First off, holy crap. This story has been hovering around 400 visitors and 1.5k views for a little over a week now. Yesterday it jumped up to 682 visitors and 3.29k views. That's the biggest jump in stats I've seen since the story started. I wonder if it was adding Tayuya or hitting some new filter that caused it.
WhyteFyre: I'm happy that you're enjoying it. I've mentioned it in a few other reviews now but Wave was unexpected. I had originally planned for it to be mostly canon but changed it on a whim. As for updates, I've updated every day since I started writing this story. I don't think I've missed a single day yet. I fully intend to finish this story, even if it won't continue for very much longer.
serialkeller: Yeah, she's alive. Sasuke/Karin? Well, I don't really plan on putting anyone else together but that doesn't mean they can't after the story ends.
Elle-Chan: Glad you liked it so much. I tried to change it in ways I haven't read yet in fanfiction. Some parts of it have worked better than others. As I mentioned before, I upload new chapters daily, so you won't have to wait too long to read more.
Chapter 25
(Ame - Pein's Tower)
The figure stopped and looked back at him. "Make your choice," it commanded.
'That phrase... that voice... it reminds me of...'
"Do you return to what you know?" Menma's heart skipped a beat. 'Impossible.'
"Or do you follow me into shadow?"
Menma scrambled to his feet as the figure disappeared down the passage leading to Pein. His vision wavered dangerously as he staggered forward a few steps before collapsing. Somewhere deep inside his mind, glass spiderwebbed and stone cracked, a thick black fluid seeping free. He grit his teeth and stood slowly. Looking down he clapped a hand over the wound in his chest, took a few moments to steady himself, and slowly walked towards the passage leading to Pein.
He didn't look towards the hole leading outside even once.
He walked for what felt like years. Passing through corridors, and climbing stairs, he left a bloody trail of footprints. Each step was filled with pain and his vision blurred, shifted, and refocused countless time.
Eventually he reached the top and entered a large room. At the far end in a giant spider-like metal contraption stood a man with red hair with the same eyes all the orange haired men had. "Pein?" Menma croaked out.
A black metal rod shot out at him. Menma managed to catch it just as the tip stuck in to his shoulder. He dropped the rod and collapsed to his knees. Where was she? There was only one path and he had followed it all the way to the end only to find Pein.
"You live even after losing your beast?" Menma only glared up at him weakly. "Then cling to life for awhile longer. Let me teach you true pain with the corpses of your comrades."
Menma growled and with one last burst of energy, picked up the rod, and threw it at him, piercing him through the heart.
"Well done," the hooded figure said, stepping out of the shadows. The hood was pulled down to reveal Uchiha Honoka. The first person to teach him. The first person to ever help him.
"Honoka... sensei. How? I saw you die."
She blinked at this. "You know my name? I never told you what it was."
"I learned it," Menma replied.
She smiled at that and looked over at Nagato's dead body. "Well I think you've earned the answers to your questions." She paused and turned back to Menma. "I'm going to tell you a story."
"A story?"
She nodded. "A story about a little girl. This girl was born to average parents. These average parents named their little girl Honoka." She paused. "Do you know what it means?"
Menma shook his head.
"It means faint or indistinct.(1) She would often wonder throughout her life if her parents could see the future and had a cruel sense of humor. Or perhaps it was that they cursed her. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she excelled, she would always be overlooked for someone else," she frowned.
"It was like she was a ghost. No one saw her, no one acknowledged her," she shook her head. "No, that's not true. One person did. one of the popular girls in the academy befriended her. She wasn't a very nice girl, though, she had only befriended her to bully her. The popular girl and her other friends were planning a big prank on her that would embarrass her in front of the class."
