Journey of the Three Failures Chapter 19: Dealing with Devils, a naruto fanfic

J3F\\\ Journey of the Three Failures

Chapter Nineteen

Huh… it's been more than three months…

Summer. I don't know where summer went. Kind of like my whole sophomore year. I was talking to a friend a few weeks into this school year and mentioned something about how we were in the same math class last year – but it wasn't last year, it was my freshmen year, and I just blinked, like 'wait – really?' My dog went to the vet the other day, and I was absolutely sure she was three, almost four years old. She's almost five. Five? ! I can't believe it. So, summer. Wake up, jog a mile, practice basketball. Jog another mile, or two, or three. Shoot around some more, layup, dribble, ball handling, whatever. Go inside. For whatever reason I didn't have breakfast. Why am I on the computer? Let's read a Yahoo article. And cringe at disturbing comments. Dropdown the address bar. Hmm… Look at the recent websites, go somewhere. It's kind of late for lunch now. Walk the dog, jog some more alone once she's tired. Lie down. Now I'm upstairs. What am I doing? Notebook. Write. This writing is crap. Pushups, sit-ups. What did I go downstairs for…? Since I'm here, might as well get on the computer. Wednesday. Similar, but watch some crappy Disney Naruto. It's about the only time I turn on the TV all week. New day. It's raining. Dribble the ball in the garage. More push-ups, crunches, wall-sits, bridges. Video games. It stopped raining. Jog. Tuesday, see the psychologist. Yaaay… For a while, there's summer camp. People stop showing up when they see how tough the workout is, until only a pitiful fraction of the athletes signed up show up each day. Wake up early, put a granola in my bag, ride the bike to school for camp, drag myself home after. Completing a perfect camp attendance streak the third year in a row. Get on the computer. Huh. Take a nap. Go jogging. Shoot around. Let's draw a picture. Night, morning. Wake up. The windstorm last night broke the backboard, knocked over the goal. Bike to the park, shoot and run around when there's space on the court. The jogging trail, when there isn't. Summer in a nutshell. Some ninety days. Total amount of time spent with friends: four hours, early summer, a trip to the local mall. Somehow the topic is brought up, and me and my sister see if we can count on two hands the number of times I've left the house, park and camp and appointments aside. She doesn't let me count the time I went grocery shopping with our dad. Seven.

Ah, the cruel high school coach who would allow someone to be cursed with a love for basketball. But then, if I think about it - that lady is in the business of taking the love, the heart out of basketball. That first playoff game last year, I saw a team of ballhogs and hotshots (I love 'em, but they mostly are are) meet a team of fighters who'd probably worked and played and trained together. We lost by more than 50, and to be honest it was beautiful to watch.

And then, my schedule. Something's wrong – where's my Spanish? As it turns out, I can't be in AP Spanish IV and Basketball – same class period. If that's not a sign, what is?

I got the hell out of basketball.

You taught me well, Coach. Go ahead and give up ahead of time, save yourself the trouble of trying. It's not like you can succeed anyways. Thanks, Coach.

T-T Sorry, really – desperately – had to get that out. And sorry for venting here, where I'm supposed to be writing fanfiction – this, and for the last few chapters as well. But it seems this, hopefully, ought to be the last of it. Thank you, those who gave any words of support or understanding – I mean, I'm not asking you to, but thanks a million.

I'll admit it – I replied to exactly two reviews this time. I'm really sorry about not replying to a lot of wonderful reviews, but I want to thank ExKyuubi, BlackBlueSilver, narutosvixen, armoredishamael, Omega the darkness, The Laughing Phoenix, Bardad101, Malix2, OnGuard, Rhomulus, Rena-san, dreamer at heart, YoungSiege, U. May, ThatGuySly, Uzumaki Ricky, Universal Hope, Lanky Nathan, GijinkaGirl, No- I'm not on facebook, KoreanGal5, sixth seraph, Shizuka Taiyou, kunoichibythesea, The Unknown Twinkie, hinata-fan2, Cybergades, Kage-Hyuga-Nara, Mudkip Of War, Loui roui, hysterikku, BlackWolfCub101, Okami Kage Hachi, Hammerchuckery, kurokazeryuu, and anons who signed Cabale, May Miranda, and Danielle – from the bottom of my heart. 'Thanks from the bottom of my heart'? Is that cheesy? Well, I mean, seriously – thanks. You are all utterly awesome.

Notice! There are a lot more art links on my profile. The cover's colored, and there's CS2 Hinata, a New Konoha group picture, one with Hanabi, Hiryuu, Hikujaku, Hiyuki, Harumi, and Hitaka that looks pretty good… All of the ones put up since last chapter have 'new' by them, but if nothing else I'd recommend the cover, and the New Konoha one under 'Other', if you're interested.

Chapter song? My-HiME OST 1 number 20, "Nazo ga Nazo wo Yobu", I guess. Oh, that's another thing - thanks, all who suggested chapter/ character songs ^_^

This chapter's pretty rough, but just try to bear with me this time around. Sorry to keep you waiting on a cliffhanger, but here it is!

Disclaimer: I don't own NARUTO.

Journey of the Three Failures

Nineteen: Dealing with Devils

Part One: Raise the Stakes

Hanabi ハナビ

The smack and slap of forearms striking forearms, palms meeting palms snapped furiously into the air, and below it dusted the tap of light, swift feet dancing with purpose over the earth. Sweat burned my eyes. My arms swung loose and fast, hands throwing off a flurry of gentle blows, and I shifted my stance in a flash as my palm swept to halt an abrupt, powerful and unexpected fist.

I darted, she dodged, I retreated, feinted, advanced again, strike, step, strike, shift, block – rushing air sifted in and out of my lungs, fast, controlled, efficient. Chakra crackled and cancelled between two palms; without pause her larger hand folded deftly around mine, swift as the lunge of a snapping serpent, and my hand was a fraction of a moment from being expertly broken when the sole of my foot impacted the side of her ribcage, savage. She yelled, and I barreled into the weakness, striking more and more sharply still; she deflected it all, backpedalling precisely, teeth clenched.

I saw it in her eyes before I saw it in her body, and then I saw it in her body before she even moved to strike. At that point I spun neatly in evasion, hair splaying out, as the palm lanced by. She tried to back away, to distance her body from me, whilst lashing the heel of her other palm down for my shoulder; I blocked, caught her strength on my raised forearm, and thrust away as my free palm split the air, arced for her chest, as I struck to finish it.

A drop of sweat fell from my chin, plopped to the dirt. I blinked.

I… miscalculated the dist–?

WHOMP!

Auntie Harumi leaned away from the palm a centimeter in front of her chest, turning and artfully throwing a sharp boot into my collarbone. I was kicked off my feet, back smacking to the dirt. I gagged a second and rolled onto my side, pressing a hand against the pain throbbing on my clavicle.

"Daijoubu?" Hitaka murmured in concern, coming to my side. Hikujaku frowned bemusedly.

"What was that?" Hiryuu-oji-san asked drily, voice containing some hint of a growl of distaste. His patience was wearing thin.

I began to sit up. "I don't know, I-I…" I stuttered and trailed off. Oh…

"What's the matter?"

Chilled, I disguised a sudden sick shiver behind a shake of my head. "It's nothing; I can keep going. I'm just a little off today."

Hiryuu frowned, and the near-contempt in his eyes made me cringe. "You've been out of it for a week now, Hanabi-sama. I don't know where your mind is, but it would best swiftly find its way here, to your training."

Before my shamefaced 'hai' could be muttered, Harumi spoke up.

"Sir, you've been pushing her hard for several days in a row now. I know that time is of the essence … but in a child especially, overexertion can impact one well more negatively than the benefits can hope to counteract."

After a moment Hiryuu nodded slowly, relenting. "We'll step it down a notch today."

Harumi shook her head. "No, sir. For at least today and tomorrow, she needs to rest."

"Two days, Harumi?"

The woman walked to and knelt by me, and I looked up in puzzlement until she, with a polite 'sumimasen,' pressed a finger lightly to my thigh and brushed downward. I winced, yelping in pain and startling from the contact. Harumi looked up. "You see? Even medical ninjutsu can't fully play the substitute for the time it takes the muscles to recover from stress. I've kept quiet, but if we continue at this pace Lady Hanabi's resilience will only deteriorate. Not to mention… this girl has broken five different bones in the last twelve days. There's only so much I can do to keep accelerating her body's natural healing processes."

"Very well, then," Hiryuu conceded. "You're finished for today, but an extra hour of study and meditation both tomorrow. …Hanabi-sama? M'lady, did you hear me?"

"Huh?" I said dumbly, wide eyes snapping from the western sky as I jerked to attention.

Hiryuu eyed me uncertainly, and I wondered what sort of a look I had on my face. "You really do need rest…" he muttered in a moment.

As the five of us set off down a path, I couldn't help my eyes' drifting again to the west.

Nee-chan… you've been having a really rough week, haven't you?

Naruto ナルト

"Uchiha… Itachi…" I whispered, stunned.

What is this? How… Why now…? My teeth were clenched; my hands gripped my naginata too tightly. Why now? ! My eyes cut to my left, where Hinata trembled, nearly in tears. Hinata can't fight – not against someone like this…

"Your kage bunshin tried to kill him," Tsunade called, motioning toward Lee. "You said that you wouldn't…"

"You were required to bring here Naruto, Gaara, and Hinata. That one is superfluous… and he has the power to make himself a bit of a nuisance," the Uchiha stated simply.

Even in such a situation, Lee bristled. "Superfluous…?"

I swore under my breath. Tsunade… really did sell us out. Good grief. I mean, if she'd wanted us gone that badly…

f"Give her back."

I looked to the sannin. Her eyes were cold and venomous on the Uchiha.

"I've fulfilled my end of the bargain, haven't I? Where is Shizune? !"

I gasped quietly.

Not looking away from her, Itachi raised his hand and gestured briefly in signal. Moments after Hoshigaki Kisame came into view from the trees behind Itachi. Stopping before reaching his partner, the blue man cast to the ground the black-clad form draped over his shoulder. She had been blindfolded and gagged for who knows how long, and her wrists were raw from the tight, rough cord that bound hands behind her back to discourage struggle. Her right leg looked to be broken in more than one place. Shizune crashed to the ground with a grunt and lay unmoving, shivering stiffly in pain. How dare they…? !

"Pardon her condition," Itachi said, not a request. "Kisame got a bit rough."

"You're apologizing?" the shark-man scoffed. "She was scheming an escape."

"Shizune…!" Tsunade breathed, her voice high. I looked up, and was shocked at the emotion in the old woman's eyes as she cupped a hand over her mouth.

My mouth twisted into a scowl. "So that's how it is… Akatsuki, you're despicable!" I cried.

Kisame laughed. "Look at that – the Nine-tailed brat is calling out monsters! Oi, do us a favor will you? Don't even think about trying to run this time. Not to say we won't catch you, but this one here might just have to pay the price," he warned, planting his Sharkskin sword on the ground near Shizune's neck.

Tsunade's eyes narrowed. "Enough! Just hand her over and I'll be on my way!"

Itachi shook his head inexpressively. "Before we do so, Tsunade, I'm afraid I have one more thing to ask of you."

"You're going back on our deal…?"

"It isn't much…" the Uchiha said. "I just need you to heal me."

"Nani…?"

"Searing from a pressurized chakra blast more than seven months ago has been causing me… complications, of sorts…"

"Someone managed to wound you?" Tsunade scoffed, a harsh smirk in her voice.

Face humorless, he uttered something of a chuckle. "They say even a moment's arrogance can thwart the greatest of shinobi… At least, it would seem the fearsome jutsu's wielder had grown rather formidable since… but…"

In an incomprehensible flash of black and red, the cold man was standing at Tsunade's side, leaning forward, cloak flaring out behind him.

His crimson eyes locked briefly with Hinata's white. Then his foot buried itself in her stomach.

The girl didn't seem to know what had hit her before her back hit the tree with a solid crack of force, before a mess of red shot from her mouth, or even by the time she slumped to the ground and her head drooped forward, momentarily swaying limp on her neck. First blood – the easy prey.

Kuso! Down for the count…!

"So it's true… you really are worthless under the new moon…"

Tsunade hadn't batted an eye, or even looked. My teeth clenched. The Uchiha at my side cast an icy look down at me, a derisive sort of subtle sneer, and then turned his head and spoke to the sannin once more.

"Will you do it?"

Looking down, she nodded.

"Kuso…" Slowly, I wrought a smile. My brow smoothed. "Tsunade-baa-sama… Well, maybe I shouldn't've trusted you after all," I said rather quietly, with a slight chuckle.

I know she heard me, but the woman didn't respond. The Uchiha stepped in front of and faced her, crimson eyes intent on her as she wove her seals.

"But I was right somewhere, at least," I pointed out. "I knew you weren't a bad person, see. It just turns out that, what with the village and all you've lost or left behind… Shizune onee-san is the only precious person you have now, isn't she?"

Her eyes were glum as she continued to pointedly ignore me, bringing hands that emanated green energy slowly toward Uchiha Itachi's midriff.

"And yet these Akatsuki scum, who would turn that love for your only comrade against you…"

"Naruto…"

"I find that to be utterly despicable."

Three things happened then in the blink of an instant. The original, from out of sight, Shadow Swapped to Shizune. Next, he traded places with me. And finally I, before Kisame could even realize the disappearance of his captive, dispelled.

When I appeared with her at Tsunade's side – or as it would seem to the eye, Shizune burst into existence in my arms – well, to say the least, the old bat quit ignoring me.

