Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the characters and pretty much everything else is aaaaall Masashi Kishimoto! Cant believe I forgot these disclaimers...

A/N: Another overhaul, finished 31st Oct 2013, I think the site isn't loading all the lines, however...

Chapter 3

Tenten and Sasuke whipped through black, angry foliage as the glaring moon hung heavy in the hazy ink clouds.

She couldn't read the shinobi, not like she ever could or had even tried before. But something was different. In between quick glances, there was a certain despair shadowing around the onyx eyes that swallowed the silvery light cast upon them. His lips couldn't quite contain a slight quiver.

Thoughts snapped at her as the moonlight loomed upon his solemn features. 'A shinobi such as Sasuke-san should've been better at hiding emotion by now,' she acknowledged, her mind ablaze with silent questions,

'why was she going to the old Namikaze shrine? What were the old team seven doing there that affected every ninja within the Hollow? Why were they all preparing to flee towards a mountain range between the Wind and Fire countries? '

Sasuke looked forwards and clicked the dead faced mask back on. Huge silver white walls towered defiantly in front of them. Despite being able to clear them with ease, they stood tall and intimidating, brashly flashing silver against the creeping shadows around.

Tenten felt a silent shudder tingle up her spine. Never would she have had thought she would react like this to Konoha, as it lay before her lifeless and dead. Stained pathways bled silver light as mourning buildings, once lively shops and bars, stood huddled and defeated, sporting injuries from the forgotten battle. Glittering smashed glass, shadowy holes and charred black burns riddled the rooftops and faces of each scarred location.

Nor did she ever dream of returning without an army behind her after that day.

Nerves began to bite at her thumping chest as the pair slinked behind a pair of watchful shinobi.

Cutting through the village to reach the Namikaze shrine north was a deathwish but Sasuke didn't give her an option. Her fluttering stomach couldn't settle among the deathly silence of the village, an invisible air of death and suppression smothered her senses as she struggled to evade the fluttering patrols.

They shadowed a patrol, tracing their silent steps, before clearing another wall to escape the villages dying clutches.

'Movement!'

Sasuke snatched her hand. Her face lashed against swarming leaves. Traitorous light swamped them as they flew through cackling branches. Kunai zipped past, thunking into solid trunks. Tenten's feet touched wood. Sasuke's clutch released. Spinning, they clashed with the ROOT-nin.

Tenten lashed forwards, spurting chakra into her foot. It bit into a whirling cloak. With a painful twist, a hand contorted her ankle. Savage metal claws buried deep into her flesh and sent her crashing into the cold ground 30 feet below. With a snarl, she veered back around, into a feral crouch. Her spine tingling in agony, she felt for cold, familiar handles of steel at her sides, snaking chains uncoiled from around her thighs. The kama blazed in the cruel moonlight, glittering chains beneath the sickles tingled with anticipation. The clawed shinobi swooped upon her. She recognised him from the massacre. Tine for revenge.

'Kama technique: Chain storm!' She exploded, whirling, glittering chains spiralled at the shinobi above.

Chains tore at his limbs. Wind screamed at his masked face. The earth below blurred, a smashing force brought him flying down. Tenten sprung. The shinobi bombed towards her, latched onto her chains. The Kama whizzed, she sliced forth, snapping through bone. A warm black haze polluted the crisp night air, smattering her skin. Her lungs tasted the iron stench of it. The shinobi crouched deathly still behind her before shuddering and slumping. A round object rolled merrily along the floor, leaving a murky, black trail in its wake.

'Bout' time, Tenten...' Sniggered a voice. Pain lashed at her ankle and spat up her spine. Biting at her lip she looked upwards. Sasuke carried three bodies stacked upon his shoulders.

'The Namikaze shrines just up here, Sakura'll fix you up after-'

'-after what?' Tenten enquired hotly.

Sasuke's head dropped a slight angle as he touched down on the floor next to her, '-nothing...'He shuddered, 'just whatever you do, keep Hinata safe after this, we will all have to, we owe Naruto that much.' He turned away to face a discreet stone monument buried within splintered planks in the distance.

