Three of the missing-nin jumped at Hisa. The first one threw a giant shuriken at her, which she dodged. She didn't have time to catch her breath, as the other two threw a pair of giant shuriken at her, and she was forced to jump into the narrow gap between the two to avoid being ripped into pieces. Barely a second passed before she was assaulted by a barrage of kunai. She dodged most of them, and blocked the ones she didn't with her own kunai, but the missing-nin were relentless.
She heard a cry and snapped her head to the opening of the cave. Nawaki and Oki were standing there back to back, methodically cutting down missing-nin. Oki's eyes met hers for a second and Oki gave her a brief smile. In that second, Hisa was glad Nawaki had stopped her from going after the children.
Then another kunai almost took her eye out, and Hisa threw herself back into the fight.
Although she had the Rinnegan, she was still fighting at least ten missing-nin on her own. She managed to stay alive, but barely. It was time to call for back-up. She slammed her hands on the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
The giant cloud of smoke that covered the entire clearing didn't help Hisa much, but she could hear Nawaki cutting down more missing-nin. She hoped that Oki was doing alright. It was a bad idea to jump straight into a fight after being stuck in a genjutsu for a long time. But Hisa knew Oki could handle herself, so she focused on the animals she had summoned.
There was a giant centipede and a giant drill-beaked bird. They weren't Hisa's usual summons, but since Nawaki had blinded her snake-tailed chameleon she didn't have as much options.
The centipede took out a wave of missing-nin on the left, while the bird stabbed as much as it could on Hisa's right. This allowed Hisa a minute to rest, before a new wave of missing-nin appeared. The centipede tried to kill them, but three managed to stab kunai into its skull, killing it. Hisa had no time to mourn the centipede as the bird was taken out by a fire style technique.
There was one part of the Rinnegan summoning technique that Hisa had never tried before. But as the missing-nin surrounded her, she decided to do it. She pictured Nawaki and Oki, then slammed her hands on the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
When the smoke cleared, an extremely confused Oki stood there.
"Hisa!" she said "What… How…?"
"I tried to summon you and Nawaki." Hisa explained, thrusting her sword into a missing-nin's stomach. "Unfortunately, I think I left Nawaki behind."
They glanced across the field to where Nawaki was standing, staring confusedly around him. His eyes travelled to Hisa and he finally noticed Oki standing there. Hisa waved at him.
"Sorry!" she yelled "I'll give her back in a minute! Thanks for sharing!"
Nawaki rolled his eyes before turning back to face his own group of missing-nin. Hisa noticed that although there were piles of injured missing-nin scattered around him, none appeared to be dead. Nawaki still wasn't killing, just injuring. That was probably why more missing-nin were choosing to fight him over Hisa.
Hisa turned back to Oki just in time to see her stab a missing-nin in his foot. The man fell onto the ground, and Oki finished him with a kick to the head. He wouldn't be conscious for a long time.
"Help me finish these ones and then we can help Nawaki!" she yelled. (It was getting harder to hear each other over the sound of metal clanging.)
Oki nodded, and the two of them went to work.
Although Hisa's teamwork with Nawaki wasn't always as good as she would like, her teamwork with Oki was flawless. They fought back-to-back, using their swords to cut down anyone who came close enough to them. They had perfected their kenjutsu style over the years, and the technique they used let them defend each other when they couldn't do it themselves.
In a matter of minutes, the remaining missing-nin had either left to fight Nawaki, or were lying on the ground. Four new ones came along, but they all looked nervous as they took in the sight of their injured comrades. Hisa turned to Oki.
"Go help Nawaki. I'll take care of these four."
Oki nodded and took off across the clearing. Hisa vaguely wondered where the hell Konohamaru was. Surely he had heard the sounds of battle by now?
The first missing-nin made a set of hand-seals, and his hand became covered in stone. He swung his arm at Hisa, who ducked and kicked him in the groin. He fell coughing to the ground, and she stabbed her sword into his neck before he could get back up.
The second one tried to place a genjutsu on her, but Hisa dispelled it before it could take full effect. She continued charging at them. The two of the remaining three put their hands together in a hand-seal. Mud shot out of their mouth, spreading across the forest floor. Hisa was forced to jump into a tree to avoid it, but it gave her the chance to throw kunai at them. Two of them managed to pull back in time, but the third was too busy trying to finish his mud jutsu. The kunai went straight into his eye and he collapsed to the ground, dead.
The third one turned and stared at Hisa, rage visible in his eyes.
"She killed Ibuki!" he turned to his female companion, who was staring at Hisa with her eyes narrowed. "That bitch killed Ibuki!"
Hisa rolled her eyes. (Her eyes were getting quite a workout today.) This made the missing-nin even madder.
"I'll kill you." he growled.
"Oh good," she replied "It's not like you've already been trying to do that for the past ten minutes..."
With a howl of rage he flung himself at her. His sword strokes were vicious and powerful, but lacked control. Hisa parried him with one hand, while hiding a kunai behind her back with the other. When he left himself unguarded for a split second, Hisa stabbed the kunai into his hand, forcing him to drop the sword. She kicked him off the branch with a side-kick to his stomach. He landed heavily on the ground, but got back up.