For half a second it seemed the two tremendously powerful ninja were staring at me. Then in one sharp motion Tsunade withdrew the palm a hair's breadth from Itachi's cloak and returned it as a fist.

Her blow shattered the earth; with the man having blurred in evasion, Itachi's sandals skidded back several meters along the ground.

Kisame was stunned. "What the–?"

With surprise on our side…!

Leaving Shizune, I whirled to my left, right arm outstretched.

My right hand latched onto Kisame's left shoulder, pulling him forward. Itachi's eyes widened a fraction.

It's easy to block someone from trying to use the kawarimi on you… but to stop someone physically touching you from substituting is a different matter entirely.

"LEE!" I barked, and as I swapped to him and Itachi's kunai burned the air where I'd been, Lee was thrusting a katana for Kisame's stomach.

The man cut his own palm diverting the blade so that its tip merely carved a shallow line from his middle to his side. His left hand swung the Samehada violently toward me, and I was gone, spinning into existence at Tsunade's side. Kisame's sword crashed with a bang into the earth; off-balance, he hurriedly leapt back again as Lee lashed out.

"Yes," I muttered, "We're still in this…"

I glanced back as Gaara was gently removing Shizune's blindfold, and nodded. "Good – Gaara, protect Shizune and Hinata for now. Kurogiba, help him… I bet Lee and I together can make short work of Kisame…"

"What just happened?" Kisame was growling. "That wasn't… the jutsu of the Leaf's Yellow Flash…?"

"No," Itachi confirmed, "Though in certain ways, it's almost an effective recreation of that art. Almost…" Itachi mused. "You've become quite crafty with Kage Bunshin no Jutsu…"

"Baa-sama…" I continued, still at a mutter, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you ought to be a pretty tough match for Uchiha Itachi, right?"

"I should…" she said after a short moment's hesitance.

I thought so… That's why they took a hostage for ransom. They wanted to ensure she'd hand us over and leave … in hopes of avoiding a direct confrontation with her!

"Tsunade…" Itachi said tonelessly, a slender eyebrow inclined coolly. "It would seem you intend to protect these children."

The woman snorted, casually taking two steps forward. "I guess you could say that, couldn't you? But…" She grinned dangerously. "I'm all for obliterating the dirtbags who kidnapped my faithful assistant. I'll teach you a lesson, little boy…"

Itachi smirked slightly as he slipped the hand that usually rested idle through the sleeve of his cloak. "Hm."

My eyes could barely track Itachi's rush – and shortly found him to be before Tsunade, outstretched fist being successfully diverted by her forearm.

"Ha!" Tsunade's knee lashed for his stomach, and Itachi touched a hand to it and lightly vaulted over the woman. He landed and whirled, slashing in an explosive motion with a swiftly drawn kunai, and as one of Tsunade's hands blocked him at the wrist, the other's pointer finger flicked the flat of the blade from above.

The knife busted a hole in the ground, vanishing from sight. Itachi's foot aimed for her back, and she actually turned away from him to block the kick on her right forearm. As her left hand gripped his ankle Itachi thrust a fresh kunai knife for a vital point in her back; before it could land Tsunade pulled him by the ankle, throwing him with a yell across the clearing.

Itachi's body flipped and turned wildly in the air before his feet met a tree with so fierce an impact-breaking shove of chakra as to blow out a segment of the trunk. He shot to solid ground and blurred forward again as the tree toppled in his wake, and Tsunade shifted smoothly to evade a slew of screeching shuriken. She ran forward and leapt well over the Uchiha at the last moment as he threw a murderous jump-kick, and she folded and flipped a few times in the air as she shot down, smashing a sandal into the innocent ground. Itachi jumped as the earth for a good radius around her jolted and broke, and as he landed he raced to attack.

Their specific movements were finally beginning to become lost to my eyes as Itachi rained down a furious storm of taijutsu; Tsunade shifted and dodged and backpedalled and sidestepped, teeth gritted in focus.

Then the side of Tsunade's foot cuffed at the ground, splitting a deep crack through the earth – a crack that jolted right through the point Itachi was set to step.

He stumbled with a grunt as his foot sank and lodged to mid-shin in the earth. And he looked up to see Tsunade's foot swinging around toward his head in a mighty kick.

"Drop DEAD!"

CRACK!

A spray of mere wood splinters peppered the air in the direction of her blow. What remained of a log skittered and thumped and tumbled animatedly end over end until snapping in two on contact with a tree.

Panting lightly, Tsunade found Itachi's emotionless eyes as he stepped into view from the trees.

Wh…Whoa… I thought, blinking. Baa-sama… I knew it! She really is amazing!

"As expected, a good medical ninja is not easily struck…" Itachi remarked.

Kind of like me, but – AH! Wait a second!

–"This girl simply needs to land one solid blow."–

Sure, on a sannin-level expert in evasion! We got suckered!

"I'd prefer not to expend a lot of chakra here…" Itachi went on, drawing a kunai. "However, I'm not keen on drawing this out, either."

"Wh-what are you doing?" Tsunade asked.

Itachi pricked his own hand with the knife. "You understand, don't you?"

Snickt–!

Shizune's hoarse, whispered "How?" ghosted in my ears.

Tsunade could only begin to cringe away – and was frozen stiff as a few droplets of Itachi's blood landed on her face, her clothes.

"It makes no sense! Why would he–? !"

"Lee…"

The older boy turned his attention from Itachi's self-mutilation to the quivering legendary ninja standing between us, eyes huge and round and unfocused as her breath shook, mouth agape in pure horror.

What … the hell?

"How did you know?" Shizune cried weakly.

"Surely you've not forgotten … that another of your three great ninja was once a member of the Akatsuki?"

With that, Itachi appeared before Tsunade, shortly smeared his bloody palm over her forehead for good measure, and fired a brutal fist dead into her gut.

Tsunade doubled up, wheezing. I was too shocked to do a thing but stare when Itachi punched her in the face, sending her to the ground.

"…Blood?" I murmured in realization. "A legendary ninja and doctor, and you're scared of blood? !"

I yelped, swapping twenty yards as Itachi wasted no time in rounding on me. My hands flashed through seals – and I broke the sequence as I was forced to refocus my chakra to substitute away.

Kuso! That Sharingan … can probably pick up on where I'm set to appear! I thought, fleeing him again. I swiftly whipped my naginata out before me, positioning it in both hands; the bottom of Itachi's foot met it with crippling force, knocking me backwards just before I whisked my being to a new space yet again. I stumbled and kept on my feet, glowering as the man paused briefly in his calculated pursuit.

"How long do you intend to run away, Naruto?"

"Gr…!" He can move almost – just almost – as fast as I can substitute. If I keep my distance and stay sharp, he can't quite touch me … but I can't find room to strike back…!

My hand slipped into my tool pouch, withdrawing one of the three light kunai I kept on me. I drew back my arm, and when Itachi moved I substituted and flung the knife toward him.

I lunged forward, right hand drawn back, as he made to dodge.

The dodged knife slipped silently into my ready hand, flipped deftly in my fingers, and was driven for Itachi's back.

Promptly he whirled in evasion – and smashed a backfist into my face.

I tumbled a few times, managing to roll to my feet and hold out a forearm to catch myself hard against a tree. I shook and coughed, ducking my head.

"Yes – crafty," Itachi mused. "But that just won't work here. That's the simple truth, you see…"

"Yeah? We'll just see about that."

Bushy Brow… Hurry!

Hinata ヒナタ

'…Little sister… Little sister…!'

What? Who is…?

'Oi, in there! Pup…? Wake up now.' He licked my cheek, slathering on a stinging slobber of vapid, volatile flame.

It's dark…

'Then wake up!'

I woke with a jerk, yelping as Kurogiba prodded my mind, hard.

'Th-that hurt – oh…!' I grunted, arms wrapping across my midsection as I shuddered and coughed up a few drops of blood. When…?

–"It would seem the fearsome jutsu's wielder had grown quite formidable since… but…"–

'He kicked me, didn't he?' I wanted to cry. 'Chikusho… a single blow…!' I shut my eyes, debilitated with pain. I coughed again. 'I'm so weak…'

Gasping lightly, I looked up through wincing eyes. They're fighting…

And I can't help… I can't even move…!

I pressed a feeble hand to one side of my face, teeth grinding as my eyes watered. Damn it all…!

The mark throbbed furiously. I gasped, bewildered, watching in disbelief as my skin paled, as a ring encircled my wrist before my eyes – then I shoved it back.

'Hinata? !'

'It… practically tried to awaken itself there…' I tensed as it arose again – a pounding urge, a wave of dazzling, dizzying power. My hand went for my dagger and froze.

'Get a hold of yourself,' Kurogiba grunted, forcing my hesitating hand down on the hilt. We folded my fingers firmly around it, and I sighed in relief as the temptation subsided along with the curse's power, drawn off into the obsidian New Moon blade.

'Thank you…' I looked down. 'Ani-ue…?'

'What's up?'

'We should do it – use that combo.'

'You're joking.'

'I'm not! The three of us couldn't handle Tsunade… the two of them won't defeat Itachi. With the Berserkergang–!'

'No. If we Berserk now, you'll only get yourself killed.'

'You don't know that–!'

'Besides, you'd be no good in a team with those two…'

'So we won't even try to do something? !'

'Hinata, that isn't even a plan. You're not thinking straight.'

'Ch…!'

'Besides, it wouldn't even work. You're–,'

'Human? !' I snarled waspishly.

He growled sharply back at my crippled soul, eliciting from me a mental whimper of recoil. His spirit was probably stronger right now, I realized, which should have been normal, actually, since he was after all a full demon, but my surprisingly powerful spirit was the first thing big brother Kurogiba had ever acknowledged in me–

'Calm yourself!' he cried, imploring in frustration as I broke into an abrupt sob poorly hidden behind my hand.

'I – I think I can move now!' I blurted stupidly. More water jumped from my eyes. 'But instead of helping them I'm whining and crying a-a-and–!'

'Shh…' Calm feelings drifted fairly forcibly over from him, pacifying, sedating me. I knew how much he hated to bend my emotions – I knew how much I usually hated it, too – but I didn't really care at the moment. 'Sure this is a crap situation, but you need to calm down. Think. An effective Berserkergang is physically impossible without a full youki release. You know that. Even if we could in some way manage it, I wouldn't possess you. You would never be able to keep your own head in order, in this state.'

'…You're right…' I admitted weakly, abashed.

There really was nothing I could do.

Lee リー

"Sit still, you little punk!" Kisame spat, attacking viciously with his Samehada. "I'm gonna repay you in spades for last time!"

"Last time…?" I thought aloud, rolling outside a jab of the blade and deflecting the following swing with a katana.

–"HIDDEN LOTUS SEISHUNRENDAN! BARRAGE OF YOUTH!"–

"Ah, right!" I said, going on the offensive and getting him to parry a few blows of my own.

"'Ah, right'? That's all you have to say about that lucky fluke? But this time I won't get careless! I'll take off your head–!"

The massive blade arced dangerously toward my head – and Kisame stumbled as I perhaps vanished to his eyes.

No… I can sense it, actually, I thought, knees bent as my straw sandals skidded back through the grass. Fifteen yards away, Kisame whirled to face me – just as I took off sprinting around him, cloak billowing behind me. In moments I had circled him once, and as I did a second time I dropped at four different points the training weights on my right arm, right leg, left arm, left leg, throwing four plumes of dust into the air and more than doubling in speed. As I passed through the clouds on my third circuit I flung four handfuls of shuriken with great rapidity; all were deflected by quick movements of his sword.

"So you deflected that one, huh? !" I said, circling him rapidly several times more. The dust clouds were whipped into a singular ring of rushing debris, and then stretched skyward – a vortex. "Then let us see you keep up with this!"

I let fly shuriken after shuriken as I raced, hidden from view, and the man whirled and maneuvered his sword expertly about to deflect the barrage of arcing, speeding stars. Suberb, I thought, he has hardly been even occasionally grazed…

"Quit playing games–Whoa!" The ex-Mist swordsman brought his great blade crashing down – on my light, green poncho, fastened to a kunai.

There!

Kisame couldn't raise his sword in time. He yelled as three shuriken slammed into his blocking forearm. "Lucky!" he snarled, knocking down another few projectiles with the sword.

When my billowing cloak flew in on a kunai, he merely dodged. It vanished back into the dust cloud – where I was there to catch it and launch it toward him again.

Its return he had not expected. The Samehada shredded through the green cloak, and the man gasped.

So you thought that was me? !

I shot from directly above him, two blades plunging down for his neck and upper back.

SLSSH!

As he leapt back one of my katana cut the arm that dragged the Samehada. The blades lodged a few inches into the earth, and I twisted my body to fire a kick toward the side of my enemy's head.

"Don't get cocky!" Kisame growled, blocking with left forearm and sweeping his sword left to right, toward the katana still planted in the ground.

They will break…! I pushed away from his blocking hand, and my feet returned to ground where his sword had just passed; in the same motion, I was pulling the katana free. The Samehada swung by, striking nothing at all save for the air around us, and I whirled and slashed for my foe's abdomen. He leapt far back to avoid me; he was trying to gain distance to refocus.

Beginning to run forward, I threw my right arm back and allowed tension to gather under the weight of the sword behind me. As my foot shoved the ground, I began to turn my body…

ACCELERATE! My chakra ran down the length of the blades so that my spinning leap sharply jumped in speed.

"LEAF RAGING WHIRLWIND!" I declared, pelting him strongly with aerial kicks and slashes as I spun. He ducked a heel strike and blocked the following kick, and two swords' blows glanced of his sharkskin blade. I pushed away from him and charged again; he backpedalled as we met in a quick exchange of blows, and broke apart.