'You wait outside, I'll need you to keep watch,' he murmured. A flash of exasperated frustration flitted across Tenten's lips, she opened her mouth to argu-

'-Tenten, be safe. Please.' His voice shuddered with authority and yet, a stark concern. His blazing red eyes caught her stare with a powerful intensity as he came a bit closer than usual. She wanted to argue back, she wasn't weak and to hell with being ordered around by the baka who dragged them through Konoha. Yet she just couldn't argue her point, his stare was irresistibly dominating. His proximity made her want to place her palm on his chest before he closed in... She blushed a little before the shinobi dispersed in to a cold vortex of shrivelled leaves. Tenten shook her head angrily. Thoughts of Neji trickled back into her mind as a stinging corrosive acid.

'Damn Uchiha-san and his freaky genjutsu.' She seethed angrily before crouching in to a ready position amongst some foliage. Her skin crawled in the cold night air as the chilled blood from the clawed shinobi began to bite at her exposed flesh. That, and Sasuke's behaviour. She allowed herself to shudder a little.

…'Kakashi-sensei?' She questioned, 'How long have we got? We still need Sasuke-kun, she's getting too cold.'…

…'Just in time then.' A reply emitted from a muted yet powerfully confident voice, strung high with authority. Hinata caught an air of nervousness and despair tied up in it. 'An hour or two before he catches on and the hunter-nin arrive, everyone who's left is in position outside or in the field'…

…'Snake… Boar… Ram… Rabbit... Dog… Rat… Bird… Horse… Snake!'…

…'Two summoners? What are they planning?' mused the corpse of a god before Naruto and Sasuke clapped, cracking a thin lipless grin from him, dagger teeth sunk into his tantō, their fates sealed…

An eerie breeze swirled across the room as Naruto calmly stepped forwards. He walked past Sakura and stood behind Hinata. He messed with a clasp at his neck and allowed the black ROOT cloak to slide off, to reveal his bare torso. The cloak dropped like a stone in the dead room. Naruto too, was covered in complex seals painted from his own blood. A melancholic, undecipherable chanting emitted from the god before the two.

Naruto undid the blood soaked bounds from around Hinata's wrists and gently pushed a hand under her shoulder blades. Her arms fell limp and numbed, relief swarmed inside her as the limbs began to move again. His warm hands sent tingles along her skin, soothing the cold but stirring up the searing pain along her grated flesh. Raising the stiff and grazed kunoichi in to a seated position, he slid in behind her and sat upon the stone.

Allowing his chin to rest upon her shoulder, he pressed his bare chest firmly in to her shuddering back and inhaled. A hint of lavender fought off the slight hint of sweat. Her hair was cool and pleasant to the touch, fine and silky. Her skin, though she must've been freezing, was cool and maddeningly irresistible as he touched her neck with a light kiss and exhaled deeply.

His warm breath slid down her spine, scattering soothing signals along her aching back. She dipped her face inwards and brushed her lips along his cheek. She felt tickling shivers quake along her sides as his nimble hands playfully slid down her ribs and settled at her waist. She desperately hoped for him to pull her into a tight embrace, to feel the warmth, the closeness, the desire for just one more time. A deep, humming sadness lurched around in her beating chest, a visible shudder travelled down her freezing body and a stray tear slid silently down her face.

The seal on her needed to be visible, until the god began working. Despite the soothing, familiar warmth emanating from her man pressed up close behind her, she couldn't help but feel like a painfully saddened target for the undead god before them.

'Shinigami-sama,' Sasuke began, pretending not to observe the spectacle of closeness the two in front were extruding. His fingers trembled at the prospect of them being separated but this was the only way, in the time they had left.

Naruto had made sure that there was no other options to pursue and he wouldn't allow Sasuke just to die for them. That had been that.

Sasuke slid off his own shadowy cloak to reveal the original Shiki Fūjin painted in Naruto's blood from earlier. By some miracle, none of it had flaked off during earlier events.

'Your seal has been altered,' he continued, his voice commanding and unwavering. He knew better than to show superior powers any form of weakness. 'I am to be your first conduit, you take half my soul from me.'