"Honoka found out about it and couldn't believe it. She confronted her one day out in a seldom used training ground. The girl laughed at Honoka, laughed and mocked her. Eventually the two got into a fight. They pulled hair and scratched each other. It was quite shameful for ninja in training. As they rolled around on the ground they rolled over a kunai that hadn't been cleaned up. The kunai got lodged in the ground as they rolled around and ended up stabbing the popular girl in the back and through her heart."
"They investigated the death later, and do you know what happened?" Menma shook his head. "One of the popular girl's other friends got the blame!" Honoka let out a crazy laugh at that. "Little Honoka was so invisible she could kill her first and only friend and someone else's life was ruined for it!"
She calmed down and continued. "She unlocked the Mangekyō Sharingan, of course, but couldn't tell anyone. One of her greatest achievements and no one would know about it. Time moved on and Honoka became a ninja. She would train hard and advance to Jōnin shortly before the Kyūbi attack."
She paused her story there. "Do you know about the Mangekyō?"
Menma nodded. "It's unique to each person."
Honoka nodded in reply. "In both looks and ability. Some are better at using Amaterasu. Some can brainwash others, some can control space and time. Honoka's gave her greater control over a kinjutsu called Izanagi."
'That ability made Danzō a real pain in the ass...'
"When the Kyūbi attacked Konoha it was being controlled. The man controlling it was an underling of Madara." She looked at his hairstyle that looked almost exactly like Madara's. "I'm sure you already know about him."
"This underling was an arrogant fool and got himself sealed along with the beast inside of you. This threw off Madara's plans because he needed that underling to set them in motion. He searched for a new underling, and found Honoka."
She looked at Menma. "Uchiha Honoka died during the Kyūbi attack. However, her control over Izanagi allowed her to change that. Normally Izanagi's effects are temporary and allow one to ignore fatal injuries while it is active. A brief control of reality. Honoka's allowed a permanent altering of her own reality. That night as she lay dying in the road she wished for nothing more than to live."
She paused to pull out a kunai and plunge it into her heart. "That night she accidentally and permanently altered her own reality into that of something that can never die."
"Does her Izanagi er... your Izanagi not blind you?" Menma asked.
Honoka removed the kunai before she reached up and plucked out one of her eyes. She dropped it and let it shatter on the floor.
"Glass eye?"
"I could have replaced the eye with a normal one but I decided to wait-" She walked over to Nagato and plucked out one of his eyes before placing it in a tube filled with liquid. "for this."
Menma frowned. "What is Madara's plan? Why are you helping him?"
Honoka frowned herself. "The night of Kyūbi's attack Madara captured me and took me away. He didn't realize at the time that I wasn't dead. It was quite the surprise for him when I woke later. I stayed and learned of his plans for about a month before returning to Konoha. My parents had survived the attack."
Her face twisted into an ugly snarl. "They didn't even realize I was gone. They didn't bury me, they didn't search for me, they simply forgot me."
"I stopped caring after that. I still did my duties but I stopped trying to make people notice me. Years passed..." She looked down at Menma with a soft expression on her face. "And I found a little boy, starving. I was confused at first. I couldn't figure out why such a cute little boy could starve, so I followed him. Everyone ignored him. Everyone acted like he didn't exist. I was shocked. I had found someone just like me. A kindred spirit. I took him in. I fed him. I trained him. I raised him to be just like I wanted."
She sighed. "But things weren't easy. I saw how people continued to ignore him and it made me angry. My parents forced me into marrying that pig. And Danzō just had to go and kill off the clan. I decided then that if the world didn't need us, then we didn't need the world. Madara picked the wrong woman to act as his puppet. He can stay rotting in the afterlife, the world will burn."
She turned to Menma then. "Join me! Help me destroy everything!"
"In case you hadn't noticed I'm not immortal. If you destroy the world I'll die too." He motioned down to the bleeding wound he had his hand clamped over as his vision swam. "Actually... I think I've lost too much blood..."
Honoka nodded. "It will take me a few days to transplant and heal so we can worry about your mortality during that time."