"…Unlike last time," he muttered, sword held at the ready, "you actually know how to hold a blade. That much I'll admit." He took a small step to his left.

I stepped to my own left. "Arigatou. I have trained long and hard to master it."

"You don't say? Who was your master, boy? Anyone I might know?"

"Possibly… It was Master Washi, he who walked the path of Mist and Iron."

Surprise glinted in the man's beady eyes. "You're not serious."

"I possess the wakizashi to prove it."

"Then… You killed Washi-sempai?" he asked incredulously.

"Not killed – defeated."

"Heh – a soft Leaf brat, after all. I don't know what he could have seen in you or how you managed to take him down, but I suppose I oughtn't disrespect him by messing around with you any longer!"

His strength…! I thought, ducking in close evasion as he suddenly flung the massive sword my way. Then I caught sight of the man as he completed a string of seals. Kuso!

"A distraction? !" I gasped, barely dodging in time as a slender shark made of water exploded from Kisame's mouth. If I had remained focused on the sword a second later–!

A strong hand plowed into, and firmly gripped, my shoulder.

"No, that was!" Kisame roared, dropping a savage fist into my breastbone. Eyes clamped shut, I yelled and spewed blood as I was crushed between the violent force and the quailing earth. I grunted as a large palm clapped onto my forehead, pressing my head firmly to the dirt. "Ha– Now you can't move anymore, can you–? !"

My katana crossed behind his neck.

"This is NOTHING!" I bellowed, driving a foot into his gut.

SLL–Splssh!

A water clone…?

"Hyaa–!"

I shoved from the ground in a spinning leap as the Samehada crashed down about where my torso had just been. My eyes cut to Naruto and Itachi; the blonde maintained twenty or so shadow clones, and struck at the Uchiha whenever he was near. Each time a bunshin was destroyed another quickly popped up in replacement. Though having so many shadow clones active rendered Kageken movement linking tricks impossible, the boy was undoubtedly substituting throughout the crowd in avoidance of his foe.

He cannot stall forever… I need to hurry! I met Kisame's eyes. "Gomen," I said, as chakra began to stir up the air around me. "I will be ending this quickly.

"First Gate Kaimon, Gate of Opening–!"

In a flash my swords were crossed above my head, holding off a two-handed strike from Kisame's blade. I smirked.

"Reminds you of last time, does it not?" I remarked.

"Guess you're right – except unlike last time, I'm afraid I don't intend to let you pull off that trick of yours."

"You do not…?"

With a yell, he shoved the Samehada down with all his bodily strength. The earth depressed and buckled at my feet – but I myself was moved not an inch.

"What's this? !" he cried in disbelief. I grunted and held my ground, holding off his immense power with my own. "You're… strong…!"

"I hope you will not hold it against me, then…" I said, voice slightly strained with effort as I pushed the Samehada back. "…But I do not exactly care whether you intend to let me do so or not."

I abruptly let my katana begin to fall.

ACCELERATION!

Kisame's eyes widened as his Sharkskin sword went shooting into the sky. His empty hands groped at the air above him in confusion. I grinned.

"Second Gate Kyumon, Gate of Rest – Open!" I shouted, slashing fiercely with my left-hand sword, and then the right. Kisame carefully dodged them both – and his hand latched onto my shoulder.

And my hand latched on the neck of his cloak.

Swords never leaving my hands, I turned, hefted the man over myself, and slammed his back to the earth. He lost his wind in an airy yell.

"Third Gate Seimon, Gate of Life… OPEN!"

A shockwave of power hit the air; the earth shook beneath me. I turned the sword in my free left hand to point it downward, and positioned it above Kisame's heart.

I will finish this one … and use the greater gates on Uchiha Itachi–!

"AAGH!"

My head snapped in the direction of Naruto's scream of pain.

His opponent was behind him, holding the boy's right shoulder; shadow clones stared in confusion as the apparent original's same arm was wrenched behind his back. I had only an instant to take this in, however, before my eyes made contact with those of Uchiha Itachi, who even as he forced Naruto's arm was staring this way as if…

He had been waiting for me to look.

With a jolt, the inner gates were snapping involuntarily shut.

Imprisoned in his gaze, I could not look away. I could not move. I could hardly even think. But bar my paralysis, I did not feel that I was being drawn into any further genjutsu.

Shadow clones all bursting to smoke, Naruto slipped from Itachi's hold with a Kage-Kawarimi toward me.

Itachi briefly half-stumbled at the boy's disappearance, but did not go after him.

Another shadow step put Naruto twenty yards nearer, his hand reaching out in desperation, eyes stretched wide, calling my name.

Me…?

But…

I am just fi–

My mouth fell open, as if in surprise.

I had seen something dark blue flash past, and found my feet leaving the earth, my flung body drifting through the air, turning over, turning, so ungracefully, like a leaf afloat on a breeze. Then red caught my eye, and I noticed the arcing trail, a mess of vivid color that ran from the open air to Kisame's upraised sword to the gaping valley of spurting crimsons that ran from the side of a hip across a body and through a left shoulder and upper arm.

M-m-my… body…?

I wanted to scream in sheer terror. Then the world exploded in pain … and I did not know what to do.

So I just fell.

And fell…

And fell.

Naruto ナルト

"LEEEEE!"

I dived and caught him at the ground, and we slid a few feet together. Teeth clenched, I took in the gushing wound, the shredded skin. Lee's face was nearly as white as his eyes. This is bad!

"Oh, look – another one!" Kisame screeched gleefully, bringing his sword down toward us both. My eyes widened as I glared at the incoming blade.

But when Kisame's hand fell, it was empty. And no sooner had the Samehada been sent careening by a missile of sand than Hinata had suddenly impacted the man with a thump, both clawed feet and both clawed hands hooking onto his ribcage and shoulders as he was knocked back, and, snarling like some wrathful beast, gripped his throat in her teeth and wrenched.

She's resorted to the curse…

She sprang off the man and spat roughly as his body thudded to the ground.

"That was a close one." The prone Kisame melted into liquid, and the real one struck Hinata a harsh knee to the face.

Kuso!

"Naruto-kun!" Shizune called, "Bring him here!"

"Got it!" I cried, shadow swapping with Lee to Shizune's side. I helped her in quickly and carefully peeling off what remained of his shirt and belt.

"I can't walk, but I'm capable of this much. We can still save him," she said, hands already releasing healing light as she finished a swift examination. "The leather guard at his hip, and his sword straps – they kept it just shallow enough for him to escape immediate death…"

"Thank goodness," I breathed. Help her, I ordered, dispatching two shadow clones that lit up their hands as well. Just hang in there… I turned my head.

Sitting next to me, Tsunade had gone white as a sheet. Her eyes nearly watered as she gawked, seized in raw horror. It didn't look like our strongest fighter and best healer would be pitching in any time soon.

My eyes shifted to Uchiha Itachi as I stood.

"Shame," he said apathetically. "If you had only come without resistance, that boy would not have needed to suffer this way…"

I ground my teeth. "He isn't the type of fellow who'd sit back and let his friends go off to certain death."

"He's r-right…" Hinata said, stepping forward. "Or did we not make it clear enough that time? If we go down, we go down fighting – together," she added, and Kurogiba growled in agreement.

"I can fight, too," Gaara said behind me.

I smiled. "That's the spirit – but no." He blinked, perturbed. I looked forward again. "These three can't defend themselves now. If you leave them, they'll become targets in a heartbeat. This is where we need you to be now, Gaara – okay? …Hey – Gaara. You heard me, right?"

"H-huh? Uh, yes! I understand!"

"Hn…" I snapped to attention at this slight, nondescript utterance from the Uchiha. The young man's eyes were shut, and his mouth settled on the verge of smirking. "You seem convinced that the three of you would be marching to your deaths. While Naruto and Gaara are Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi and Ichibi, did you ever stop to ponder what we could want with Hinata…?"

"Nothing good, I'm sure," I muttered acidly.

Itachi shook his head. "In short…" His eyes opened on the young Hyuuga. "Hinata… I'm supposed to offer you a position in the Akatsuki."

…

I blinked. "Uh…?"

"What did you just…?" Hinata trailed off.

"I think I just heard something crazy," I said honestly.

"Do you think I'm joking?" Itachi asked. Well… "One of our ranks was watching outside Suna. Our superiors believe you could be of use. You possess the Byakugan. You have exceptional ability as a tracker. You're proficient in the sealing arts. And while your strength may not be on par with that of most current members, on an average day you're no weakling, either. Not to mention, you are quite skillful… when it comes to combating demons…"

"Wh–why would I ever–?"

"Because," he said seriously, "though our organization intends to capitalize on the world war Orochimaru is bound to start, if you'll join and serve the Akatsuki, we will… depose of Orochimaru just as soon as war is securely in motion."

"We already have a plan for overthrowing Orochimaru…"

"Free your imprisoned shinobi and tip the scales in New Konoha's favor – yes, we're well aware," Kisame picked up, walking to Itachi's side. "But just think of the regret you'll endure should you fail. Why risk it? It would be a simple task for one or two of our number to remove Orochimaru for you. You Leaf people cherish your comrades, right? No lives wasted in civil war…"

"But instead a world war…!"

"Just think about it," Itachi urged. "If you accept recruitment, the Akatsuki will be obliged to extend a pact of nonaggression toward the Leaf Village."

"So you're saying you currently have intentions of harming the Leaf?"

"We may or may not. But should a reason to, or benefit in doing so arise, we will be unable to act against that village… You don't seem to believe us, Hinata. Since you are the type that would sooner die than serve us unwillingly, our superiors have graciously delegated these terms to be offered for your service."

"Th-that's…" Hinata paused, lowering her head in thought.

"So, Hinata… What will you do?"

Kurogiba rested his head on her shoulder. From where I stood beside her, her eyes were hidden by her bangs. "Hinata…"

Such a decision…

Another few moments dragged on.

"Okay."

I gasped. Itachi and Kisame looked up.

"You've chosen…?"

"Even if I trusted a criminal organization to keep to its word, why… the hell… would I turn my back on Naruto-kun, Gaara-kun, and Okaa-sama? !" she yelled, spewing toward the two an angry jet of red flame.

No seals? Wait – Kurogiba! I realized as the wolf lifted his head from her shoulder, and Hinata's shockingly red eyes faded to milky white.

Itachi and Kisame had dodged the lancing blast; the former smirked icily. "Then you've chosen your path…"

"I have," she affirmed, nodding. She met my eyes briefly. "We save the village – our way."

"Right!" I agreed, cracking a hint of a grin as I took my stance and glared down our foes.

"This one's got spunk. I don't like that," Kisame remarked with a toothy sneer. "I think I'll just get rid of that, and maybe see if I can't be more convincing while I'm at it…"

"Do as you please, but–,"

"Relax – I'm not gonna skin the wolf-kid! Let's just say I'm curious…" He grinned viciously, roughly pointing the Samehada Hinata's way. "I want to see what our adorable would-be kouhai is made of."

I bristled at an angry twinge within me. "Hinata…"

"I'll be fine, Naruto-kun," she said, Byakugan awakening. "He's in bad shape after his tussle with Lee-kun. I can handle it."

I winced. Can you…?

"Alright. Let's do this…"

Gaara ガアラ

When Naruto-san had first rescued Shizune-san, he had to leave in such a hurry to attack Hoshigaki Kisame that she was left lying there, a ways in front of me, alone.

I frowned slightly. Naruto-san and Lee-san were attacking, but soon thwarted; Tsunade-san was keeping an eye on Uchiha Itachi; Hinata was unconscious. I was the only one not doing anything… sort of…

So I knelt by Shizune-san and helped her to sit up, in my arms. I realized, well… it was probably … unpleasant, to her, being tied, and gagged, and blindfolded the way she was… I mean, she couldn't talk, or see, or really move… It must have been very unpleasant.

But my hand paused uncertainly by her blindfold. When I thought about it – she couldn't even know what was happening, who was holding her. It must have been frightening. I didn't want to startle her, touching her all of a sudden… so I figured I should say something, first…

Cautiously my mouth opened. "You're… all right… It'll be okay now," I said, awkward. I wondered if it had been… comforting. I mostly hoped I hadn't been too faint for her to hear. Then, as she nodded a bit in response, I carefully untied and slipped off her blindfold.

The lady's eyes were dark and puffy. They cracked open slowly and shut again – tender to the light, I guessed. I wondered how long she had been like this…

I undid the knot of the rag tied behind her neck, that went tightly across her open mouth. I tugged on it, and was surprised to find it lightly stuck in place at her mouth; it came loose on one side, but I flinched at her small sound of pain. Sorry… Gently, I peeled the coarse rage from the other corner of her mouth, and I frowned at the sight of the bruised, cracked skin beneath it.

I took up a handful of sand and bade it to cut quickly through the binding on her wrists. She shut her eyes, whimpering as she willed arms from behind her back. Her wrists were raw and scabbed… it looked painful.

It kind of… makes me feel sad, seeing this…

At this point her eyes had focused, and I tensed as I realized she was looking at me. She managed a smile, and in a weak voice she spoke.

"Thank you, Gaara-kun…"

I felt… really good, when she said that.

But I wasn't altogether sure of what to say back. So I sort of tried to smile, and then looked away – at Tsunade, fighting Itachi. My face was warm.

I did something good… I helped someone…

Not long after Tsunade-san had been taken out of the fight. I used the sand to pull her nearer, leaning her against the same tree as Shizune-san. I needed to protect her, as well.

I heard Hinata breaking down.

I heard, but didn't look. I absolutely did not want to see her that way. And if anyone could comfort her now, it was probably Kurogiba-san.