He turned away as the chanting slowed to a stop. The room filled with blank light as a set of prayer beads began to spiral and glow around the corpse's shrivelled forearm. Six orbs blazed an ominous grey halo around the figure. The god was ready as a curse mark snaked up his arm. He plunged it forwards.

Sasuke summoned every painful, evil thought he had ever had.

A distraught boy slumped in a pool of black blood as his parents lay twisted across each other before him. Vengeance. A raging purple chakra and a sea of blazing orange curse marks blared along his raging skin. Bloodlust. A long haired shinobi, white pale skin, licking his lips with an impossibly endless tongue. Power. He stood in black next to others. The room hung heavy with genjutsu. Lee, Ino, Choji and Naruto stood with him. He could see their eyes, lifeless and matte. Burning orange chakra set his mind ablaze as the jutsu were dispelled one after another, after another. He and Naruto winced and dropped to their knees. The others lay crumpled on the stone beneath. Helplessness.

A cold spike plunged through Sasuke. Chilling him to his shuddering bones, the shinobi's breath froze in his throat before he could exhale. He quivered, fighting against his relenting knees to stay standing. The images swirled and evaporated as an icy spectral arm pierced through his back, clutching and grasping inside with ravenous, feral fingernails.

Shinigami thought about the task at hand. Eating different parts of different souls would require them to be split. He thought about the two chakra's that govern mortals. Yin chakra relates to one's spiritual energy and imagination whereas yang chakra relates to one's physical energy, their vitality.

Completely draining the yin chakra would destroy their mind, whereas removing parts of it would damage parts of their memories. It could change who they were. Yang chakra was more dangerous. Removing all of it would kill them. Removing parts of it could produce tonnes of effects. It could age them or do the opposite. Heck, it could simply weaken them or simply just effect their will to live and/ or survive.

Shinigami's arm felt for the soul within the shinobi, wondering how they would show him what parts of the souls they wished to sacrifice.

'An Uchiha sacrificing large amount of yin chakra. Interesting.' The god thought.

The boy was focussing on one part of his soul, he could feel the purple yin chakra, the mortal's memories and energy pulse through it,

'tart, bitter yin chakra...a sharp tasting soul indeed!' The god grinned with malice. But he knew the feast, and fun, were just beginning. This mortal before him hadn't had it easy. The torturous, desperate and hateful memories of life affected the soul, generating bitter yin chakra. Shinigami licked his lips at the prospect of a perfectly balanced meal as he looked forwards. Single souls were always unbalanced.

'I need to focus for the next pass!' Sasuke commanded within himself, his teeth gritted, Shinigami-sama hadn't taken enough yet..

Two more images clouded his mind. The hate hadn't quite gone.

Blue lightning. A blonde lay underneath him, slowly sinking into the water below. Infinite surges of blood spurted from a raging wound tore out of his stomach, the boy was smiling. A long haired shinobi, drew closer, red chakra blared around him in a huge veil. He mouthed some words silently, two streams of blood cascaded from his mouth. He raised two fingers and prodded Sasuke's forehead with them, before slumping into the wall behind him. Leaving a wet trail down Sasuke's face. Shameful regret.

A hand extended. With a flash, it plunged through Hinata and reached Naruto. Hinata's eyes snapped open. Already cold, her insides turned to ice as the hand pierced her stomach. A lurching, spiralling warmth clashed against the cold in her stomach, before falling deathly cold.

Surges of panic hummed at her chest as she felt the tiny fire within turn to ice. The waves overcame her thumping heart and steeled resolve. Thoughts screamed at her mind as she imagined the life within diminishing in ice and dying.

Twisting, contorting and thrashing, an angry growl roared from her raw throat as her maternal instincts shredded her sense. Warm arms flung around and clutched her chest, restricting her thrashing and pinning her closer to the safety of the father behind her. Harrowing sobs echoed from her stinging lungs as she fought, unable to escape. The seals on her exposed flesh began to illuminate.

Naruto clutched her tightly as his mind fogged over, his chest heated with aggressive love for his pained partner pinned within his hold. Ice forced its way into his chest as his bright eyes numbed into shadowy matte blue.