Footsteps could be heard echoing up the passage behind them. "I... kind of like the world the way it is. I have people that acknowledge me now," Menma said, his head lolling.
"I see..." She walked over to him and placed a hand on his cheek. "You were the only one to acknowledge me and learn about me on your own. For that, I'll save Konoha for last. I'll also leave his other eye. I hope you change your mind before I arrive."
She let him drop to the floor and walked out of the room before the approaching person arrived.
Tayuya burst into the room shortly after and rushed over to Menma's side. "He's in here, hurry up!"
Menma just managed to point to Nagato and mutter "Eye." before he passed out.
(Konoha)
It had been a week since the rescue mission in Ame.
Most of the team had returned with relatively minor injuries. After Nagato's death the paths all dropped like the lifeless puppets they were, leaving the full Konoha team to deal with Konan and Zetsu. Both of which were dealt with rather quickly.
Menma lay in a hospital bed unconscious. No one could figure out what was wrong, not even Tsunade. His wounds were all fully healed, he just wouldn't wake up. They had thought it was some sort of jutsu but there was no evidence to support it.
Tayuya hadn't left his side during that time. Sasuke also spent a great deal of time with him. With the way Menma had coughed and lay still after getting hit with Sasuke's shuriken and the later taunting by the Path that he was fighting against, Sasuke had thought he had killed his friend. He had unlocked his Mangekyō because of it.
After learning of the dangers of using it from Itachi and forcing him into revealing how bad his eyesight was, Sasuke had demanded they swap eyes immediately. It had restored Itachi's sight and given them both the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Sasuke's was a red six pointed star on a black background with a smaller black three point star in the center.
Itachi's was similar, although the colors were reverse. The entire thing also had a curve to it, like his regular Mangekyō, making it look like a shuriken rather than a star.
(Konoha Main Gate)
Tsunade had just been called down to the gate by a messenger telling her something important was happening.
Standing outside their gates was a sea of people. Most of them were obviously civilian but there were some ninja in there as well. They all wore the same forehead protector, two rocks sitting next to each other.
One of the ninja, a jōnin by the looks of it, stepped forward to speak to Tsunade. "Hokage-sama! Please, allow us to take refuge in your village!"
"Why should I allow a bunch of Iwa nin and civilians into Konoha? What happened? Why are you here?"
The ninja nodded and took a deep breath to calm himself. "Iwagakure was attacked. A giant black monster with ten tails and a single red eye came out of nowhere and attacked. We were powerless before it. None of our attacks seemed to even hurt the creature."
The man paused and looked down. "Th... the Tsuchikage died fighting against it to buy us some time to evacuate. It knocked over mountains and crushed entire sections of the village like it was nothing! It's chakra... poisoned the air around it, killing anything that got within range!"
He collapsed into a bow in front of Tsunade. "You have to let us in! We have nowhere else to go!"
"Why Konoha? Why not Suna or Kumo? You're on fairly friendly terms with them, aren't you? Better than Konoha at least," Tsunade replied.
"When we were forced to evacuate we didn't have time to bring everything we needed. We would never have survived a trip across the desert into Suna. The beast... left to the east after the attack. It's probably headed for Kumo as we speak."
"If the beast has left why don't you return and repair the village?"
"I told you, its chakra is poisonous. The land around the creature died as it walked past. It toppled the mountains and smashed the village. The buildings were destroyed. The people were all killed. We're all that's left."
Tsunade paused and looked over the people gathered in front of her and frowned.
"Please! We have nothing to return to! Iwagakure no Sato... is gone."
End Chapter 25
A/N:
This marks the start of the final arc for this story. Not quite as long and epic as some of the stories I've read, but hey, it's my first time. I can't imagine there being more than 5 chapters left, but we'll see how it goes.
(1) I forgot to add this earlier. The website I looked Honoka up on said it meant faint or indistinct. If it's not, just pretend it is so I feel better about believing some random website.