Hisa's attention switched to the female, who was making a set of hand-seals.
"Ninja art: Flying Nail Mist!"
Hundreds of nail's shot out of the woman's mouth, aimed directly at Hisa. There were too many of them to dodge, and they were too small to block. Hisa stuck out her hands.
"Almighty Push!"
The nails flew straight back into the woman's face, distracting her for a few seconds. Hisa jumped down and stabbed a kunai directly into the woman's chest, before jumping away. She barely managed to avoid the shuriken that the man threw at her. He looked twice as angry now that he was the last one standing.
"Look," Hisa said with a sigh "You've clearly got anger issues. I don't really care, but you've probably got some dark backstory about why you became a missing-nin. So instead of wasting my time listening to you, then trying to make you change your ways, I'm going to give you ten seconds to run. Otherwise I'll kill you."
The man charged at her and Hisa stuck out her hands. He came to a stop and considered her words. The anger in his eyes was still there, but he seemed to understand that he couldn't win this fight.
"Five seconds." Hisa informed him.
The man looked at her with pure loathing, before turning around and jumping into a tree. He took off away from the clearing.
Hisa smiled. Naruto would be proud.
She turned around and saw Nawaki and Oki fighting at least twenty missing-nin. They were barely managing to stay alive. She took off in a sprint, aiming at one of the missing-nin at the edge of the fight.
Suddenly, she heard Oki scream.
"Nawaki!"
It was like watching a slow motion movie. One second Nawaki was fighting, his eyes spinning as he tried to keep track of all the weapons been thrown at him, as well as checking to make sure Oki was ok. Hisa's head jerked over to watch him fight, wondering why Oki had screamed.
All it took was one stray missing-nin. The sword slashed across Nawaki's chest, drawing blood. It didn't go deep enough to cut the heart, but Hisa knew that it had punctured at least one of his lungs. Nawaki's face was frozen in shock for a second, before he clutched his chest and fell on his knees.
"Nawaki!" Oki screamed again, desperately trying to keep all the missing-nin away from her injured friend.
Hisa froze, eyes wide as Nawaki turned his head to look at her. There was a trickle of blood leaking out of his mouth. His eyes met hers, sharingan slowly fading, and he smiled.
Hisa screamed.
It was like their first mission all over again. The pulse of pure chakra that emanated from her body shoved all the missing-nin away. The lucky ones were blasted into the air, landing far away from the clearing. The unlucky ones were slammed into tree trunks so hard that their spines shattered. Some were decapitated by a branch.
The chakra didn't go low enough to push Nawaki or Oki, who had knelt down beside him, but it did uproot the nearest trees. Hisa didn't even spare any of the missing-nin a glance. She made her way over to Nawaki and Oki, skidding onto her knees as she looked at the wound.
"How bad is it?" she asked, ignoring the slightly hysterical edge to her voice.
There were tears in Oki's eyes, but she didn't let them spill over.
"The sword punctured both his lungs. The left one has already collapsed, but the right one is holding out. I'd say it'll last for ten minutes, twenty at the very best."
"Can you heal it?" Hisa asked.
Oki shook her head, face scrunched up.
"I'm not a medic-nin. The only thing I studied was eye surgery in case anything happened to your rinnegan on missions."
An idea struck Hisa then. It was insane, but it could possibly work.
"The Rinnegan. It has a seventh power, called the Outer Path. I'm not sure of its full power, but I think it can bring the dead back to life, as well as keeping you alive if you're at death's doorstep. I locked it away, so I can't access it without Naruto's help. But if I gave one of my eyes to one of you…"
Oki nodded excitedly.
"That could work! I'm not qualified but I think I can perform the surgery. It'll hurt though."
"Do it." Hisa said without hesitation.
Below them, Nawaki stirred. His breathing was ragged, but he managed to mumble a few words.
"Swap." he said, his voice rough. "Give me… Rinnegan. Hisa… Sharingan."
Hisa was about to object, but Nawaki's eyes opened and he stared at her with an intensity Hisa had never seen before.
"Do it… Please." he whispered.
Oki nodded. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small scalpel. Hisa ripped a bit of cloth from her uniform and bit down on it, preparing for the pain to come.
The operation took five minutes, and it was very painful. Oki worked at an almost frenzied pace, swapping their eyes around as quickly as she could. Once the Sharingan was in Hisa's eye, Oki instructed her to keep it closed. She then put the Rinnegan in Nawaki's eye.
Nawaki closed his eyes and lay there for a minute. Hisa and Oki were silent, waiting for his reaction.
He opened his eyes and stared calmly up at both of them.
"It's not here." he said. "The Outer Path isn't here."
"What?" Hisa yelled. "But you don't have anything sealing your powers away! You should be able to access all seven paths!"
Nawaki shook his head slightly, then winced.
"Six Paths here." he rasped "I can feel them. No Seventh."
"How…?" Hisa whispered.
Oki's tears were running down her cheeks by now.
