Disclaimer: Still not.
Author's Notes: I meant to write and post this chapter so much earlier, but I got pretty awfully sick (not good before finals!) and couldn't do anything. Perhaps being sick is the reason this chapter turned out so gory...
Enjoy!
oOo
"Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know.'" -Foaly
oOo
"Ew. Is he dead? Dad, is he seriously dead? That is so gross."
Shikamaru was not having a good night.
"That's a lot of blood. I would measure it at about two pints in a rough guess, and the body only holds four… Are you sure he's not dead?"
It had started out well. He had flown up to New York the day before and spent several hours in a nice hotel room without any responsibilities weighing him down before he had the pleasure of attending Orochimaru's trial and watching the snake's skull being caved in.
That crunching noise it had made was going to have him waking up smiling for weeks.
Then, of course, it had all gone downhill when Hinata Hyuuga had shown up, activated an ability that had been lost for a thousand years, and then proceeded not only to escape, but bash Naruto's head in on her mad dash out of town. They now had no idea where she was, where she was headed, and now that Naruto had died—again, which according to Sasuke only left him three more lives at most—someone else was eligible to claim the Hokage seat and the city was about to become embroiled in a civil war.
To top it off, his daughter had followed him to New York to see her mother, and his wife had followed his daughter to make sure she was safe.
"It's pretty bad," Temari agreed, crouching to poke at Naruto's face. "But don't worry about it too much. He bounces back. He was technically dead for maybe a few seconds—no heart rate or respirations—but he's tough. He's already healing up."
Oh, yes, and he was going to have to explain to Ino why her daughter now believed in things that went bump in the night.
Lovely, he thought in disgust, picking up the trophy that had cracked Naruto's skull and cleaning the blood off its corner. The cat lady across the hall had been the one to find the scene—and Ibiki was going to pay for being off duty—and it had taken every string the Uchiha had known to not get the police involved. That didn't mean Shikamaru wasn't going to conduct his own investigation of course.
On the floor, Uchiha squatted by Naruto, cleaning blood from the other man's face and waiting for him to wake up. If he hadn't known the dark-eyed man any better Shikamaru would have said he was only annoyed with the entire situation, but the worry lines tugging at the corners of his eyes and mouth told a different story. Uchiha was probably struggling not to have a panic attack. From what Shikamaru understood of demon hierarchy Uchiha being Naruto's second meant they had a bond forged through fire that had Uchiha in a treacherous balancing act of best friend, caretaker, and servant.
Of course, that was only his perception.
"So who's next in the Line?" Temari asked, standing up and brushing off pristine cream slacks. She had pulled her hair back in her usual four ponytails to hide the horns humans found so disturbing—according to his wife, Shikarmaru didn't technically count as human with her as his mate—which Shikamaru thought was a shame. Admittedly, the first time he had found them he had been more than a little concerned, but they were actually quite pretty once you got used to them, pure white and sparkly as they were.
Holly kept trying to convince Temari that she wouldn't mind a horn or two as well, but so far Temari was refusing.
"Kabuto," Uchiha answered without a pause. "I'll go after him as soon as Naruto is alright."
"Nah," she said, patting the fan strapped to her back with love. Sometimes, Shikamaru was half-convinced she loved that stupid fan more than she did him the way she doted over it. "I'll find him. I can handle Kabuto."
Uchiha looked like he'd bitten off a week-old piece of mold, but he forced out: "Thank you."
Shikamaru frowned, locking eyes with Temari and tilting his head to the side. She just grinned and flicked his earring.
"Come on," she said. "We can drop Holly off at her mom's on the way there."
"You mean I have to come?" Shikamaru asked wryly. "Joy. What am I going to do, stand in the corner and cheer?"
"Well that depends," Temari said cheekily, winding an arm around him and pulling Holly away from the scene. "How do you look in a mini skirt?"
"Awful."
"Shi—shitaki mushrooms," Temari said, wincing. She tried to keep her language clean around Holly. Shikamaru and Holly both found it rather hilarious.
"Can I call Momma?" Holly asked excitedly as they settled in the car and Shikamaru triple-checked she had a seat-belt on. "Please, Daddy?"
"Sure," Shikamaru passed his phone back. "Here you go."
"Thanks."
Temari waited until Holly began talking to take Shikamaru's hand and let her lips go thin with stress as she threaded expertly through the early morning traffic.
"That bad?" He murmured.
"Kabuto may not be as brilliant as his master, but he's ten times more insane and has a vengeance issue," she whispered back. "I don't know how the dice will fall, but I have a bad feeling in my gut. I'm worried, Shika, really worried."
