Chapter 5 Family Part 1

The sun was just rising over the small island, which was the main home for the demon races; the already sparely populated island was almost totally abounded since most of the citizens where out on the mission that they had been planning almost a lifetime on. The smell of freshly fried bacon and fresh homemade bread filled the large kitchen as Kushina Uzumaki Namikaze worked off her worries the best way she knew how, by cooking.

Just outside the kitchen watching her mother at work was Meiko, who like her father was more than happy to eat whatever her mother placed in front of her but she also knew that her mother was stressed. This morning they where not alone as Utakata and Hotaru joined them in around the table.

"Thank you Mrs. Namikaze." said Utakata as a plate of freshly roasted small fish was placed in front of him. Fish wasn't really a breakfast food but it was what he wanted and Kushina was more than happy to make it.

"No problem, this is the only way I can stay calm at the moment, if I am not cooking I would be pulling my hair out right now." explained Kushina as she looked toward her husband who was reading the report about their son fifth time in the hour. The demons had always been kind enough to give them photos of Naruto as he grew and even some of the reports about his combat skills. Still it was not the same as holding her son but that was the nearest they had for today at least. A stale post mission report wasn't the same as being with their son and Kakashi who had to write most of the reports wrote as very little as possible to avoid the work.

"So how does this work?" inquired Hotaru as everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

"They will come for us but not Utakata and turn us whenever they think the time is right," explained Minato "I don't know how they do it fully, they never told us and Rin doesn't remember when she was turn."

"Where will they take Utakata?" inquired Hotaru

"The same place they took me." Explained a new voice as everyone looked to see Yugito Nii standing in the open sliding door. "Sorry decided to let myself in."

"No problem we are neighbors." confirmed Kushina as she looked at the woman, nothing seemed to have changed aside from the fact that she now wore ninja gears and even had a weapon's pouch.

"They turned you didn't they?" inquired Minato as Yugito Nii nodded her head.

"Well show us." said Meiko almost exited as Yugito began to change, her face pushed out a little into a small muzzle, her lips changed a bit as fur began to grow around her face, it was strange it took on a blue tone as even her pony tail turned blue, there was black strips in the fur. Large pointy ears appeared on the top of her head as a long tail appeared behind her. She also appeared slightly taller and skinner as if she was more fexable.

"So you're a Bakeneko." said Utakata as the now feline demon Yugito nodded her head before moving to study her hands, her hands where now covered with soft pads and with just a thought sharp claws would appear from where her nails used to be. "Not that surprising."

"What did surprise them is that my fur turned blue, maybe it was because Matatabi's fur was blue and I absorbed her chakra when I turned." explained Yugito "That is what the higher ups here believe anyhow."

"I still don't fully understand how they know what people will likely turn into if we are the human humans they ever had?" inquired Hotaru

"You haven't been the only humans to be here," explained a new voice as a demon dressed in a flowing robe came forward behind Yugito "We have had humans turned before mostly either as part of our work or when a human falls in love with a one of our kind."

"Wait, how could humans fall in love with your kind if you don't leave the island?" inquired Meiko confused.

Minato lowered his head, he and Kushina had hidden a few things about their captures from their daughter. One of those was that in the first few years that they were here the demons had taken a few cargo ships and used the humans on it to test versions of their virus. The nations of the world chalked the lost of the ships to storms and moved on.

"A small group of our kind live outside the island as spies and special forces operators, in fact we have some in your parent's former village, how else could we get all the information we have." explained the demon before turning at Hotaru. "It is time; your mate may come as well to be with you but he will not change until his time. Namikaze clan your turn will be in the evening until then rest."

In the Leaf village, Sakura opened her eyes and for a brief moment, she thought she was back in her own bed and that at any moment her mother would be yelling at her to get up and come down to breakfast, then she saw the other bunkbed and she remembered where she was. She sat up almost hitting her head on the other bed. She rubbed some sleep from her eyes as she looked around the sleeping quarters; there was twelve bunkbeds in two rows of six. Originally, it was built to give medical personal a place to get a quick nap if they had a long shift. Now it was where multiple doctors and nurses called home, they shared the beds so once Sakura left another person would take the bed. She scanned the bunks still full with sleeping doctors and medical ninjas. She grabbed her small personal bag and headed to the showers.

