move, his other arm had been subdued as well.

Shannon smirked. She flicked her shadows, sending the other captive Akatsuki crashing to the ground in front of her waiting comrades. Now she could focus on what was really important – making the one person who had dared think to control her and her companions suffer for his sins.

With a muffled shout, Pein wrenched his arms away from the shadow bindings, forming a rapid set of hand seals. Shannon slunk into a crouch, ready for whatever he could throw at her.

A massive whirlwind suddenly sprang up, dissipating the multiple shadow tendrils writhing about between the two adversaries. Shannon's arms flew up to shield her face from the harsh gale and flying debris. Barely a split second after the wind ceased, Shannon cracked an eye open to see Pein lunching himself towards her, fist pulled back and an angry expression on his face.

Shannon only had time to block the vicious punch, the force of it sending her skidding several feet backwards. She narrowly avoided a kick aimed at her head, and countered with a low round-house of her own. Pein nimbly jumped over it, bringing his knee down on her shoulder. She cried out as the blow landed painfully, sending her sprawling. Before the Akatsuki leader could land another blow to her unprotected stomach, Shannon's shadows sprang to her defense, shoving Pein away forcefully.

She jumped back to her feet, hurling herself towards her opponent. He was still trying to regain his balance from her earlier block, and left himself wide open for an attack. Shannon's clenched fist made contact with his rib cage. She felt, rather than heard, a satisfying snap as a few bones broke under the force of the blow.

Pein grunted, twisting his body and slamming a knee into her side. Shannon recovered quickly from the blow, springing off a hand and back into a defensive crouch. She wasn't sure whether her new strength was from anger or the shadows swirling around her form, but she didn't care. She liked it.

She would make Pein suffer for everything he had done. And this new strength was going to help her accomplish that.

Before she could stop him, Pein formed more hand seals and shouted, "Shinra Tensei!"

With a surprised shout, the younger girl was blasted off her feet. She was blown backwards several hundred feet by the force of Pein's gravity jutsu, slamming into a fallen section of the highway overpass she had seen earlier, and narrowly avoiding crushing Kisame between her and the solid block of concrete.

Shannon slid to the ground, momentarily winded. Kisame took one look at the murderous glint in her blood-red eyes and leaped away, back into his fight with Sai. There was no way he was going to chance a confrontation with that.

"Is that all?" Pein sneered, his ringed silver glare condescending. "I was expecting more."

"Oh, I'm not nearly finished yet," Shannon replied venomously, wiping a trail of blood from the corner of her mouth. "I'm only just warming up."

She pushed herself to her feet, trying to guess her opponent's next move. His stormy expression wasn't giving anything away. Gritting her teeth, Shannon shot out three spear-like tendrils, aiming for Pein's vital points. His eyes widened momentarily at their speed, but his hand sprang up again, deflecting the insubstantial weapons with another gust of wind.

"That won't work," he said, forming more seals. Shannon watched them carefully, looking for any she recognized. She needed to figure out a way to distinguish which attacks he would use. "Bensho Tenin!"

Shannon's eyes widened as she felt her body being pulled strongly towards the orange-haired Akatsuki. She tried to hold her ground, but the attraction force was too strong. As she hurtled towards him, she saw a kunai appear in his hand. Shannon's eyes narrowed. Two could play at that game.

Just as she reached her opponent, Shannon meshed her shadows together to form a large mass of impenetrable darkness, blinding both herself and Pein. He growled angrily as he lost sight of his target, dropping the kunai in case she somehow managed to turn it against him. Though, he never heard it hit the floor.

Shannon smacked hard into the Akatsuki leader, sending both of them to the ground. She landed hard on her side, using her shadow tendrils as hooks to keep her from sliding too far away from her target. The large ball of darkness dissipated, but before Pein could get back to his feet, Shannon sent more shadow spears hurtling towards him.

Using his wind jutsu again, he blew the shadows away like smoke. But he couldn't simply blow away the kunai that had been hidden in one of them. His ringed eyes widened briefly before his own discarded weapon buried deeply into his shoulder, glancing painfully off bone.

Shannon clambered back to her feet, breathing heavily. She smirked in satisfaction when she saw the large rip in Pein's robe, saturated with blood. He clamped an arm over the wound, pulling out the bloodstained weapon with a hiss.

"You'll pay for that one, brat," he spat, glaring at her.

Shannon simply smirked in reply, extending a hand and motioning her fingers towards herself. "Bring it on."

Pein returned the smirk, throwing the kunai into the fray of the battle raging around them. Shannon's expression turned into a snarl. Still he was trying to harm her comrades.

Without hesitation, she threw herself at her opponent, a shadow spike protruding from her palm. Pein dodged the attack easily, and tried to grab her arm from behind. Shannon twisted in mid-air, the heel of her foot smashing into the side of his face and knocking him off his feet.