Still… that quiet sobbing… her breathing, hastened in despair…

'What a pitiful scrap of flesh she is…'

You – leave me alone.

'Why should I, hmm?' the tanuki sang. 'The wolf-pup is weaker than you right now… she wouldn't be able to stooop uusss…!'

That's enough. Hinata is my – my friend!

'Just LOOK at her!' Raucous laughter blared in my skull as my eyes landed on the girl. 'That lowly creature that thinks it can suppress your power… Why not just put it out of its misery?'

That… She looked so pathetic over there… broken… vulnerable… My hand was lifted. So… unsightly… That…!

'That inferior existence–!'

Shut up, beast. I wrenched my eyes away from her; my hand brushed the rhombus charm of the choker at my neck. I am not that person anymore…

Nevertheless, when I saw Lee-san wounded, I was rocked by a murderous desire reminiscent of the very worst of those glorious crimson days.

'KILL your enemies!'

No…! And the Shukaku's call of incitement was ignored as I decided the immediate priority – and blasted the sword that was poised to seal both Naruto-san and Lee-san's fates.

Hinata, who was weak, and Naruto-san were the ones who were going to fight now. But… if they were going one-on-one with the two Akatsuki, I didn't want to let Hinata fight alone…

"I can fight, too," I said, when Lee-san was safe. I glared toward our foes. I think I can tell… It's not just because I want to kill, either. I want… to protect my comrades…

My friends…

From these shinobi who threaten them…!

But Naruto-san said no.

"These three can't defend themselves now. If you leave them, they'll become targets

"Wh…What…?"

The world is frozen, noiseless. Everything as it was, but for a rust-red sky, the burnt hues of the world, the dark, dark grass and trees. Naruto-san's mouth is frozen open, a determined look on his face. Shizune-san is healing Lee-san, the energy from her and two kage bunshin's hands a still, grey fog petrified over pitch black blood. A pair of leaves that had been in the air before me, dancing on a breeze, sit unmoving in space, surreal.

I shake my head. "Naruto-san–!"

As I touch his shoulder my hand passes through, and his blonde hair, purple garb, shifts to so many shades of grey – and I start as he decomposes into a mass of crows that fly outward, spiraling, squawking madly, vanish.

Everyone else on the scene fades to grey, to black. Except for two…

Coloration is retained exclusively by I and by a smirking Uchiha Itachi.

"Hn…" he mutters, walking toward me. I tense.

"But… I never directly met your eyes–,"

"I caught your attention with the movement when I pretended to fix my hair…" the man explains calmly, pushing stray bangs out of his face. "I didn't need direct eye contact. You saw it, didn't you? That subtle gesture of my finger…?"

My eyes narrow, and a great blast of sand is sent streaming toward my foe. It dissolves, melting into more ravens a meter before him, and they fly past, vanishing into the sky.

I growl, palms clapping together. "Kai–!"

He flicks his hand out, and incredible, supernatural force seizes my body, wrenches me backwards. I collide solidly with an invisible wall – pinned there – my body pressed flat, splayed fingertip to fingertip, spread-eagled, helpless.

The man is suddenly before me; I grind my teeth and turn my head aside. But his palm clamps firmly from beneath my jaw, and with a no-nonsense jerk he forces me to meet his eyes.

"Listen to me, Gaara. I won't hurt you."

"What is that supposed to mean–? !"

"Calm down. I need you to listen very carefully."

My breath is swift, my glaring eyes wide and unblinking.

"There is a man watching this battle approximately sixty meters north-northeast of where we really are now. As soon as an opportune moment arises, slip away from here and kill him."

"What are you…?"

"He'll be hiding himself in the soil or greenery; take Hinata with you. She can also verify for you that he is another of the Akatsuki…"

I can read nothing in his voice; he seems to be serious. Yet something subtle makes me want to obey, to comply to his wish, stifling the arguments as they surface. I focus, resisting. "I don't underst–,"

"It is imperative," he says sternly. "I will create the opening… the rest will be up to you."

I'm losing ground; his will is forcing itself into me. "Wait…"

"Hm?"

"If I do this… will you leave us all alone?"

To my amazement, he actually smiles. "That is a promise I can certainly make." His hand leaves my jaw, withdraws to the air before me. "The man is not a skillful combat type; with surprise on your side, it should be easy." The hand gently strokes over my belly. "Just trust me… and…"

A cry lodges itself in my throat as his fingers pierce me.

"Sate your thirst, while you're at it…" His gaze crashes into mine, and the Sharingan has evolved into something more.

He wrenches, hard, and I howl as the Shukaku's maddened roar pounds frenzied and screeching in my skull, demanding of me, shaking me, igniting me with deafening pain.

is where we need you to be now, Gaara – okay? …Hey – Gaara. You heard me, right?"

"H-huh? Uh, yes! I understand!"

And as Itachi went on speaking like nothing had happened – which to the others, it hadn't – I clutched at my belly, almost in pain.

Protect them now – Shizune-san, Tsunade-san, Lee-san. Protect them!

But – as soon as p-p-possible…!

I have to kill that man!

Nineteen, Part Two: All to Protect

Hinata ヒナタ

"Hraaah!" he roared, swinging his sword.

"Ha!" I shouted, right hand fisted at my side as my palm was thrust out before me.

Fweeeeenn–!

Light sparked between the two black pebble-sized stones at my feet – and with a crackling of energy the Samehada impacted a faint blue triangle of light that sprang into existence before me, the upper vertex of which focused a foot from my palm. The shield was grainy in texture with its composition of countless miniscule hexagons, and rippled momentarily where the blade struck.

Kisame grunted, trying to force the sword through, and the shield shimmered, bending only slightly. Chakra blazed like faint fire out of the character 'focus' that had been scrawled onto my palm. I ground my teeth, and behind me Kurogiba gave me strength.

Barrier Seal: Hex Formation.

"Huh – so you've sealed a barrier spell into those six stones, then?" he sneered.

I nodded, Byakugan blazing determinedly. "Nothing solid will pass through this barrier…"

He gave a sudden shove of strength to see for himself; I flinched, my foot sliding a few centimeters back, but kept my chakra under control. Kisame snorted. "A seal barrier might block an attack and dramatically reduce the effort you need to hold it off … but that you're relying on such a defensive tactic goes to show just how desperate your situation is. You know you can't beat me – but what fun is it if you won't even strike? !"

He broke away so suddenly that I nearly staggered. Then I released the barrier whilst lowering and extending my left foot to a third black pebble behind me.

Kisame whirled sharply, lashing his sword for my unprotected side.

I reached back as if to stop the incoming blade – and my toe kicked the sealed pebble into position. The Samehada was halted sharply as a barrier caught it with a high-pitched hum.

And as it did Kurogiba was already bounding through said barrier, claws spread, snarling with demonic malice.

The Wolf of Fire… is a far cry from what you'd call 'solid.'

Eyes wide, Kisame couldn't pull away fast enough. He yowled as the beast's teeth sank into his shoulder, but incredibly he stayed on his feet, albeit staggering, even as the huge wolf's hind claws dug a clean slash into his cloak. 'Now, Pup!'

Mi-Hitsuji-Saru-I-Uma-Tora! I jumped toward them as they struggled. Now – I'll blast them both at close range with the Fireball Jutsu–!

Kurogiba roared as the Samehada cleaved him in two, tearing across his middle in a billowing spray of thick black, then red, then orange flames.

I choked on the jutsu as pain broke my midsection. I hacked out an idiotic spurt of fire and spittle, eyes huge, wind leaving me as I sealed the Soul Link in shock, as I somehow landed on my feet, as I folded stiffly at the waist and pressed my hands to my abdomen in confusion. I was frozen with pain. N-not breathing. Breathe…!

My sight flickered as the back of a fist struck across my face. I hit the ground, rolled twice, came to a stop on my back, and let my head fall to the side as my mouth opened to eject on exhalation a bit of crimson.

C-come on… You're in one piece; it doesn't even hurt anymore. Not enough that I should be frozen like this! My toes twitched. I can move… But the memory of pain, the imaginary, excruciating pain, had hit me hard, too hard, had rocked me, the damned weak human I was.

"Your pooch is made of fire and chakra. Tough luck… that makes me his worst enemy," Kisame chortled.

"Kuso," Kurogiba growled. Half of his body had dispelled, while the other retained his spirit. Back legs morphed into existence again; he was whole, but smaller. That sword… it ate his chakra, his control over his medium… so even Ani-ue, who isn't usually affected by weapons… "You think that'll be enough to keep me down?" he snarled, teeth bared.

His mental presence nudged at me. Then – confusion.

"Oh?" Kisame scoffed, grinning. "You know, you're a lot less dangerous-looking all of a sudden…"

He was stalling for time – trying to let me collect myself. Gritting my teeth, I propped up a bit on an elbow. Kurogiba's fierce eyes cut briefly toward me, then flashed to Kisame again.

"Not to mention, it looks like the summoner might just be ready to throw in the towel…"

As Kurogiba bristled and growled at the man, I felt him nudge the surface of my mind again, like a tap on the shoulder, but urgent.

The wolf's act dropped as he met my gaze dead-on. "What the hell are you locking me out for? !" he barked in frustration.

I flinched, eyebrows drawing in. It wasn't intentional! "I d-don't know, I–!"

I blinked. When did he get there?

I very nearly froze up. Then I shoved against the earth, sending my body spinning sharply to the side as Kisame slammed his blade down from high in the air.

I rolled once on landing, pressing a hand to the earth to stop on my side. Kisame smirked. "So you dodged it, huh?" He planted both hands on the hilt, and spun in evasion as Kurogiba blazed past; then in the same motion the man blurred toward where I lay. "Then how about this–? !"

I lifted my left hand, teeth clenched. "Barrier!"

Fortunately Kisame hadn't noticed the two pebbles at my feet, and grimaced in annoyance as the crushing force of his sword was caught inches above my stomach by the triangular wall of light. My back was pressed flat to the earth, and my left arm, bent at the elbow with forearm perpendicular to the ground, trembled at the pressure as the shield bent slowly under Kisame's strength.

I shortly folded in two fingers of my left hand. "Reverse!" I cried, and a good deal of his force was turned back on him, pushing the Samehada away. I kicked my feet up; one knocked the sword from his grasp, and as I caught balance on my hands I lashed the other around for his face. He blocked effortlessly enough, but where he would have grabbed my ankle he was forced to instead dodge as Kurogiba pounced again. Kisame cut to the side and went for his sword, and at the same time I caught my footing and ducked to retrieve the two stones, and a third a few more feet away, before stopping to face my foe with the remaining three close by on the ground.

Humor glinted in Kisame's eyes as he sank into his stance, and charged. Byakugan eyes wide, I stepped curtly back and activated the barrier in front of me at the last possible moment.

At least, I'd thought it was about the last possible moment. But in a ferocious flash of speed Kisame pivoted before the barrier, whirling to swing his sword instead from the side.

I hopped. The sword passed beneath my feet. The barrier released, the man continued his swing as I was still returning to the ground, and rotated sharply to strike once more from the same side. A pebble was slipping from my right hand as I turned, thrusting left palm out.

Fweeen–!

My feet were meeting the earth as Kisame recoiled from the triangular barrier, a lower vertex of which extended, undiverted, with the falling stone until it reached the ground.

"Heh," he snorted. He drew the sword back again – and before I could think of releasing the shield he knocked a roundhouse kick into the triangle, dead center. He didn't bring his foot to the ground as he leaned over an edge of the barrier, using the 'foothold' for additional leverage as he wrenched the Samehada for my unprotected side. "You're cornered–!"

Maintaining the barrier with my extended left hand, I turned away from Kisame and touched my right hand momentarily to the side of the incoming blade, pushing lightly to swiftly swing my legs over it.

The blade met the inside of the barrier – and I let myself fall flat, tilting the barrier's angle and forcing my left as far down as I could. The Samehada was pinned to the ground.

The man frowned at me. Then he flinched, probably as he detected Kurogiba leaping toward him, going for his neck from behind.

"You half-wits!" Kisame growled, free hand lashing back to seize Kurogiba by the throat, pull him through the air, and hurl him to the ground.

Well – not the ground. I was kind of in the way.

Even though he wasn't quite bigger than me at present, the collision smacked the breath out of me. The barrier broke, freeing Kisame's blade; I pushed Kurogiba one way and hurriedly dodged in the other, avoiding another slash of the sword. I scrambled a ways on all fours before rising to full height, sprinting for the trees as Kisame chased after me.

"Now you're running away? !"

"Just shut up!" I whimpered as he gained on me, and as the sword swung out I ran up a tree.

The Samehada blasted through the tree trunk just as my feet were leaving it. My left hand ghosted lightly over his forearm, and the other his head; I cartwheeled over him, and on landing lunged to ram my left palm into his back.

Gotcha–!

I launched into a Rotation, and a weak dome of chakra deflected before I leapt back as Kisame swung the blade around again. "You know, for an esteemed rogue ninja you're not all that strong!" Kisame taunted, attacking furiously. I retreated, ducking and dodging strike after strike, panting for breath.

Here! I'd backed up to where two of the pebbles sat on the ground, and as Kisame's attack was caught by the barrier Kurogiba blazed in on the attack. I anticipated with my Byakugan, and as the man dodged aside I was cutting in to whirl low and plant a heel behind his knee, releasing a sharp burst of chakra. When he began to fall I lunged to take the offensive – and abruptly he rose, whirling to slash. The blade barely clipped my forearm. Why aren't my attacks affecting him? !

"You're pretty light on your feet, perhaps… but every move you make–!"