After a quick shower to she dressed and did what she could to make herself presentable, as she walked out of the dorm there was already another nurse sleeping in the bed she had emptied. She closed the door behind her and moved up the stairs toward the cafeteria where she could get a hot meal.

She walked into the cafeteria only to find her best friend Ino Yamanaka sitting at one of the side tables with her back against the wall. Her blue eyes where glazed over and she had not touched the small portion of soup which sat in front of her. In truth, the soup was more water with some old broth mixed in than anything else was, if a person was lucky they might get some meat or maybe a noddle. Judging from the bowl Ino had gotten neither.

"Ino are you alright?" inquired Sakura

"Oh…sorry forehead." said Ino as she rubbed her eyes.

"We lost him didn't we?" inquired Sakura as Ino nodded her head.

Flashback

The sound of labored breathing filled the air adding to the heartbeat monitor which was slowly beeping marking each beat of the young man's heart. Lying in one of the private rooms of the hospital was Choji Akimichi, the 17-year-old member of team Asuma earned a private room for two major reasons. First as the elder son of one of the most powerful clans in the Leaf it was expected and second as a sign of respect by Tsunade to her student Ino who now held her childhood friend's hand. Standing behind her looking at his dying lifelong friend was the other member of team Asuma and the final part of Ino-Shika-Cho, Shikamaru Nara.

"Choji don't worry your pull through this." reassured Ino through her tears as she looked at the state of her friend. He was hard to look at, he had entered what the medical core called phase 3 of the sickness and it was both a gift and curse. The gift of it was that you had some more time to live unlike those who just flat out died in phase 1 or 2. The trade was that unless you had a lot of pain medicines you were a great deal of pain. So far, only one person had recovered from phase 3 and it did not look like Choji was going to be the second.

"Nice try Ino." coughed Choji as Ino gripped his hand harder trying not to notice that the skin on his hand was coming off on her glove. They both had full oxygen masks on even though they had both made it through their own fight with this sickness in the first wave. Every one of the Konoha 11 had gotten sick when the flue first came to the Leaf the only three which hadn't was Naruto, Shino and Choji. Naruto had it now and Choji was in this state, Shino had somehow remained uninfected "My parents are dead, most of my clan is already dead and most of the village is dying."

"You are not going to die from this," ordered Ino as Choji turned his eyes toward his best friend.

"Looks like I will not be able to see you get with Temari." said Choji with a laugh as he rolled a bit in his bed; the sheet was covered with blood. They had tried to wrap the wounds but since all the skin started peeling in phase three and the boils started popping they would have to wrap the whole body. They had even tried that but the blood had soaked through the wrappings anyhow.

"Choji, I am not dating that troublesome woman," laughed Shikamaru before adding, "I am not even sure if she is alive, the whole world is dying and we have had no contact with them."

"Life always comes back," said Choji as he remembered something "My mom told me that once, life changes but it always comes back."

That was when the heart monitor began beeping a warning sign as Choji began to shake violently and blood began pouring out of his mouth. Choji turned his eyes toward a small shot attached to his IV bag. His eyes remained locked on it even as his body began to shake even more. All three of them knew what was in that shot and what Choji was saying with his eyes. Shikamaru lowered his head again as he put his hand on the plunger.

"Goodbye, my friend." said Shikamaru as he moved to push the plunger which would introduce a deadly dose of pain medicine into his friend's body. As he pushed it another hand joined his, he looked to see Ino had placed her hand on it as well, she looked back at Choji.

"Be at peace, Choji." cried Ino as she and Shikamaru pushed the plunger down ending the life of their teammate.

End Flashback

"I am so sorry," said Sakura

"Shikamaru and I threw him on the fire ourselves, our own teammate, our friend. When we were kids we used to spend days playing with each other while our parents where at work." said Ino close to tears, she wanted so much to cry but she knew that he would have wanted her to focus on saving others. "Tell me something forehead, you're working in research into this thing do we have any idea why some live while others die?"