The day Iruka-sensei smiled and handed him his hitai-ite, the day he went on a mission with his sensei and comrades, the trials of the chunnin exam, his face inches away from the rouge coloured hair of another Jinchuriki. Jiraya-sensei, his training, the Rasengan, the father he never had. Tsunade-sama beamed at him, a crystal necklace strung around his neck, meeting both of his parents within his mind, the proud respect in the eyes of villagers that once stared at him with hate on the day that Nagato-san fell. Meeting Killer B-sama, overcoming the dark side of himself and befriending Kurama. Locking with the Uchiha god, Sasuke-teme finally turning back to them and fighting alongside the kage. The pair stood above the defeated god, turning to see Kakashi-sensei drive blue lightning through Obito-san. His first date with Hinata-chan, the way she blushed and hummed with an awkward air, returning back to the unconfident girl everyone had forgotten the woman once was. Those heated, screaming nights as they thrashed, scratched and fought in ecstasy. The time Kurama and he pranked Sasuke-teme…

Shinigami clutched at this perfectly pure, truly yang chakra imbued, crystal-blue soul. His growling hunger for it must be sated. He scratched off a few dark bits gathering beneath it, noticing how an orange chakra was burning away at it and gripped it tightly. Not enough yin chakra had come off the other soul to balance the meal, yet hunger took over.

He pulled backwards, ravenous for the soul mixture. Suddenly, his hand lurched downwards, as the seals on the kunoichi's body between them glowed. His prying fingers found a recognisable, orange fire in the stomach of the concealed shinobi.

'Kurama...' Shinigami seethed. 'So, I see. An extraction. From the shinobi to the kunoich-'

'-No, you fool, I am to be placed inside the child within her.' A snarling voice boomed inside the god's mind,

'I'd do this fast too. It appears to me that the child is dying under your wretched temperature. Do you think they'll allow you their souls if you kill my next unborn container?'

'Very well…' The god cackled, 'and do not think that you will not be punished for your disrespect, beast.'

The hand withdrew sharply from Naruto as a tiny mist left his shuddering lips, with it, a gleaming blue light, a murky purple one and a huge stream of blazing orange followed.

Hinata felt a huge surge of rising, fiery heat torch her insides as the cold pulled through her. In an instant, she froze back over. Shuddering, she winced as she felt the tiny energy within her stomach relight and swirl into an overbearing maelstrom of ignited, panicked heat.

Shinigami cursed as he diverted the huge stream of orange in to the relative pinprick of a target. He had let slip a sliver of the perfectly delectable blue soul, which had seemed somewhat attached to the orange. Oddly enough, still too much yang chakra remained. This blonde was some mortal, his vitality was ridiculous, Shinigami hadn't even managed to tear out all of his yang chakra in his soul. If these mortals wanted the blonde dead, they were in for a shock.

'No, matter.' He seethed, grinning with spiked teeth as he realised what he'd do to Kurama, 'Prepare to suffer, fox!' He clutched on to a miniscule part of the orange stream and kept it back, mixing more of the foxe's yin and yang chakra into the colourful soul mixture swirling in his palm. He pulled his arm out of the stomach of the kunoichi.

Greed reverberated within him as he pulled through Sasuke. He had lost some of blonde's yang chakra within the child and hadn't been able to remove all of it from him anyway. Despite this, the blue soul completely drowned the other souls in it's yang chakra, sweetening the mixture somewhat. The blonde must've had power over the fox and the Uchiha over in his lifetime. He felt for some more yin chakra within the Uchiha's soul, more of it reverberated purple. Shinigami licked his lips as he cursed himself for being too quick to leave this mortal's soul. Scratching away at the purple, the satisfied god drew back his hand and greedily glomped at the energised souls humming within his hand. He had made his souls slightly sweet again.

The atmosphere brightened in the gloomy room as Kakashi and Sakura darted forwards to catch the crumpling Uchiha.

Sasuke's chest heaved as he looked up to see Hinata slump backwards over an unmoving Naruto.