I jumped as he rammed the sword straight toward me, and my feet landed nimbly on the wrapped edge. My bare feet pushed off just before its scaly surface flared up viciously, shredding the sword's wrap to tatters.

"Every attack you throw–!"

I flicked one of the pebbles in my right hand to the left, and then dropped them both as he swung upward toward me. My feet were high as my left hand awakened a sliver of barrier above the sword, a short, wide-based triangle, and as it was halted I used my balance atop it with a reversal move to spring myself into the air, over the man's head.

I twisted and flipped sharply as I fell, and with a battle cry slammed a solid kick into the back of his skull. He was stumbling as I landed, and I whirled to throw a gentle kick toward his side.

"Astoundingly…"

THAMP!

Kisame's large hand was locked strongly on my lower leg, and it didn't seem to want to budge. I blanched as his eyes struck mine.

"There's no power at all in anything that you do."

I flinched.

I was helpless to do a thing to stop him. Kisame pulled on my leg, and smashed his elbow into my gut.

The things around me wavered, shook. My breath surged upward in a pained grunt, and on it was flung a splash of scarlet, droplets of red blood that trickled into the air before me as my body was thrown back.

My backside touched ground first, and I tumbled head over heels, uncontrolled, graceless. I came to a stop on my front and lay there, a pile of meat – not even, a scrap of flesh – unable to move. My teeth clenched; my vision wouldn't stop blurring, sharpening, focusing, unfocusing, on whatever the heck it was I happened to have been left looking toward.

"Pup… pull yourself together…!"

Ani-ue's… He's weakened, isn't he…? It must… It was a struggle, probably… just forcing himself not to … dispel … back then…

"Did you hear me? I'm telling you to snap out of it!" he said – aloud, for I currently lacked the strength of will to open my scared little mind and permit his entry.

I whimpered, coughing feebly like an infant. My eyes were trying to water. "A-Ani-ue… it hurts…!"

"Then suck it up, and get over it already!" he cried. "If you're the Hinata I know, hurry up and start acting like her!"

At this my body gave a shudder; water spilled from my eyes. And as a loathsome weight bore down on my frail heart, as I grimaced in grievous shame, I could only take flimsy solace in that he couldn't read my thoughts.

I can't!

"What," Kisame sighed, "you're crying now?"

"Dammit, Hinata…!"

Just shut up…! J-just… just…!

"Hmph," Kisame scoffed disdainfully. "The mighty Kurouga, was it? Fabled a living, breathing demon among shinobi. I could give you the benefit of the doubt, but I honestly don't care whether you're like this once a month or once a year. There really is no excuse … for being this weak!"

"Pup–!"

He didn't need to be particularly within my mind to sharply deliver a mental smack. I started with a squeakish yelp, and promptly enough gained sufficient consciousness of my surroundings to catch the gist of what was happening – and was halfway on my feet as Kisame swung, with all the cold, merry intent, it seemed, to maim if not kill.

Kurogiba crashed into me, having lunged so that his shoulder met my midriff in such a way as to shove me back as well as safely onto my feet.

Then the Samehada ran him through, gouged his side, and Kurogiba's eyes, those hard, glinting rubies studded with their splash of ether-piercing silver, eyes of an undead beast that in this walk of his existence was simply not often made to feel pain unless he was connected to me, and the aptitude for such a sensation useful only to the living thus made to bleed into him – stretched wide in genuine agony as he loosed a demonic, screeching, roaring cry.

Ani…ue…

I stumbled back only slightly as my feet met ground. The wolf cast aside, Kisame flung his sword, spinning, into the air as he moved toward me, hands flying through seals. My teeth clenched. Then I noticed something small under my foot and stepped off of it, looking down. So this is where you pushed me…?

CLAP!

Kisame reached up to catch his sword in one hand, high in the air, sharp teeth flashing in a grin.

My left hand rose.

Fweeeeeen–!

"That's getting old," Kisame said. His cheeks inflated, and he ducked his head to spew down a mass of clear blue water that rushed to flood the ground around us. What's this–? !

A swell of water surged up a few yards behind me, shaping and darkening and coloring into a Kisame clone. Sword in hand, it charged and swung.

I turned partially. My right foot kicked up.

Fwwnnnn–!

"So, you had those seals on your feet as well…?"

I heard behind me churning water, a forceful splash, and felt a light spray of mist on my back. Balancing precariously on one foot, I turned my head.

By the time I spotted the second water clone, the flat of its sword was smashing ruthlessly against my lower back.

"GAHK–!"

And my breath was lost, and pain, terrible pain shot through my thrown body, and a white-hot, needle-like prickling throbbed, fluttered in the back of my skull at the tremendous impact, shattering, as my vision unfocused well further than before, as iciness touched me–

And before my crippled soul could be allowed to slip out of my body, Kurogiba's presence forced itself into my mind – excruciating – and drove me back, rooting me, locking me in place, and when my vision refocused I was peering not spiritually at the back of my head but through my own physical eyes.

And I saw Kurogiba throw back his head and yowl as smoky darkness was flung, as if struck, so sharply from his fragmented body of dull black fire, before both his spirit and the lightening flames explosively dispelled.

I crashed to the ground with a grunt.

A-Ani-ue… "Uhn–!" I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut as pain clenched up in my back, my spine. When I coughed now it was an awful noise, wet and grating, and copper stung my throat, my mouth, my nostrils as I gasped and choked, shuddering all the while.

"Be grateful I didn't cut. I bet I could've torn you in half if I'd tried to."

Breathing shallow breaths, I could barely crack open a moist eye to look up at him as I lay where I was, prone and pitiful.

The Sharkskin blade was lifted off Kisame's shoulder, and I cringed as it swung heavily down and halted to rest an inch before my face.

"Get up."

K-kuso! Kuso, kuso, kuso, kuso…!

The threatening Samehada knocked my head roughly, with a sharp jerk of force that caused me to yelp. "You deaf? That wasn't all that much fun. Stand up. Do something. If not, I'll just hit you while you're still down."

K-k-kuso… I pressed my palms to the ground, one after the other. Teeth grinding, face hot, I pushed myself up a ways; an arm twitched back, helping my balance as I put more weight on my feet. My breath shook as I started to rise, gasped, tucked a hand behind my hurting back, and then I continued. With eyes held wide that hardly blinked, and a gaze that faltered, I looked, cringingly, to the Akatsuki man.

He smiled widely. "Good girl. Now show me your little stance, while you're at it."

My lip trembled; my knees shook.

I hate this… I h-hate this…!

I still didn't blink as my right arm eased further behind my back, as my left extended, palm-forward, before me, and my knees bent and shook and shook.

"Good, good…" Kisame stowed the Samehada on his back, and as he lowered his hand to shoulder height it clenched and popped into a solid fist.

"Now feel free to try and defend yourself…"

I don't want to fight anymore!

Naruto ナルト

When the cry met my ears, I couldn't help my shudder; my eyes dared flicker in her direction before swiftly returning to Uchiha Itachi.

Kuso! I thought, hands tightening on my naginata until my knuckles popped. This guy… he's deliberately keeping me well out of range of them. I can't get at that Hoshigaki Kisame even with the Kageken…!

"You seem distracted," the Uchiha observed.

I bristled. "Call him off," I said, my voice chilled.

The man blinked dispassionately.

"He'll listen to you, won't he? Call that brute off!" I demanded, and violet chakra lashed the air about me. My lip twitched as anger wrought upon mouth a snarl. "She's helpless, dammit! If the coward's that hungry for a fight, he can fight me!"

The Uchiha sighed subtly, shaking his head. "You know what my answer will be."

"Soon as I give up?" I growled. "Maybe I should just crush you and be done with it…"

"If you think you can…" He now nodded, slightly but pointedly, a reminder given not so much at his own inspiration as what he had realized earlier to be the present source of my limitation. My wild eyes cut in the direction indicated, to where Gaara stood and Shizune, sitting immobile, still toiled to seal Lee's grievous wound.

Should it open and he lose any more blood, he'll… He can't be moved safely, the way he is now. I can't get away from here. And if I try to use that now, they'll all get caught up in the destruction…

Glaring daggers at my foe, I slowly withdrew and as gradually relinquished a breath, settling the Kyuubi's chakra again.

"He won't kill her, you know…" Itachi was saying as the demonic power died down. "Keep in mind that Akatsuki fancies her powers. Once I defeat you, I'll get Kisame to leave the girl be. You and Gaara will, inevitably, die; if Hinata continues to refuse willing cooperation, she will be kept as our prisoner and forced to cooperate when needed until she so chooses to follow our command. But already broken as she is, once her dear friends are lost to her and never to return… the girl shouldn't be too difficult to coerce…"

"You…!" I growled.

"Look at her," he cut in uninterestedly, turning his head to watch his comrade crush mine. "Suffering, just for you…"

I winced, my glare wavering.

"Just think," he said, emotionless. "Hinata won't suffer; as our prisoner she would be not even confined behind bars, but strictly chaperoned, if you will, by Kisame and myself. If she behaves, the Akatsuki may choose to keep to its word despite her delayed compliance, assassinating Orochimaru and extending its nonaggression toward that village!"

Two things in this insistence sparked strangely upon my sharpened mind. The note almost resembling of fierceness in his voice was the first; the second, the wording of that last bit, had also caught me once before. Extending nonaggression… Nonaggression, as a quality or status that the Akatsuki could offer… or a state already adapted that might be 'extended' as in furthered…?

"Naruto," he said firmly, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You know as well as I do that the end result will be the same either way. While it is impressive you've lasted this long, you deplete your chakra while I do not. You cannot defeat me. You can't even protect Hinata. You're just too weak…"

"Gr…!"

"So if it's the last decision you ever make…" He smiled darkly, extending his hand in offering. "Why not do the right thing? Cease this desperate resistance, and let end Hinata's suffering… Persuade the girl to do the Akatsuki's bidding, and in doing so you will guarantee the wellbeing of the Hidden Leaf you yearn so strongly to protect…"

My teeth ground.

"Well–?"

"So you're some kind of pacifist now?"

I lifted resolute eyes, and with a brief flash of violet chakra from my body I was joined by a ring of thirty clones slung into existence around the Uchiha rogue. With the slightest thoroughly unamused inclination of an eyebrow, his hand slowly fell.

"There are too many people here who're counting on me! And besides – sorry, pal, but I can't trust Hinata or the Leaf Village to your care!"

"That's … unfortunate." A kunai slipped from the sleeve of his cloak, and in a crisp motion was snatched up and clasped in his hand.

Shizune-san – hurry!

And Hinata… just hang on!

Hinata ヒナタ

The bowstring groaned as my shivering hand drew back, my teeth clenched and eyes wide; the man lunged swiftly forward and to the side, and I began to edge left, but then he rushed the twenty yards between us in a strong few steps, and I started to flinch back. One wrist and one forearm were engulfed in his hands as he halted at my side, and the arrow sailed off into the treetops.

"Hesitant, aren't you?" he grunted, pulling on my arms and–

WHOMP!

"GUH–!"

–throwing a vicious knee at my stomach.

"And now you drop your weapon…"

I wasn't really thinking about that as I was lifted off my feet, my eyes crossed, gagging as I bent over and landed, hands partially clutching before my middle, and with a confused stutter-step propelled myself to fall flat on my face. I trembled, mouth open with a bead of saliva falling from it, eyes bulging, lightheaded at the tight web of pain that spasmed hotly in my gut. I reached out with one arm, tried to crawl away, to get away while I was weakened so.

Crick–!

He stomped on my bare foot, and I yowled. The man only snickered. "That other one keeps looking over here – the raccoon lad, too, actually. I think they're getting angry at me! Jinchuuriki, no less! Come on – give 'em a good scream this time, will you–?"

Awkwardly splayed on my front though I was, I threw a kick back at him; missing the intended target by a good couple of feet, I jammed my heel up into his kneecap.

"Sh– You little brat!" He grabbed my ankle and flipped me over, roughly so that I crashed to the ground on my back, and – I really shouldn't have closed my eyes – I crossed my arms in defense of my face as he stepped forward, and slammed his shoe down into contact with my lower ribs.

My body stiffened and shuddered, head thrown back on the ground and mouth flung agape on my contorted face as the ground crackled sharply, a crash of force in one brutal stroke devastating the earth for a good few meters' radius from my body. What breath I caught subsequently was cast forth in a high sob as my arms moved shakily inward, hands resting near as they could to the throbbing pain that blazed most fiercely under the area still covered by his foot.

"You can't take a hit worth crap, either…" Kisame observed. "But… What's this?" I stiffened again, clenched teeth parting as he pressed down with a good deal of if not all his strength and ground his foot into the pain. He whistled, an utterance in itself a note of sarcasm. "They just won't give. The demon's flesh is wrought of steel, and her bones forged of adamant, huh? You're lucky your body's stronger than you are." He chuckled, amused to no end.

All I could do was groan out through my teeth. Brows quivering, I cracked my eyes open to a blurred and faded sky; splotchy wisps of flickering darkness tossed and rolled about like fiery embers, clustered at the edges of my vision.

"It looks like your will to fight's just about dried up," he noted. "And here after all that tough talk… all the fearless declarations of 'I won't betray my friends,' all the boasting yourself above association with criminals… Suddenly all I can see in your eyes is 'I'm afraid of this man. I don't want him to hurt me. I don't want more pain'…"

I'm… blacking out…

"And you know why? Because you're weak!"

STOMP!

"Oh–!"

The strange darkness blared out, rapid waves of it swelling and billowing tumultuously, engulfing my eyes…

…

Huh…?

Could it be that…

Without his weight pressing into my ribs, I've stopped losing consciousness? I thought, blinking as I found myself staring frowningly into Kisame's eyes, dangling by the neck of my jacket.