The Akatsuki leader righted himself in mid-flight, skidding along the ground in a crouch and kicking up a cloud of dust in his wake. Without pausing, he launched an attack of his own. Drawing several kunai from the folds of his cloak, his threw them simultaneously at the younger girl.

Gritting her teeth in concentration, Shannon dodged most of the projectiles, deflecting the rest with her shadow tendrils, though one or two managed to sink themselves into her left arm. She lashed out with the mist-like appendages, sending out such a sheer volume of them that Pein was unable to dodge them all.

Shannon came to a stop a few feet away from her opponent, regarding her handiwork coolly. He looked like an orange-haired pin cushion, shadow tendrils covering nearly every inch of his body. He had thrown his arms up in a defensive maneuver, but it hadn't helped in the slightest.

Shannon bared her teeth, digging the shadows in deeper. Her adversary grunted in pain, the strength of the shadows pushing him back several feet. Pein's one leg gave out, and he dropped to his knees, flinching. Shannon regarded him with an icy glare, not a single trace of remorse making itself known anywhere. This is what she wanted – he had to pay for everything he had done.

She growled angrily, lengthening her shadows to the point where some of them went straight through the Akatsuki leader's body and embedded themselves in the ground behind him. He cried out, but Shannon only slapped another tendril over his mouth. The sound annoyed her. And with his mouth silenced, he wouldn't be able to use any of his Rinnegan abilities to escape from her clutches. Not that he could use his arms to form the hand seals, anyway.

There was a loud explosion behind Pein, and Shannon diverted her gaze momentarily to take stock of her companions' situations.

Shikamaru was battling Hidan, and Shannon's heart glowed a little at the fact that he seemed to be winning. Hinata was using her Gentle Fist technique with some success on a very irate-looking Deidara – it looked as though she had sealed the chakra points on his hands so he couldn't make any more bombs like the one he had just detonated. Sasuke was still very much involved in his fight with his older brother, the two Uchiha's eyes blazing red with the Sharingan.

Sai was going head to head with Kisame, using a whole myriad of ink creatures to somehow subdue the shark-man's gargantuan blade, which was coming quite close to shaving a few hairs off his head. Naruto was taking care of Kakuzu. He had his hands full keeping those stitch-like tendrils occupied with a small army of rapidly-dissipating shadow clones, but otherwise seemed to be doing alright.

Shannon noticed that Sakura and Lee had rejoined the fight. She felt a small stab of irritation – where had they left her mother? Was no one protecting her? She scanned the rest of the battlefield. Ashley also seemed to be missing. The irritation died down – they must have left Josephine in Ashley's care.

Sakura was dealing with Konan, trying to pin the Akatsuki in one place. But it was no easy task – when she would corner the blue-haired woman, she would just scatter into a million paper butterflies and flutter somewhere else. Shannon could see the frustration starting to show on the pink-haired kunoichi's face.

Lee was having a hard time with Sasori – Shannon had been right in her earlier assumption that the puppet master had had more of his tools hidden away somewhere. Now about ten of them were facing off against the bushy-browed ninja.

Shannon noticed Zetsu slinking somewhere in the background, trying to get behind and attack Naruto, who was still preoccupied with Kakuzu. But before she could make a move to help, Hinata appeared from nowhere and sent the plant man careening into the decimated auto dealership with a single chakra-infused punch. Shannon had never seen the shy purple-eyed girl look so furious.

Shannon lazily turned her gaze back to Pein, who kneeled before her. The various wounds on his body bled profusely, creating a crimson puddle on the ground beneath him. With his arms useless and his voiced silenced, he could do nothing but glare hatefully at the young girl who held him captive.

"Not so nice when the tables are turned, hmm?" she said, her face devoid of emotion.

Pein let out a muffled curse and tried to struggle, but the more he moved the deeper Shannon dug her shadow tendrils into his body. She frowned, positioning a few of her shadow spikes over his vital areas. She paused, taking stock of her own condition.

She was bleeding badly from the kunai wounds torn in her arm, as well as various other places Pein had managed to hit. Her whole body felt stiff and bruised from being thrown around so much. Her legs were shaking, but she forced them to stop. She had to see this through. She had to make sure the Akatsuki wouldn't hurt any more people.

Shannon's heart beat unevenly in her chest, and her breathing was ragged. The fight had taken a lot more out of her physically than she had realized.

She took one last look into Pein's ringed silver eyes. She didn't see remorse, or pain, or even fear. All she saw was anger. Anger and bloodlust, with an underlying coldness and indifference that managed to chill her, even in her infuriated state. Shannon's expression hardened. She couldn't let a monster like this walk free.

"Tch," she clicked her tongue, sneering.

She drove the black shadow spikes deep into the monster's cold heart, silencing it.

Nya :3

You know what to do ;)

Oh, and I'm having a little bit of trouble with one of my other fics, Rebellion. The writer's block virus has struck again -_-

If anyone has the time, please take a look at it and give some suggestions for what to do next :D PM me if you have any ideas :3

Thanking you! Til next time ;D