Sakura lowered her head in shame. It was the most confusing thing that the medical core had ever seen. From a high-level view, it would appear that people with either a higher level of chakra or more chakra control had a better rate of making it, if 7 out of 10 dead was better. Some people with very high chakra levels died while others did not. Then there was the fact that some people did not even get sick even if the whole household got sick. There were cases where a husband or a wife would not get it even though they had shared a bed with someone who died.

"You still have no idea?" inquired Ino as she read her friend's face.

"We thought that it had something to do with chakra level since there seems to be a higher rate of people surviving this when they have higher chakra but then Lee survived and we all know he doesn't have much chakra." explained Sakura. Both of them knew that Lee had come down with a level three infection and had somehow made it out alive. He still could not move or speak on his own but his eyes where open and he could nod a yes or no. "It was our best working theory until Lee lived."

"Are you saying you wished Lee died?" inquired Ino as Sakura shook her head. She would never say that, Lee was her friend even though he drove her up the wall.

"No, I would never say that but from a medical point of view it is the outlier which we can't explain and it is causing a lot of headaches," explained Sakura as she stood up. "I am sorry Ino but I need to go get something to eat before I head into the lab."

Ino nodded her head, before turning back to her small portion of food.

If there was any spot worst in the Leaf village, it was on the outer most wall. Being the first line of defense from any attacking force, it was the highest and the strongest however; that height gave the few ninjas stationed here a view of what happened to their city. Whole parts of the village where without a single sign of life aside from the smoke rising from the fires which burned the countless number of dead bodies.

"They say that the virus can't make it through the fire," said an 18-year-old chunin Tenten, she and a hand full of others were stationed here for two main reasons. First, in case someone tried to launch an attack which wasn't expected to happen since the whole world was dying but it had to be taken care of. The main reason was to make sure the gates remained sealed from the refugees, which had come to the Leaf seeking a cure. In the beginning when there only a handful Tsunade and the village tried to help them but that soon became a flood.

The council decided the seal the gates and Tsunade had agreed however if the stories where true she was cursing as she did. That did not stop people from coming and they were now camped outside the wall, those who were still alive that is. Most had died and those who had made it through had headed as far away from the mass grave forming under the shadow of the Leaf's wall.

"Nothing else that could really be done." stated Tenten's teammate Neji Hyuga as the two of them walked around the wall together. Neither one of them wanted to look down at the mass of dead bodies, which formed a sort of moat around the Leaf. They also did not want to look at the fires, which were coming from the village itself. "The bodies have to be removed and it is the only way to do it. There are just too many to bury."

"Sometimes I think these are the end times." admitted Tenten as she gazed out over the frost which surrounded the Leaf, the tree line was about a quarter of a mile away from the walls now since people had cut the trees down for firewood.

"Could be." admitted Neji as he activated his clan bloodline visual justu the byakugan. With his ability, Neji could see everything within miles and what he saw worried him almost as much as the virus. Beside Tenten there was not another ninja in visual range on the wall. There were only twenty-six of them to patrol the entire outer wall of the village a job that normally required hundreds of ninjas. "We need more people to hold the wall."

"Neji last we heard this was in every nation, no one has time to wage war on anyone." countered Tenten as the two of them kept walking around the wall.

Unknown to the few defenders on the outer wall the real threat was already inside the village. Unlike most people in the leaf at moment, the young woman sitting in the basement of her father's shop was perfectly happy. She was cutting up some carrots before dropping them into the boiling pot of soup, there was actual beef and different kinds of fresh vegetables things that are unheard of in the rest of the village. She reached up and put some more salt on the soup, then behind her the bare concreate wall moved out as three figures moved out from a hidden tunnel.

"You're a little early," said the young woman as she tasted her soup, "Still needs some more time."

"Is that all you're going to say to me?" inquired Keiji with a grin as she stood there with her hands on her hips, her insect like wings behind her back.