Kuso…!

"You're weak," he repeated. "But the Akatsuki… can make you strong."

"I d-desire no strength attained from the l-likes of–,"

He punched me in the face. Hanging by his grasp, I could do nothing save gasp and blink in shock, turning my head a little. Blood dribbled from my nose.

"You must think your present level of ability is really something, then," he scoffed. "You can try to hide it from me if you want, but you know you can't deny it – your hunger for power, that is."

"I d-don't–!" I coughed. "I don't kn-know… what you're talking about…!"

I flinched as he hollered with laughter. "So you don't? You, who would stoop so low as to train yourself in the pursuit of mastering Orochimaru's mark, and scrape up the use you could get out of a dark curse granted by your sworn enemy? You, who sought to bind yourself by pact to a clan of demons, in exchange for the powers to be gained from it?"

I grunted.

"Did I strike a nerve?" he chuckled. "I can read it all in those eyes of yours. For all you play the innocent and righteous fighter, the truth is that at heart you're a person who is willing to cheat along her path whenever an opportunity arises. At one point or another you found you didn't like being weak and took a liking to power; and ever since you've been in a hurry to amass it. And that's why you leapt headstrong, without glancing back, at the chance to be warped for all time into a monster!"

I clenched my teeth, eyes shut.

"Come on, you can tell me! That's why you did it, right? To get your hands on a shred of the Gobi's power, you agreed to be changed into something atrocious and foul – a freak neither man nor beast. Well? Are you trying to tell me such a person cares about the form in which power presents itself? !"

"…You're right," I ground out. "I did it… to b-become stronger…

"But…"

I scowled sharply, and my hands tightened on his arm.

Hoshigaki Kisame's mouth fell open, his eyes widening on a painful throb of surprise, as his body shuddered from the Juuken kick that had lashed below his underarm, lodged solidly into the side of his ribs.

"Guh–!"

With a slight partial transformation, I turned my foot and dug clawed toes into his side, using the leverage to swing my right foot back, around, and up; with the turning of my body I flipped my shirtneck free and poised both hands lightly atop his still outstretched arm, leaving myself facing outward from him with one knee bent, sole resting on the side of his ribcage as claws unhooked from it, and the other foot upraised high in the air.

"Don't you dare–!"

In a single swift stroke of ferocity, my foot lurched down in an angled sweep, connecting and driving through as heel impacted the back of his skull.

Chakra shattered the first barrier within my right forearm. I landed, and he staggered away, rough hands cradling his head.

"To pretend for a second–!"

Cutting to his side, I pivoted, whirled sharply in place, and slammed a lateral kick into his tough abdomen. Withholding a grunt, he stepped back at the strike; and before he could react I planted that foot on the ground, spun, and buried a Juuken heel strike in precisely the same place. He stepped back again, and I planted my foot again, turned, and kicked, turned, and kicked, each swift blow connecting with a sharp crash of force that pushed him in recoil another step away.

Moving in front of him, I spun strongly once more, right arm back. "That the likes of you–!"

WHAM! !

And my blazing Byakugan were narrowed and icy as I relished in the feel of my fist sinking forcefully into his abdominals.

The fourth scar was overcome with a shockwave of nameless force.

As Kisame jerked double I surged skyward. Knee met jaw with driving force, throwing his head back again.

"Could even begin to understand–!"

A pair of cold, silver-white eyes flickered across my mind.

Two light kicks flurried out from midair, right foot then left pumping my chakra into his chest, and at a third shot I pushed up, spun my body in the air, swept a heel before his face – and smashed the successive kick of the Konoha Sempuu square into his head.

I landed in a crouch, tapping two fingers to right wrist, and shoved forward in one mighty bound. Outstretched before me was the palm which headed the spear of frenzying, ultra-pressurized chakra locked within my right arm.

"–My reason for seeking strength!"

Shippurendan–!

Tmp.

"…Th-this is… the technique that wounded Itachi, isn't it?"

These words that ran from Kisame's bloody mouth were spoken not with fear of impending doom but rather curiosity, as he peered at the palm he'd caught by wrist an inch before his chest.

Eyes wide, I tried to force the distance to no avail; his grip was iron, and his chortling began anew at my attempts.

"If that's so, once this palm touches its target there's only one way you can free it…"

M-my arm! Grimacing, I prepared to force the chakra free; even without direct contact, such a blast at this range would still–!

I couldn't stop him. Even if I'd foreseen it coming, it's not like I had the strength.

Such was the suddenness of his move that I was being pushed off my feet, some reflexive gut reaction having already saved me from certain death, by the time I realized just what had happened. When the aforementioned realization arrived, my heart seemed to crash down into my stomach, and perhaps throb there, a slow, heavy, pounding drum. My feet met ground first, but I was too stunned to think to try to catch balance and retain my footing.

So I toppled to the ground, eyes huge, a barely withheld Chakra Concussion Blast screaming in my arm, as I lay with my right palm stuck fast to my own forehead.

"You almost had me there…"

I whimpered, rolling onto my side with a grimace to clasp a shaky hand at my searing arm.

The man laughed. "So, you don't want the Akatsuki's power, huh? Suit yourself – you'll be joining us whether you agree to it or not. Of course, if the slug witch won't heal Itachi we'll be forced to take her along as well … but maybe it would serve nicely as an incentive if she's not allowed to heal you until she's treated him… That should be a good way to keep her from betraying us, don't you think?"

"Y-you bastard," I whispered, even as my eyes moistened again.

Naruto ナルト

I yelled out as my back met the tree in an explosion of pain. The cold hand that had slammed me here shifted deftly, and the arm pressed into my trachea with just the precise measure of restraint not to crush it then and there.

I drilled all the fierceness I could muster into the man's unfeeling, steady glare, but lost force as my sight began to weaken, and my scowl to falter. Wordlessly Uchiha Itachi released me, already striding away by the time I, as he'd known I would, toppled to the ground.

"A shame, really…" he murmured as he walked. "A few more years, and you might have been able to give me a decent challenge…"

Grunting weakly, I turned my head. I saw the man blur, and in seemingly the same moment that sand sprang up behind Gaara in automatic defense he was before him with a sharp thump – a sandal in the redhead's gut. Gaara's body shuddered once, and his head, halfway turned back at the disturbance behind him, shakily began to turn itself forward again before, large eyes unfocused, the boy embraced himself and crumpled with a breath of pain.

My teeth clenched in panic. "Stay away from them!" I yelled, trying to push myself up, but as soon as I had pain gripped me, and I coughed up a thick glob of blood and fell again.

"Pathetic," Itachi spat darkly. "One who cannot so much as touch me… One who cannot even do a thing to defend his beloved comrades… Who would trust you to protect that village?"

"Ch…!"

Itachi set his eyes on Tsunade. Shizune had formed all of one handseal when the man blurred to seize her wrists in one hand and knock her head against the tree behind her with the other.

"Tsunade," the man said, looking down at the shivering sannin. "Snap out of it; I need you to heal me."

The woman lifted her gaze at his voice; her face was pale, mouth open and eyes large and pitiable.

"If you won't do it, I'll cut you and let you see your own blood run…"

Her shaking gaze remained on him, her whipped-puppy expression unchanged.

Kuso…! You reduce Hinata to a broken state, you lure us to the enemies' den… and now, the strongest of all of us, and you won't even fight – won't even stand up for yourself? After all the bravado and belligerence you enjoyed showing off before…

"Look around; there's no one left to protect you. It would be meaningless to resist any longer."

My eyes quivered. This is… the legendary medical genius?

When Itachi touched her arm, she flailed and yelped and slapped his hand away, eyes clamped shut in distress.

Itachi frowned. "You… You sorry excuse for a sannin!" he growled, voice low but tone fierce, as he brought his fist harshly across her shocked face. Crimson peppered the earth at her side, and my hand clenched as I spotted the darkness clouding on her cheek.

She uttered a gasp of pain as he caught her again with the backfist, a wicked crack of force that snapped her head to the side. He lifted his foot and stamped her shoulder into the tree she leaned against, and then drew back and repeated a second time, a third; he rubbed his heel into her forehead, speckling it with dirt; he kicked her terribly hard in the side, and I shook with each blow. She sat there and took it all, whimpering and sobbing her only reaction.

Itachi's hand flashed to her face, and even as she recoiled in anticipation he cupped her cheek, roughly gripped her hair in his fingers, and forced her to meet his eyes. "Are you awake yet?" he hissed in her bloodied face, making the woman cower from intimidation. He spoke very slowly. "I need you to restore me, and you'll do it. Do you understand?"

Teeth chattering, Tsunade winced with watery eyes and turned her head away. Itachi released her with a light shove and contemptuous snort, and then drew himself again to full height. "Useless…" the man hissed.

His fist pulled back.

Tsunade shut her eyes.

WHAM!

A note of resounding force broke into the air as Itachi's knuckles impacted the Leaf emblem upon my forehead. I felt wetness run down between my glowering eyes, stream to one side of my nose, fall over the cool frown on my lips, and drip steadily from my chin.

"Honestly… Don't you have anything better to do than beat up old ladies, Uchiha Itachi?"

"N… Naruto…" Tsunade whispered behind me.

"I can't have anything happening to you, Granny," I said. "Once all this is over, you're holding your end of the bargain. We still need you to come with us … and rescue Master Jiraiya!"

Itachi tried to push me with a sudden spike of force, but I held firm. "Hn," he murmured, "Recruit Tsunade to your cause, free Jiraiya, free the jounin… a nice theory, but what if it should shatter in practice? Look at you," he hissed, "Any fool can spew words and declarations; yet the second someone like me comes along your merry path here you are, doomed to failure…"

"It ain't over 'til it's over, pal," I snarled. "I will protect the Hidden Leaf without fail! All of us will! And we'll be as strong as we have to be to crush anything that decides to get in the way!" I shoved his fist from my forehead, and struck out with my own.

"Fool," he reiterated, catching my fist in his hand. "That's no solution. Do you truly believe it? That you – you children – can save the village?"

"I do!"

"How much faith have you bestowed… in these weak fists?"

Before I could begin to wonder what he meant, my hand began to shatter in the strength of his grip. My body stiffened, and my mind blazed through a listing of bones, punctuated with an obscenity apiece, as Uchiha Itachi so easily broke them. Teeth bared, I withheld the noise that wanted so badly to come shrieking up my throat.

"Naïve yet… You don't quite seem to grasp the magnitude…"

Cr-Cra-CRACK!

"…Of what you're entrusting to your own two hands! At some point no matter how hard you fight or how determined you are, you will not be able to succeed."

My breath hissed through my teeth, and I glowered steadily as sweat rolled down my face. "D-didn't I already warn you I'd crush anything that got in the way? You'd better w-watch out, Uchiha, otherwise you'll be crushed for c-certain…!"

"As if you could…"

I grunted audibly as he squeezed harder, but still refused to cry out. "I know full well what I'm talking about here – my home, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and every last soul inside it! Not that I'd expect you to understand–!"

Force cracked blindingly into the side of my jaw, setting my tongue lolling, my footing uncertain, one eye snapping shut.

When I saw the man's other fist nearing my face, I knew somehow that this time I wouldn't be waking up for a while.

Smat!

"H–huh? !" I gasped.

Itachi's punch had been blocked. His fist was clasped securely in the manicured hand of an arm resting casually over my right shoulder. The woman's other hand laid on my left arm, steadying me from falling over.

Itachi's eyes were wide. "Wh–? !"

His teeth clenched, muffling a short yell as a sharp crunch issued from his captured fist. Then Tsunade curtly flicked him back by the hand she held, sending him crashing to and skidding a good several meters along the ground. The man sat up with a grunt, shooting a poisonous scowl our way.

"Granny… You…?"

She patted my shoulder as I looked up at her. "You did good, Naruto," she said, eyes sharp, bruised face and bloody mouth set in an expression cold and fierce. "Go ahead and let us grown-ups handle this… Well, I would say that, but I might need you to back me up here."

Itachi stood, straightening his cloak and patting dust out of its folds. "You've overcome your fear, then…"

"I have," she said, "and I've decided – by the time I'm through with you, you won't be needing a doctor anymore…"

He shut his eyes and chuckled lightly from the throat, his mouth closed. "You seem to suggest you could kill me, Tsunade. But from our brief exchange earlier, I know you've realized that I hold the upper hand. We simply don't match up. And yet you still intend to fight…?"

"Give me a break," she snorted. "Anything can happen once the battle's in motion; you know that and I know that. In the end all we can do is see what happens."

"A game of chance, is it?" he scoffed. "But why? When you could so simply heal me and be done with us… For so many years you've put your village out of mind and wandered the lands a drifting vagabond, following your heart's whims, appeasing your own needs, always living in, existing for the moment. So why would you, one of the renowned sannin, risk it all for the likes of these brats…?"

She looked down as she chose her words. "These kids… these lowly little brats… have something in them that I'd long lost and forgotten. Courage. Guts. Ambition. Determination." She looked up. "And they, even more than I or anyone else, have what it takes to protect that place!"

Itachi stared on, unreadable. "And so you aid them? You hope to make amends for what you've done today by destroying the peril you've brought on them, even if it should cost you your life?"

Tsunade grinned dangerously. "Me, die? Not gonna happen today, kid. After all, I just remembered something…"

Itachi's eyes narrowed. I gulped. Tsunade lifted her head proudly and raised her voice for all to hear.

"I am, now and forever, a ninja of the Village Hidden in the Leaves! !"

Tsunade's fighting spirit has been reignited? !

Hinata ヒナタ

"Eat this!"

"Eeek!"