"Tell me more and I'll come up with something," Shikamaru urged quietly. The last time Temari had been 'really worried' they had spent six months hiding out in Cambodia from a gaggle of primitive gargoyles that only understood them in terms of 'prey'.
Temari smiled at him, running her thumb along his hand, grazing his wrist where her mark resided, linking them.
"Yeah!" Holly said from the back seat. "I'm really here! We're coming over now, we're only like a block away. Dad? Sure, hold on. He's right here."
Obviously, his daughter missed his subtle signs to lie and say he had nothing to with any of this from the solemn way she held out the phone to him and just stared as he drew his finger across his neck desperately.
Temari snickered.
Reluctantly, he took the phone, ready to pull it away from his ear at any moment. Ino could scream louder than any woman he had ever met in his life. Not even Temari screamed as loudly as she did, and his wife could make fog horns sound ant squeaks.
"Hello?" he asked.
"You brought my daughter to New York," Ino stated, voice flat.
"No," Shikamaru defended quickly. "She followed me."
"You allowed my daughter to follow you to New York."
Ah. It was going to be one of those talks. "Yes, I'm very sorry," he apologized humbly. "I didn't realize she would be able to hack my bank account."
"Don't pull that tone with me."
"Sorry."
"I can't believe you couldn't take better care of her! You are her father and you're in charge of her now, you can't just go haring off whenever you like just because you feel like it! You know what I should do is eviscerate you!"
The tongue lashing continued and, bored, Shikamaru held the phone away from his ear and discussed plan on how to take down Kabuto. Some of the suggestions Ino screamed were actually very helpful in planning his demise.
"We strike hard, fast, and first," Shikamaru summed up as they pull up in front of the flower shop with Ino's apartment stacked on top. She hung up on him, so Shikamaru assumed she was coming to yell at him in person. "If we can just figure out their location…"
Temari was staring off into the distance, paying very little attention to him, frowning. "Shika," she interrupted. "You know I love you, right?"
"Yes," he said slowly. "As I love you."
"I need you to take Holly and get out of the car, and I need you to do it now."
"Holly," Shikamaru prompted. "Get out of the car, and go to your mother."
Holly was white-faced and small in the back seat, staring between them slowly. "What about you Dad?"
"I'm staying with Temari."
"No," Temari snapped. "You're not. You'll get in my way."
"Forever," Shikamaru promised. He could see what had been worrying her now, a hulking beast of man loping toward them on all fours, sprouting much too much hair to be human. "Holly, go to your mom now."
"Daddy…"
"Now, Holly!"
Sniffling, Holly got out of the car and went to the shop, knocking on the door timidly. Shikamaru could see the light turn on in the back. Ino was coming for her.
"Well," he said mildly. "I'm glad we rented a good sized car."
"Me too," Temari snarled, revving the engine and clutching his hand in a hard grip. "Hang on."
With a squeal the car lurched forward, aimed straight at the slavering man-beast as it charged up the pavement. Shikamaru worked the gears for her as they accelerated, operating so smoothly together they might as well have been one person. The headlights flashed in the thing's eye, and Shikamaru was glad for his seat belt as the distance closed quickly. He braced himself for impact—
-and the thing leapt over the car and kept running, right back to where they had left Holly standing in front of the shop.
Swearing, Temari pulled the car into a U-turn so sharp they went up on one wheel, and they were heading back the way they had come ever faster than before, Shikamaru laying on the horn. He had seen large ears, small eyes, the thing relied on hearing. If he could cause enough noise…
"YOU GET AWAY FROM MY BABY!"
Ino's voice, and the thing reared back clutching at its ears and howling in agony as Ino grabbed her daughter and dragged her back into the safety of the shop. Temari didn't hesitate, taking the chance to ram the beast straight on.
The crash was deafening, and jolted Shikamaru forward and back so hard his neck cracked and he broke a finger. It would have been worse, if Temari's iron-hard arm hadn't been thrown in front of him. Her own head hit the steering wheel, blood running down her face to drip on her clean clothes. For a moment Shikamaru wasn't sure if the thing would fly or if the car would crumple, but with a snarl Temari pushed against the pedal even harder and all at once the beast was flying away, landing on the pavement hard and bouncing.
There was not even a consideration of mercy. Temari hit the gas pedal again, despite that there was now a crack in the windshield and the front of the car was badly dented. With a bump that nearly broke another finger, Temari ran over the thing. She braked, hit reverse, and did it again.