"It was always a flawed copy." she said softly. "Uzumaki and Hyuga DNA, instead of Senju and Uchiha. It makes sense that it would lack something."
"No." Hisa said shaking her head. "No, no, no. Nawaki you are not dying on us. The Seventh Path is there. It has to be."
Nawaki smiled slightly. The trickle of blood got heavier. As Hisa looked into his eyes-one Sharingan, one Rinnegan- she realised something.
"You knew." she said flatly. "You knew that it wouldn't work."
Nawaki shook his head again.
"I know that I'm dying. That's all. There's no way to stop it." He coughed, blood spraying onto Hisa's jacket. "I wanted to give you my Sharingan." he was mouthing the words by this stage. "To say sorry, and to say thanks."
"You have nothing to be sorry about." Hisa said, still refusing to believe that this was happening.
"I do." Nawaki mumbled. "Minefield. I was too hard on you. Didn't listen. Sorry. it secret. Sorry."
"Nawaki…" that was all Hisa could say.
"Promise me one thing." he said
"Anything." Hisa vowed.
Nawaki grinned and for a moment it was just the three of them hanging out and joking together. It made Hisa's chest ache knowing that it would never be the same.
"Use the Sharingan well." he said "and don't take yourself so seriously. I know you can become the strongest shinobi in the world one day."
"Thank you." she whispered, not sure what else to say.
Oki was the one to break the silence.
"Do you have anything you want us to do?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"Tell Mom and Sasuke… I love them. Tell Naruto… thanks."
Oki nodded.
"Anything else?"
Nawaki's eyes strayed to Oki, and suddenly Hisa knew exactly what he was going to ask for.
"I'll be over here." she muttered, standing up and ignoring the look of confusion on Oki's face.
She made her way to a tree stump and sat down, keeping her Sharingan eye closed. She still couldn't believe this was happening. It was all too fast.
Dimly, she could make out some of Nawaki and Oki's conversation. She knew that they needed some privacy, so she tuned them out as best she could.
!
Nawaki stared up at Oki with pain in his chest. His left lung felt like it was on fire, and it was getting harder to breathe in his right. But he was determined to tell Oki everything. She looked down at him in confusion, but he knew she was listening. He filled his lung up with as much air as he could, trying not to let the pain get to him.
"I saw you for the first time when I was six, and the first thing I thought was: She's nice. I'll try making friends with her. I think that I thought you were pretty, but I was too young to understand what that meant. You were really nice to me, the only person I actually liked in the class. Then we had a few… incidents, and I started to worry about how I felt towards you. I knew I was too young for these feelings."
He took another breath. He didn't care if this was corny or cheesy; he wasn't going to die without telling her everything.
"I talked it over with my mom, and she told me to focus on being your friend until we were old enough to try something more. So I waited, and waited. When you turned twelve, I thought about asking you, but I decided that we still weren't old enough."
Another breath. This was the last part.
"But now… well I don't think I'm going to get any older. So this might sound like a stupid request for someone who's dying, but it's the only thing that I really want right now."
Oki's hand reached down and she wiped the blood off his lips.
"Ask me." she said.
So he did.
!
Hisa was keeping a close eye on the missing-nin. The ones that were still alive were peering out fearfully from behind trees. None of them dared to go near her after witnessing her lose control.
That didn't stop her from watching them. Anything to distract her from the boy dying behind her. Because if she thought of Nawaki she would start crying, and then the missing-nin would know she was feeling miserable and attack.
She glared at them with pure hate in her eyes. She longed to get up and kill them all, but she had decided to wait for Oki. Oki deserved to get revenge as much as she did.
She heard footsteps walking across the grass, and turned to watch Oki walk towards her. She couldn't even see Nawaki from this distance, but she knew he was there, somewhere on the other side of the clearing.
Oki reached her side. She was wearing the coldest expression Hisa had ever seen on Oki. She took a deep breath and prepared herself to ask the question she was dreading.
"Is he…"
Oki shook her head, her eyes trained on the missing-nin.
"He was almost there, but after we had finished… saying goodbye, he told me to leave him and help you. He said that he doesn't want his body brought back to Konoha. He'd rather be left to nature."
"Did you two…"
Oki nodded.
"Yes. It was something I had wanted for a long time, but it was bittersweet. I don't really want to talk about it."
Hisa was silent, staring into the forest. She stood up and dusted herself off, before opening her right eye. She could see clearly through her new Sharingan, but she could feel it draining her chakra at a much faster rate than the Rinnegan.
"Let's kill these bastards."
Oki unsheathed her sword, and Hisa knew that her friend wouldn't have any problem with killing these people.
That was good, because Hisa didn't plan on showing any mercy.
A/N. So this is the chapter where everything starts getting darker and the readers start going WTF. I know the eye swapping is exactly like Kakashi Gaiden, but that's intentional. Um… other than that all I have to say is please don't kill me! The story is far from over. Thanks again for all the reviews. I'm not sure about update dates, but I'll try and update as quickly as I can. Just to clear things up, Sakura never met Nagato, she just heard about him from Naruto.