He repeatedly slammed his sword to the ground, and where it struck a water shark missile was called forth and unleashed, sent spiraling and hurtling toward me with vicious jaws spread wide. Kisame screeched with laughter as I ran awkwardly and frantically for my life, jumping as each projectile crashed down at my heels. After five such evasions, I realized the next shark bomb was shooting along a trajectory to pass in front of me – and I was about to run straight into it.

But I didn't direct chakra to my feet to sharpen my pivot, and I didn't call upon the Hakkeshou Kaiten. It was the most I could do to try to dig down with my heels, stumblingly stopping the forward momentum magnified by a clumsy lack of balance owed to the arm that hung in front of me, and lean away as the water shark lanced by and exploded in front of me.

Flung by the force, I landed on my upper back and bounced to slide to a stop on my front, right arm tucked awkwardly under me. With a scowl I laid down my left palm and tried to push up, glaring from the corner of an eye that fought not to spill over.

Kisame couldn't seem to stop chortling, that swaggering, superior grin carved into his face. "It's getting almost comical. I don't see why you keep resisting…"

"Kuso!" I panted, falling onto my side to cradle my right arm once more, face hot. The crude Gentle Ferocity Blast that wounded Itachi was an incomplete technique… The fool says he needs me alive… but the Chakra Concussion Blast, the deathblow that concludes the Hurricane Barrage, is many times more powerful…!

And… I bit my lip.

If I try to manipulate any chakra at all … if some stray ripple happens to disturb and accidentally fire off this blast… Not to say it won't probably break my arm and snap my neck…

Even though it is my own chakra… if such a force disrupts the chakra flow of my brain…!

Growling, I shoved, clumsily, to my feet. I took care not to stumble around too much.

"Baka," I spat, glaring furiously around my wrist. "For how much weaker you are than Itachi, you have all the more arrogance! What's funny… is that even though overconfidence could be a man like Itachi's undoing – a shrimp like you doesn't quite seem to realize it can be his own!"

"What's that?" Kisame growled, face darkening as its amusement vanished with a snarl. "You've got a fast mouth – for an idiot running around with a hand accidentally glued to her face!"

I gasped in alarm, stepping back as he leapt toward me. I couldn't reach a weapon quickly enough with my left hand; it was all I could do to turn my head, and to catch the brunt of the Samehada's blow, intended for my side, with my forearm.

Slash!

I screamed, hard. My eyes were bulging as blood gushed from the wounds; I stepped away, but as soon as I had a hand flashed out, gripping me by the neck, while another struck into my stomach. I wheezed in pain, dazed as I was lifted off my feet and held in the air by his hold on my neck.

"Tch. That's the problem with weak people. So insolent…"

Gasping brokenly, as blood ran from my open mouth and water freely from my dull eyes, and crimson dripped heavily off my elbow, I could not respond.

"You're gonna call someone a fool, with such a stupid face?" Reaching past my limp, bloodied arm with his free hand, he pressed a large, rough thumb and forefinger to my cheeks, squeezed them, pushed them up, forcing me to show him a silly face.

I didn't try to fight or resist, and continued to hang there, gazing near lifelessly into his eyes.

"Cheer up! I'm not going to kill you. You'll come to acknowledge your superiors in time; all that's left to you now is to accept def–."

Splikt!

My mouth moved.

"A-arrogant…"

"Wh… A-ah… AAAAAAHHH–!"

"HYEEAAA!"

When my clawed right thumb had pierced his eye, Kisame had dropped me.

When my feet hit the ground, I leapt to throw all my weight into the forearm I wrenched into his collarbone.

The high strike took him off his feet. Straddling his chest, teeth gritted, fingers gripping the side of his head for leverage as I struggled intently to push my thumb just a little further, I drew back my left hand as he began to resist.

When you slashed me with that sword just now – it devoured all the chakra sitting in my right arm!

I yelled again as I brought my fist down against his face. I kept my hold on his eye, and the man spasmed and kicked under me at the pain of it, screaming, unable to react as I pounded him. My mouth hung slightly open, and there was perhaps a furrow in my brow. Eyes wide, with an almost possessed intensity, I drew far back and smashed knuckles with shuddering force now to his cheek, his nose, his cheek, his cheek, his right eye, his mouth, his cheek, his nose again, sharp and hard, each time heaving my weight into it, marveling without marveling at the crimson that dusted the ground, glazed my knuckles, spattered warmly to my face. At some point his left hand clutched my right but faltered as I dug, able only to stop me from gouging further. I punched him in the neck; then, on a spur of insight, my claws slid to cradle his windpipe.

I guess it was at that moment, though, that he got a hold of himself or found either the strength or the urgency to do so – and pried my right hand away as he rolled and retaliated with and angry fist bludgeoned across my face.

I grunted as my side met earth, and I rolled blindly, my eyes long shut. My mouth opened, and crimson was sharply expelled after I'd come to a stop.

"M-my eye…! Damn you…!"

"I-itai…" His strength…! I tried to push myself up, but could hardly muster the power to lift my face from the dirt before my arm gave out, an elbow touching ground under me. My right arm… is pretty messed up…

I found I needed to pop my neck, and whimpered as I did so; distressed as I was from so brief a stab of sickening pain, I grimaced faintly as I shed a fresh round of tears.

"You sniveling piece of…" Kisame rose to his feet, a hulking form in his cloud-patterned, bloodstained black cloak. His battered face (which in itself held a strange enough visage) was further contorted with rage, and the blood that streamed from his nose and from his open mouth, but most profusely of all from one eye tightly shut under a twitching lid, seemed to grant him the guise of a seething monster. "You think you're pretty smart now, huh? !"

I would've probably screeched that I most definitely didn't, provided the time. Kisame was already stalking toward me, a hand creeping toward the hilt of his blade, his step menacingly slow and measured. As soon as I began to get to my feet, however, he burst into a sprint. Rage burned in his eye as he gripped the hilt in both hands, readying his strike with a wordless yell, and it occurred to me he may have forgotten he was meant to take me in alive.

No!

Fweeeeeeenn–!

He blinked in surprise from the other side of the wall; then he looked down to spot the two lucky pebbles, and his scowl turned into a rough, snarly grin. "This again? Then you must be out of tricks."

"Wh-what's happening?" I gasped as chakra blazed from the mark on my palm at an alarming rate. The shield began to bend. My barrier is…!

"Eat up her chakra, Samehada!" Kisame bellowed, a malicious grin, eager for calamity, carved upon his features as he drew back and slashed again. Flaring scales caught, lodged briefly in the translucent blue triangle. Then with a jerk of force the man wrenched the rough sharkskin across the shield.

Eyes wide in a panic, I could only stare as my chakra was accordingly stripped to the barrier's integrity.

With lightning speed he struck again. In a screaming burst of sensation I felt the jarring force slam upon my being, phantom but still rattling, and my teeth were further bared as pain sliced into my furiously shuddering hand, and veins stood out on it, and an ache began to claw at my abdomen, where the heart of my keirakukei struggled with the output–

When he hit the still-rippling shield a third time, his sword smashed a dent into it.

And then, on the shimmering wall of light, always strong and flexible and never brittle, appeared a crack.

He's consuming my chakra faster than I physically release–!

With a sharp crack the barrier ruptured under the blade, casting out a few sparkling flecks of crystalline blue.

Force throbbed in the air. The broken triangle pulsed and shifted to a violent white in color, and as the Samehada sank slowly through the rend some confused force in the turmoil, the tangle of disrupted barrier workings, began to pull me bodily forward, a soft, weightless gravitation that lifted my heels from the earth and seemed soon to tug up my toes–

When all at once the seal shattered upon my palm, and the stone charms vaporized to dust, and I was thrown backwards with frightening velocity.

I think the first thing I hit, aside from the ground, was a tree, with such speed that I could just barely glimpse, in rapid succession, a stretch of broken earth – pain! – a tree that seemed suspended a few feet over the ground, its impossibly short, smoking stump careening on an upturned chunk of dirt – and at that point, by no means anywhere near done, I lost track. The entire trip, seconds in duration, was both deafening and agonizing, with each of these aspects frequently flaring and exploding with staggering intensity, crushing me.

Finally, after I'd transitioned mercifully from shooting through the earth to on it, my tumbling form sailed over some sort of ledge, skipped on water, and collided back-first with the edge of the opposite bank. With no breath to lose, I loosed a convulsive upheaval of blood at the impact; the crimson splattered down into clear blue. My hurting body slid, stunned, down toward the water.

All my jutsu … are kicking my butt today, huh… I groggily blinked already half-shut eyes; when they opened, my shaky gaze fixed itself on an upside-down image above me. Clad in soft white and dark reddish brown, staring back down at me from where she stood atop the highest of a cluster of boulders…

Wolf…?

I blinked, and she was gone. Fingers that had been absently gripping the bank loosened. My eyes slid shut, and I fell into the river.

When my eyes opened again I was not submerged but on solid ground. I blinked and took note of the rough, wet strokes that had perhaps roused me, and as my vision cleared I saw her, swiftly washing the gash at my temple that had rolled a thick swathe of crimson down my face.

I found a smile on my face as she set herself intently upon lapping a rough laceration on my hip. I tried to speak. "Th… Thank you, sister…" I managed, and winced momentarily as she moved on to the broken skin at my lower ribs. "What are you doing … all alone out here?" I wondered.

I reached up, so weakly, and gently nestled my fingers into the fur of the side of her strong neck as she worked. "I'm sorry… us humans, with our silly bickering, have … b-been making so much noise, haven't we…?" I turned my head, laying my eyes on the trail of devastation that freshly scarred the earth and the trees, easily seventy meters long. "In this nice forest where you live…"

I chuckled, though the action pained me.

"What am I thinking? You can't understand me, can you? Look at me – after all, I'm nothing but a wolf without a tail…!"

When the tear fell, she wistfully lapped it away.

I paused and turned my head toward her, and she whimpered and trilled in concern, ears down. She pawed tentatively at my face and then lowered her head to prod my cheek with her nose, genuine worry glinting in intelligent eyes.

With new strength I found the will to sit up, biting back a grunt of pain.

"S-sister – might I ask you to show me a paw?"

She cocked her head in confusion. Then she lifted her right forepaw from the ground, held it out a bit, and lowered it again.

For all it hurt to, I almost laughed aloud. Crouched on my toes, though with caution not to raise myself above her, I touched her shoulders and nuzzled her neck enthusiastically, and then got to my feet.

Gaara ガアラ

–"It looks kind of … like a collar…"

"Ah – gomennasai. But a seal like this works best with a choker…"–

"What's with that look? You wanna go next, one-tail?"

His grating laughter met me like a barrage of flaming razor blades, jabbing and piercing and stoking a mounting conflagration of white-hot rage. I had seen enough.

–"It may tickle, but try not to squirm for a minute. I'm going to need to write a bit on you."

"Hai…"–

"How dare you…? !" My fists shook; my breath was slow and ragged. Back hunched, I took a step toward him, and snarl-bared teeth parted for hot breath to hiss out in a beast's growl.

–"There! Wasn't too bad, right?"–

"How DARE you do this to Hyuuga-san? ! !"

He grinned, apparently amused. "You think you're gonna do something about it, small fry?"

–"Gaara-kun – Listen to me."

"What is it…?"–

My rage surged beyond words. Suddenly I knew nothing more profoundly than the blazing intensity in my chest that screamed madly for release. I would annihilate his filthy life, would wreak on his body all the punishment he had forced her to endure…!

–"Bar when I'm with you to help you practice … until I trust you've gained firm enough a degree of control over your tenant…"–

My fingers met, brushed under the edge of the square pendant that hung on the necklace I wore.

–"You are, under no circumstances, to remove that suppression charm."–

I shut my eyes.

–"I understand."–

My hand closed.

Smat!

"H-huh?"

The one who stood before me exuded an aura of pure, bright warrior spirit unlike anything I had sensed before. Encompassed in the Hyuuga's white eyes, her proud features, and in the stern frown she wore was a well lot more calm power than she had possessed at any time in last several days – and possibly more than I'd ever once seen in the short time I had known her. Having arrived with astonishing speed at my side, she clasped my hand firmly in the gentle strength of her own, preventing me from tearing the necklace away.

"Hinata…?"

She shut one eye. "A few broken bones, but I'm fine." The girl smiled back at me. "But what do you think you're doing, Gaara-kun?"

My face flushed as I averted my gaze, and I allowed her to unfold my hand and guide it from the charm.

"You don't need to be worrying yourself about protecting me just yet, Gaara-kun – and the power of the Shukaku isn't a shortcut I want you taking."

"But – you can't…" I bit my lip. "You're taking risks, aren't you? Your broken spirit–!"

"What about it?" As she spoke to me, she turned her cool glower and smirk on Kisame. "While in human form I still remain Hyuuga Hinata, a sister of the Wolves! If my spirit's been broken, I'll take heart and make strength out of what I've been left – the power of me, and the power in a mind strong enough to hold firm and will demonic power under its control!"

"Wait!" I cried as she took off toward her foe. "What're you doing? !"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm going…"

Hinata ヒナタ

"…To take this guy down!"

With a crash, my wild backfist was arrested beside Kisame's head. Our locked forearms shook as the man's one round eye was fixed on my two Byakugan, and one glistening bead of sweat, weighted in accumulation, peeked down the side of his face.

I drew away – and attacked.

Every moment held a certain degree of savagery to it as I danced about him, light and fierce, playing on his unaccustomed blindspot as we struck a trade of blows. The exchange was brief but vehement, rapt with the fervor of weary foes who find strength for the sole purpose of setting so intently upon one another; we engaged in a thrashing of fists, a bellowing of blows, and neither seemed able to miss a step in evasion.