He didn't know how long Temari spent flattening the monster, but by the time she stopped there was blood forty feet down the road in both directions from the tires and the monster was unrecognizable except as a hairy, flattened mass clogging up the road.
"What was that?" Shikamaru asked hoarsely, wiping the blood from Temari's face. He ran his hands over her shoulders, her neck, her face, making sure she was alright, as she returned the favor. She growled when she found his broken finger, a feral light in her eyes.
"A half-beast," she said. "They can be forced temporarily into a human form, but their true nature is vicious. They're like a big dog, maybe, or a wolf, but they don't fall into the classification of a Were. They're killers, they don't know anything else, they don't want anything else, and they're annoyingly hard to kill."
"Good job," Shikamaru said fervently, and kissed her.
She pulled him closer, angling her chin and gripping the back of his neck. Her hands moved down his chest, and then tangled with his hands, mindful of his finger. Kissing Temari was like fire and spice, he had never been able to find anything else quite like it.
A prickle down his spine was his only warning, and then Temari was pulling away with a look of panic, shoving him back against the passenger side door, right before the world exploded in a haze of pain.
oOo
Ino loaded the shotgun quickly, pushing Holly's curious head back down behind the counter before she crept to the shop door. She wasn't sure what it had been that had tried to attack her daughter, but it was obvious Kabuto was keeping good on his promise to hurt her.
Of course, she hadn't been expecting a savior in the form of a Jeep ramming into the monster and then proceeding to run it over again and again until it stopped even the pretense of twitching.
After that, things had gotten quiet, and Ino had taken the chance to get the gun—unlicensed and extremely illegal—from her safe box behind the counter. She had a smaller gun there too—a hand-gun that was actually licensed—but she felt that this particular situation called for a brand of reasoning with just a little more… oomph.
There was a shattering noise, and when Ino looked out again the Jeep's windshield was shattered and another of those things was sitting on the upside down car, one huge hand tipped in claws like daggers reaching in and swiping blindly. Blood leaked from the windows, clear even in the spotty light of the streetlamps.
Shikamaru had been in that car.
"Stay here," Ino ordered, grabbing several more bullets and tucking them into her pockets. She would have put a few more between her teeth, but screaming had worked so well the first time…
"Mommy, I'm scared," Holly whispered, pressing herself back against the counter.
"I know, Honey, Momma's scared too," Ino whispered. "But everything will be fine. You just stay here, and wait for me."
Squaring her shoulders, Ino marched to the door and threw it open. She had been hiding in fear from Kabuto for too long, time to show the man that just because she wasn't a freak didn't mean she couldn't kick his butt any day of the week.
It felt good, doing something instead of hiding in the shadows like a scared rabbit. It felt right, it felt good, it felt…
Well, she didn't know anything else that felt like having a really big gun and marching out to pop caps in the face of a big ugly monster. But it was a good feeling.
"Hey!" Ino yelled as soon as she stepped out. The monster was still pawing at the car, making it shake and rattle. "You! Stupid! Yeah, I'm talkin' to you! Where'd you get that pathetic fur coat? A Walmart garbage bin?"
There was a pause long enough for a sharp intake of breath, to lock her knees, and squelch the little voice panicking that this was a bad idea—before the monster was charging at her.
Bang! Bang!
The recoil was strong, bruising her shoulder, but Ino didn't have time to worry about bruises. Already she was fumbling to reload—I should have spent more time in the stupid range. But you'd think the guys there had never seen a girl in a skirt before—and the thing was reeling with two bullets in its chest.
She dropped one of the bullets, and it went rolling away across the sidewalk, but the other snapped into place and Ino fired again, aiming for the heart. The monster staggered, blood matting its chest, howling in rage.
Ino yelled too, drowning out its roar with a soprano designed to cut through the noise of a football field during a touchdown. The thing whimpered, lying down on its belly and covering it ears with its hands pitifully. Ino took the time to reload, and, still holding her note, came close enough that she had a clear shot at the head.
Two bullets in the brain, and the head exploded; its whimpering cut off mid whine.
Ino stood for a moment over the body, breathing hard and wondering if she was ever going to be able to get all the blood out of her blouse. There was such an awful lot of blood…
The car shook, and Ino swung the gun around despite the fact that it no longer held any bullets. Glass crunched, and then Shikamaru was pulling himself out through the windshield, using the tortured steel frame to get leverage.
Ino hurried to help him, pulling him away from the wreckage. His face was all mottled bruises, with a black eyes and his lip bleeding. There was a knot on his head, and his ear was torn from his earring being ripped out. His leg was snapped out at an odd angle that made Ino dizzy.