'-I'm dead to you the second we do this, Sasuke. You need to understand. I'll be a danger to you, to Hina-chan, to the baby'

Wracking, silent sobs beat at the inside of his chest for his brother before him. Pain twisted inside his stomach as he searched his memories to compare this too. To blame this on. Every bad image since the massacre flooded his mind, yet no pain came. No anger or hurt. He could see everything, hear everything, as clearly as the day it occurred, there was just no reaction inside when he relived them.

'I can save your mind, Sasuke.' Naruto's eyes closed as he grinned.

Naruto-dobe hadn't wanted to remove his memories, just to tear out the pained part of Sasuke's soul, the parts of his yin chakra that had governed his bad memories, and the pain that was created from it. Tears began to stream down Sasuke's cheeks as he finally caught on to the unclear description of Naruto's 'gift' to him.

He could clearly remember everything Danzō had inflicted on them in his lessons, the genjutsu of rabid fingers tearing at his mind and eyes, the severe beatings his comrades had received and the state of lifelessness the 'successful' ROOT graduates had carried. It didn't affect him.

A shuddering clump lay on the stone before the three. Hinata had spun round, her legs twisted by the single bound holding her ankles together. Still caught in a loose embrace from the vegetated shinobi beneath, despairing sobs and wails had overcome her searing stomach, aching heart and frozen, torn muscles. Naruto lay beneath her, immobile. Dead blue eyes bore skywards as his face hung with a calm, unmoving expression. Tears, saliva and raw heat escaped Hinata's face, uncaring of her appearance as she angrily shook the shinobi to wake.

Sasuke was raised upwards by his remaining comrades both sending him a curt, saddened nod. Sakura's features looked ready to break, her emerald eyes quivered and watered and her lips looked shaky. As she turned her head away, hiding her face behind rose strands of hair, a slight sob emitted from her. Kakashi's black eye swallowed any light that struck his shadowed face as his head dipped a little. Even his savage bush of silver hair looked a little limp and dull.

Naruto had told them all before what would happen. What Sasuke would need to do.

'-I'm dead to you the second we do this, Sasuke.'

An explosion outside shook the cavern. Stifled shouts echoed around the walls.

'Tenten!' Snapped Sasuke, panic gurgled within his outburst.

'Kakashi-sensei! Sakura! Take Hinata! We need to go, now!'

Hinata looked ready to shred the two as they closed in. The fight left her though, remembering Naruto's words and what the baby within her now meant. It meant what Naruto had meant to every remaining ninja. Hope. Part of Naruto still remained within her, the others needed to know he hadn't left them. Should Naruto somehow survive, it wouldn't be him at all. Though this was best left a secret.

She turned to face Naruto's featureless face and forced a trembling smile. She reached for her jacket down the side of the stone and drew two pieces of paper. A photo and a note. Kissing them, then leaning in, she mouthed silent words before leaving a damp, tear stricken kiss on Naruto's lips. The ankle bounds were cut. She allowed herself to be raised shakily, then taken by Kakashi and Sakura before passing out.

Sasuke trembled as he clicked his cloak back in to place. Goosebumps speckled his arms and shoulders and defined muscles shuddered in the biting cold. He felt severely weak after losing a lot of his soul as he shakily drew his chokutū.

He felt belittled and young in the overwhelming presence of his friend lying before him.

The sacrifice Naruto had given to save him and pass on hope for everyone else was an act of a Kage, a Kage he had never become. Sasuke tightened trembling fists around the leather hilt as he raised his blade high above his head. His stomach shuddered and his heartstrings twanged with conscience as he remembered a time when he would have wished to do this.

'Goodbye, otōto-kun…' He choked.

A resonating sound of steel clashing with bloodied stone echoed around the sombre, mourning walls.

A/N: LINES! I'VE LEARNED HOW TO USE LINES! Sorry for the short chapter.. Just like chapter 2, this was meant to be little more than a paragraph attached to what I'm now planning will be chapter 4. I apologise for the fact this story isn't really going anywhere at the minute. That should be fixed in the next chapter. As always, check my profile if interested, I keep regular logs on this story and maybe more if I get to writing. Thanks for the views/ follows, shout out to Voyna, who managed to accidentally attack my masculinity -before I read the rest of the review!- ;) Thanks for your ongoing support, Taku94 out.