"Well, why not?" inquired the woman as she looked at Raitaro who was still as stern face as the last time she saw him and there was another with them as well. She appeared human with purple marks on her cheeks. "You must be Rin."

"You have me at a disadvantage, who are you and where are we?" inquired Rin

"My name is Ayame and you're below my father's restaurant Ramen Ichiraku," explained Ayame as the brown haired woman turned back to her soup. "So command has sent you I am assuming?"

"Yes, we don't have much time do you have any information for us that we don't already know?" inquired Raitaro

"Not really." said Ayame as she pulled on her small necklace, at once her body began to change. She grew an inch or two in height, her brown hair remained brown but became a more tree bark color and her hands became more delicate. Lastly, two insect like wings sprung from her back. "You would think after living most of my life here I would be upset about everything we had to do to set this up, but it has to be done."

"Oh Ayame-chan it is so good to see you like that." Purred Keiji as Ayame blushed a bit as the two female Yoseis shared a loving glance.

"So you are the one," snapped Rin as Ayame turned her gaze toward the former human. "The one which they threated Minato-sensei and Kushina with."

Flashback

"There is nothing they can do to stop us from leaving!" yelled Minato at the top of his lungs as the 4th Hokage of the hidden leaf stood before Rin. "I can disable Kushina-chan and my own bomb and we can make it back to the Leaf. They can't keep us here."

"Our son will not grow up without his parent's there!" snapped Kushina who was still weak from childbirth.

"Sensei I would be with you…" started Rin

"Then why aren't you?" snapped Kushina with more anger then Rin had ever seen before. "I mean it is great that you're still alive but we can't stay here and neither should you."

"None of us have a choice," explained Rin as she took a breath her heart breaking but she had to say it. "They told me that they have spies in the Leaf and if they get a radio message that you escape your son will die before you could get to him."

"No, they wouldn't hurt a child," said Kushina her eyes widened in fear of the possibly harm to her son.

"I don't know what they are capable of but it is a lot." explained Rin "I am sorry but if you want your son to you will have to stay here until they want you to leave."

Kushina did not say another word as she broke into tears and held her husband close, crying her son's name between sobs.

"I am so sorry sensei," said Rin as she lowered her head in shame.

"Why can't you help us?" inquired Minato with more pain in his voice then Rin had ever heard. This strong man who had stood up against the horrors of the last war. Rin as she touched her chest right above her heart, before pulling out some pills and took them.

"I am just as trapped as you are sensie, only the way they control me is internally," explained Rin

End Flashback

"Oh your talking about our other mission." said Ayame with a shrug. "In truth the two Namikaze's should be thanking my father because if it wasn't for him then their son would have died of starvation because of how the village treats him. True at any moment he was ready to drop a poison in his food but still they should thank him."

"Can we move on?" inquired Raitaro

"As much as I hate to agree with him, I think we should because the sooner we get this done the sooner you and I can be together Ayame-chan," said Keiji

"I can't wait Keiji-chan," confirmed Ayame with a smile "It will be great to fly around with you like we don on my vacations back to the island."

"This isn't moving on," countered Raitaro "Do you have it?"

"No but another spy does and she will meet you here." said Ayame as she walked over and pointed to a small map of the village. She gave the code phase and time of the meeting. "So what is my job now?"

"Stay here and make sure tunnel remains open if somehow they are able to stop us this tunnel may become needed." ordered Raitaro

"Soup?" inquired Ayame again.

"No time." countered Raitaro

"However I will take this." said Keiji as she flew forward her head almost hitting the wooden beams of the ceiling, then she pulled Ayame into a kiss which she returned in kind both their wings flapping in pleasure.

"Go and make sure you come back to me," ordered Ayame as they all turned back into their human forms and moved toward the staircase.

Well I hope you liked this chapter and the little surprise that there are other demons already inside of the Leaf village. Also I know some may be unhappy that I killed Choji but with 4 out of 5 people dying from this sickness do you really think all of Naruto's friends would live through that? Until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.