"Are you okay?" Ino asked, carefully laying him away from the wreckage and letting his head rest on her lap. She should have been doing something, she knew that, but she couldn't remember what it was.
Her answer was a broken moan from Shikamaru's bloody mouth, his limp hand gesturing to the car.
"It's okay," Ino said. "I got it."
Shikamaru shook his head slightly. "Tema'," he whispered. "Tem…"
"Ten?" Ino asked confused. His voice was soft and ragged. She could barely hear him.
He tried again, but this time all she caught was a choked sob, and then he was unconscious.
Police, Ino realized. I need to call the police.
By the time she could hear sirens in the distance Holly had snuck out to join her, plastering herself against Ino's side. It was from Holly she learned what Shikamaru must have been trying to say, but one look at the car told her that there was no way Temari had survived the attack.
She pulled her daughter close, and prayed the sirens would hurry.
oOo
Neji sat in his supple leather recliner, feet propped on a thick ottoman. His laptop was balanced on his lap, eyes narrowed as he studied the picture on his screen. It was blurry, taken over seventy years ago, a grainy black and white that depicted a common day on a Rome street. It would never have interested him if not for the man in the background, turned in profile, smile wide and a clear space opened around him.
Rubbing a finger across his lips, he picked up his phone and dialed Hinata, frowning when it went immediately to her voicemail. Growling in frustration, he snapped his laptop closed and went to get his jacket.
If he was right, that man in the picture was not an ancestor of Naruto's, but Naruto himself, which could only mean Hinata had entangled herself with something she couldn't possibly understand. He didn't even understand it himself, couldn't imagine how it was even possible, but…
He tucked a switchblade into his pocket.
"Neji?" Carol called from the bedroom, and he swore to himself. She stepped out in a tiny bit of silk and lace, her long brown curls dangling over her shoulders and framing her pouting red lips. "Neji, aren't you coming to bed?"
"Something's come up," he said simply, grabbing his keys. "I don't know when I'll be back. Go home."
"But, Neji—!"
"Go home, Carol," Neji repeated firmly. Carol had been all but forced on him the last time he had visited his aunts, but she had held little interest for him anything outside of physical pleasure. Also, she was clingy. He didn't like clingy.
"Fine!" Carol snapped, stomping back to his bedroom in her five-hundred dollar heels. "But I'm not coming back."
"Thank the Gods above," Neji muttered, and hoped she would remember to lock the door on her way out.
It was a quick drive to Hinata's apartment, though he noted with annoyance that it was beginning to rain. Rain always made everything difficult, and he hated being wet.
Nodding to the doorman, Neji took the stairs to the third floor and then strode down the hall to Hinata's apartment. The door hung wide open, and he could hear voices inside, none of which sounded like Hinata. There was a scuffling sound from the other end of the hall, no doubt one of the other families fighting—snot-nosed brats and snarl-faced parents barking at each other over inconsequential details. Neji shook his head. Families.
He entered into the apartment without knocking, and had to restrain himself from flinching visibly when he saw Naruto sitting up woozily, rubbing at a spot of dried blood on his head, another man sitting back on his heels and watching him like he was ready to catch him if he so much as gave the impression he might fall over.
There was blood on the carpet, a lot of blood, more blood than there should have been if only Naruto had been bleeding.
"Where is Hinata?" Neji snapped, eyeing that blood. What had happened? Had Naruto lost his temper and hurt his cousin? If so, that switchblade was going to come very much in handy. "What have you done to her?"
"I don't know where Hinata is, but she's not hurt," Naruto said, voice slightly slurred. His eyes were dilated, and Neji wondered if those three scars on each cheek had been there the last time Neji had seen him. "Do you know where she is? I have to talk to her. I have to explain."
"Shh," Sasuke ordered firmly. He turned black eyes on Neji. "You're Neji Hyuuga?"
"I am. Who are you?"
"Sasuke Uchiha," he said. "What are you—?"
There was a buzzing sound from the hall, and the lights went dark out there, the only light in the apartment coming from the kitchen. Uchiha was looking past him, swearing, scooping up Naruto and moving him deeper into the living room. "Get away from the door!" He screamed.
But Neji did not move away from the door, he turned around just as black shadow without any seeming substance or form oozed through the doorway and slashed at Neji with a thin finger of darkness.
It was black ice spiraling down his spine, crackling lightning all through his body and doubling him up in agony. With a shout that seemed to last forever—Neji used his last few moments of movement to slam the door closed and flick on the hall light.
The shadow screamed in a high, thin keening, and dissipated. Neji collapsed in on himself, feeling nothing but pain so terrible he could not even scream.
He did not understand when Uchiha pulled him back from the door, flicking on lights everywhere he could, pulling a sword from his back and standing guard. He did not understand when he yelled as Naruto pulled himself over to Neji with a look of determination, laying a hand on his head.
"You're too weak to change him!" Uchiha snapped, slashing at another shadow squeezing itself under the door.
"He'll die," Naruto said simply.
Neji wanted to die. He wanted the pain to end, to be over forever.
"Hold on," Naruto ordered, and the world went white, and the pain did not end.
oOo
Tsunade sighed, stretching her arms above her head until they cracked. Nara was laid out on the table, clothing cut away and looking like a mummy with all the bandages wound around him. His wife lay next to him, but she had no bandages. She had been dead before Tsunade had even arrived on the scene, stomach slashed open and eyes staring. She would need to have the other woman moved before Nara woke up.
On another table a new member to their little group was carefully arranged, bandages wrapped around his head, his suddenly long hair trailing off the table. Naruto had said it had simply grown out the second the bond had been completed, and the man had still not woken. His eyes, when Tsunade had looked, had been bleached of both pupil and color.
There were others around the house, scattered on beds, couches, and cots. Kabuto had wasted no time in launching an attack after Orochimaru's demise, taking almost all of their people by surprise. Naruto had barely had any strength left to warn everyone.
Naruto! Tsunade thought, shaking her head as she walked into the living room and collapsed on the only chair left. That idiot. He makes a bond with Hinata, dies, makes a second bond with a dying human, and then still sends a message to all of his followers to be on guard.
The nut.
Fondly, Tsunade smoothed back the bangs from Naruto's face from where he was sprawled out over a couch, snoring. No one else could have ever done what he had managed to do tonight; no one had ever even tried. Making bonds with a human was difficult in the best of circumstances, and he had done it twice in one night. Bonds took more power to build than many wanted to believe. It changed a human, made them into a completely different being.
And Hinata was out there alone, not knowing what had happened to her, not knowing that the bond Naruto had created with her was deeper than she could imagine.
Bad night, Tsunade decided, digging out a bottle of whiskey from her bookcase. The death toll will probably rise, our leader is exhausted and will probably start going though withdrawal from his lady soon, and to top it off the stopper will not come out of my liquor!
"Here, let me," Ino said. The blond woman had been the biggest help tonight, finding places for people to sleep and even bullying Uchiha into a bed. She had stitched cuts, made food, and now as she wrestled the bottle open and took a long swig, Tsunade allowed herself to smile a little.
"Good job," she said.
"Thanks," she replied, sighing as she sat down on the floor, leaning against the chair and passing the bottle back to Tsunade. "You mind explaining all this stuff to me? I'm the only one here that seems to be out the loop. Monsters are real, I got that part."
Tsunade chuckled, a lethargy settling in as the alcohol burned the way down her throat.
"Sure. Here's the basics: there's an underground where all sorts of nasty things live, and some less nasty things. A couple thousand years ago a hierarchy was established that made all the People—everyone that's not humans—subject to nine different rulers. Those rulers can do things the rest of our kind cannot. They can make anyone do what they say for one through Orders—not something I'm a big fan of by the way—and even communicate mind-to-mind to thousands of the People at once. Naruto did that tonight, to warn everyone."
"Naruto is this great king?"
"Yeah, that's basically everyone's reaction. Then you get to know him and… snap. He has your loyalty to the ends of the earth."
"Does he have yours?"
"Sadly. Anyway, we've had a lot of different names over the years. There's a lot of different classifications, but the most common name for Naruto and Uchiha are demons. Sometimes djinn, but they're… they're not like Christian demons. More like Japanese, tricky and with weird powers. I technically fall under that category too."
"Awesome," Ino said, and took another long sip of whiskey.
"Yeah," Tsunade agreed. "Try living with it. Anyway, each king has this special someone, their eternal companion, and Hinata was Naruto's."
"Uh-huh…"
"He formed a bond with her to try to convince her to stay or something, but she brained him."
"What's a bond?" Ino slurred, resting her head against Tsunade's leg. Tsunade wondered where Ino's kid was, but a glance at the clock showed the kid was likely passed out under a table.
"Didn't I already talk about that?"
Ino yawned, shrugging. "I don't remember."
"Sleep," Tsunade ordered quietly, closing the bottle and putting it away. She leaned her head back, the alcohol making her head swirl, and closed her eyes.
Everything would be better in the morning. It had to be.
oOo
Author's Notes: Please review!