Then – my raging palm bored into the arm drawn swiftly before his chest.

I leaned sharply back at the waist. The Samehada slashed out, a surge of blue that carved a wide lateral arc and shredded the air, tousled my bangs against my forehead.

My eyes' apparent gaze trained directly ahead – above – and supreme vision caught at the same time the faint wisp of shorn, blue hair that fluttered before my eyes, and the boot thrown alongside the motion of the sword's slash as it impacted my fully unguarded stomach.

The force sent my back screeching into a tree, and I jolted and collapsed with a groan at its base. My already tested body was giving out, failing me. My face paled out as I clasped at my heart and panted for air, still trying to shake away stars.

"Huh…" With a slight hunch about his posture, Kisame's breath was labored as well; sword planted on the ground for support, he cocked a wide grin. "That was the kind of bout I needed…" He shortly licked a bit of his own blood that trailed from the corner of his mouth. He heaved with a shove of vigor to full height and pointed with the sword, looking down it's blade at me. "Doesn't really matter if it was short; after a battle like that, I can kill you with a bit less regret over not getting a taste of the Black Wolf Fang's fury. Heck – you could almost die without so much regret … wouldn't you agree?"

"Hinata!" Gaara cried as the man rushed to end it.

Mada mada! I lifted the back of my hand to parted lips, and upon contact the other thumb plunged itself into the palm. A piercing, bloodied claw broke through, and even as I sharply drew inward, in one swift slurp, my head snapped back against the tree behind me as my eyes lost focus in pain.

A sacrifice – the power of blood!

The sword swung. I lowered my head, hands moving away.

Youkai Hou: Howling Beast! !

With my yell came a blast of monstrous proportion; a wave of angry black energy exploded from my mouth, and for the seconds of its duration my howl, contorted in a thick filter of darkness, rose up to ring loud and unreal, demonic and resounding from deep in my throat.

I was left panting after the blast died out and ended. For a wide range that extended outward in front of me, the ground was charred and pockmarked in a ripple pattern; the trees directly across the clearing had been bowled down, and others in their vicinity sported broken branches and lost leaves. And as the smoke continued to clear I spotted, ten yards before me, a still figure crouched down in a low stance. His feet were spread, his sandals having cut a pair of skid tracks into the dirt, starting only a short few feet from where I sat.

His cloak was in tatters, and his sword planted in the earth poised at angle in front of his torso and face. Kisame shivered momentarily. Then his good eye edged from behind the Samehada, focusing intently on me.

A breath of a laugh ghosted past my lips as my body shivered with fatigue, and I felt the glower slip from my eyes as I slumped back against the tree again. I g-guess human blood … isn't all that powerful…

Kisame read it in my face. "Your last move?" he remarked, with little uncertainty.

I gave him a feeble, almost embarrassed smile in defeat. I have… no chakra left…

He smiled back and began to walk toward me, sword hoisted on his shoulder.

So… This is it…?

I drew a sharp intake of breath as three burning black rings sprang hungrily upon the whitened flesh of each ankle and wrist.

"Wh…What? !" I cried, mouth twisting into a gaping scowl as I felt teeth pointing, and observed the clawed nails lengthening at my fingertips. I clutched my wrist sharply, growling in fury and terror as the fourth ring tried to brand itself on it. I-it's – it's out of control! !

A wild thrill throbbed in my chest as the ring furthered its encroachment, beginning to take shape, and with it I tasted a flutter of darkness in my heart, an energy so raw and strong that my grimace flew into a monstrous grin, and I began to laugh. Third ring – unstable – was trying to jump to the fourth – shoot! – not the fourth, the second! Better, none at all! Go back! Why wasn't it listening? ! As if I'd forgotten how to command it…! Stop – no!

But – but I was about to die, maybe! What was I supposed to…?

'Why do you hesitate, my Koinu? !'

O-Okaa-sama, what–? !

My eyes stretched wide as the ring fought and pushed forward again at the extent I'd ground it back, forcibly granting me another surge of strong, clean, filthy darkness.

With a grunt I halted the curse's advance. Even I couldn't fully release my youki for fear of corruption – and that current youki release limit was no more powerful than the third ring of the curse.

But the mark – I'd long since gained control over it, so…!

'Why do you hesitate? ! !' the Five-tails demanded again.

I yelled, wordless and furious, in reply. Hesitate – I was always hesitating, wasn't I? ! The stupid woman who'd done this to me – if I hadn't faltered so long, if I had just unleashed myself at the start– No! What was wrong with me? !

'To protect your village you mustn't waver, Hinata; crush the ones who stand in your way! Crush those who threaten you!'

"No…!" I growled, clenching my teeth as the mark seared with pain.

"That's your true power, then?" Kisame observed. "If it is, stop hiding it already–!"

"NO!" I barked harshly as he stepped toward me. "Get over here – stay a-away from me! I'm serious! Don't come any closer, or I – I'll crack your skull, I'll feast on your flesh and savor your innards–!"

I broke my own hand in my grip, grounding myself. Tears fell as I painfully granted myself a few moments of clarity.

Chikushou…! Why is this…?

Th-the part of the seal that's been secured under the sway of Okaa-sama… doesn't necessarily have to be evil … but it does have the propensity to be. Demonic energy … is not an easy thing for a human to control…

Crack–

Still, it's nothing but cheap, imitation youki … but it's so powerful…!

"Grrrrr…"

This mark… This–

Crack!

–F-filthy corruption of the strength of the Ookami… bears the cursed function of invoking the guise of a full youkai at any time, in even mere humans and han'you… This is stolen power…!

My eyes were screwed shut. Perspiration matted my bangs to my brow.

I know all this is true, so why… Why am I losing control of it now? !

My eyes opened.

The mark… which is tempting even on a regular new moon…

…So, today… with no more spiritual or physical energies left to stand on … my fragmented mind doesn't have the strength to resist it… …?

Something was overridden. The fourth ring branded itself deep into my flesh. Looking down at my broken hand, I didn't blink as my mouth fell open, as I began faintly to laugh.

Kuso… No… It's not supposed to happen like this…!

My sight glistened with moisture as I lifted my head and now smiled miserably, torn.

"I'm s-sorry… Naruto… My will was too w-weak…"

Hate really was a frightening thing. It didn't matter, suddenly, the reason that I hated Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi, that they were standing in my way, that they were hurting my friends, that they were cruel and insensitive and vicious. What was truly amazing was that as soon as the curse took a hold of my hatred, sank its fangs in nice and deep, I stopped thinking – entirely – about two dozen orphans eagerly awaiting the happy stories of exciting adventures and rescues and saving the village. I forgot about wanting to keep my head, in front of Gaara-kun who looked up to me for my very ability to do so. I forgot about the people I needed to protect; I lost sight of flimsy goals suddenly pale and insignificant. The very things that defined me, the very things for which I was fighting at that moment, the very things that kept me going and that pushed me to such extremes, were washed away, swept clean in an instant by a single-minded driving force – a boiling desire to hurt these two, to spill blood, to reap anguish and relish in their pain. The pressures, the confusing emotions, the anxieties were fast-fading into something simple, lucidly clear. And if I were to give myself to this madness, I knew all the doubt and trepidation that troubled me like plague would as swiftly disappear.

I would use my power – all of it – and then – and then – my enemies would be crushed.

Hatred… It really was incredible!

I found myself amid light – standing in a singular path of darkness. Slowly I blinked my eyes. As I took a step my feet sloshed through the smooth, clean black liquid that flooded the ground of the dark trail. I reached curiously toward the edge, the brink, but before I could bring myself to touch the thin, watery light outside, the grainy expanse of burning light at some time so familiar to me, I shied away – retreated, sloshed warily back into the column of black.

Maybe… maybe there was a lot more light, and it might be easier to see if I ventured to step out, or in, or over there, but, but… I liked it here…

Here… alone… with nothing and no one to plague or inhibit me.

A beckoning call from afar reached my ears, and reverberated with my heart – my soul. With a shuddering gasp I clutched my chest, as if dealt a blow of solid force; even so my pale face was flushing hot, and some strange allure washed over me as I stared down the path. Brow drawing wrinkled and eyes half-shut, frail hand over frail heart, I whimpered and took off through the blackness, toward the call. I felt I possessed no power to stop myself should I have tried to or wanted to turn away; every drilling throb of my pulse drove my feet one and another splashing step through the water, forward, forward, forward…

When I saw her, I was frozen.

I halted when her figure appeared out of the thick blackness, seeming almost to emerge from the surroundings, to materialize before me, and for a moment I could only stare in wonder, beyond words, beyond thought. I noticed with a start the band of black that connected us – perhaps drawn thin with our earlier distance, but now, with our scarce few strides of separation, tangible – strong – faintly visible even in the encumbrance of darkness around us, flowing from her and seeping through the trembling hand that clutched fiercely at a chest that still quaked for breath.

In an awestricken daze, I looked up again. My mouth opened, dry. "You're…"

She uttered a sound – a husky growl of laughter to my lowly, furtive hiss. "Come over here…"

My soul askew was lulled by her firm voice, even as it was sliced and belittled by its gruff sharpness, a tearing quality my own voice didn't have. I was filled with an eagerness, a need to appease her command, but merely splashed one slogging step forward and faltered.

Something was burning under the eyes that remained so inexplicably white, some black thing that writhed and twisted in perversion, with a poison so potent as to seem to lash and inflict itself upon me by way of our conjoined gaze. Fickle human that I was, I could discern not even in plain sight the nature of the fantastic being that had presented herself before me, and even now graced my watery, weak white eyes, if she be some ghost of my imagination or some manifestation upon my psyche. This fiendish figure, clad only in her brilliant down of snow, embellished with a nightmarish beast's wild striping of obsidian, this predator of the dark that feasted on the weak with no remorse and yet smiled at me in lazy euphoria, this unstoppable menace that boasted deadly fangs and claws well harder than steel and sharper than razor blades, and wielded them with no doubt or uncertainty present to be found; this demon that exuded so foul and corrugated an energy that, bared to my frail human soul as it was, proved enticing even whilst arousing in every fibre of my being a respect and sound fear for something so great and terrible – such was the massive power now proffered before me! That I could assume such a shape, that so vast a power throbbed and pounded at the edge of my disposal – seized in the throes of a passionate fit of yearning, I was overcome with desire, enchanted by this marvelous creature that I felt could nigh impossibly be me!

"Come here…"

The energy, the tie that bound us at the heart, began to spread and envelop me. As I stepped forward I could tell no longer even if her true nature was belied in the silken white purity of her fur, or just possibly emblematized rather in her ominous emblazoning of obsidian. She was a murderer swathed in the guise of a child, and some peculiar aspect to her features, perchance recognized in her face, her indeed yet tiny form, that thing identifiably and incontrovertibly childlike whether it be observed in girl or pup or young beast, seemed to cocoon about the sprite a fiendish and oh, so delicate innocence.

So affected was I that I should readily have flung myself to the lupine warrior's slender feet and groveled should she have fancied it; alas, she spoke no more as I approached. Once I stood, tame and inferior before her eyes but not quite near enough to touch, I took my hand from my heart and made as if to cup her face in awe. I wanted badly to touch her, and when I faltered now it was not because of the look in her eye – which I could no longer seem to find issue with – but for shrinking hesitance, for abashment under the wild one's coolly admonishing gaze, for who was I to press my hand to this glorious creature's face?

Her black smile glimmered, shone darkly upon me, capable fangs displayed in a grin, and to me she opened her arms in welcome.

My lips quivered. "Y-you… can complete me, c-can't you…? !"

Something monstrous gleamed on her nymphlike face as her grin curled wider still. "Yes… I can…"

And that was why my longing fragment of soul had been drawn here with so rife and ardent a passion, and why, enraptured as I was, hollow and sallow-faced and gasping with weakness, I now stepped toward the demon. Hesitating no longer, I approached her.

Moved to tears, I, with a plaintive whimper and watery smile, beheld her! And then I embraced my companion and my power!

In moments my hand, of its own volition or mine I could not hope to ascertain, began to travel up from where it rested at the small of her back. Her hand snaked under the back of my shirt, and as we moved, our movements one, I felt her light fingers trail up my back, over my shoulder, brush over to my neck.

My index and middle fingers pulled back, and then tapped against her mark. And as they did, two sturdy claws longer than were my nails, as if by my own prod of force, crashed through mine.

As the demonic one's claws pierced me I felt a rush, a writhing thrust of convolution go shooting throughout my body – my soul. I gasped.

The curse… Why… I'm unsealing the curse… my mind stammered, eyes huge as my scrabbling fingers turned slowly and pointlessly against her fur, and her claws carved haltingly, screechingly through the mark.

I could have stopped it, just then, I realized at the pain. But with the raw pain came the assault of a pleasure so glorious and impassioning I was helpless to resist it.

"After you've come here and embraced me … you consider casting me away?" the dark one purred pleasantly in my ear, voice a hypnotic trill, as her claws creaked further along – moving to encircle the seal, engrave about it a ring of blood.

"No," I breathed, holding her tight so that she held me tighter, and perhaps it was I willing both our hands onward. I endured it, whining under the onslaught of sickening pain and wondrous power.

"That's it… I'll … make everything better, for you…"

My eyes began to shut.

If I give myself to this madness…

In this state… In this wretched, empty, pitiable state… can you really blame me for doing what felt good?

…Will all the pain go away…?

Naruto ナルト

I gagged, struggling where I lay to mend the largely shattered left side of my ribcage. One eye wide open, I coughed up blood.

Me – okay. But he's this much stronger than Tsunade? !

The sannin was on the ground, shuddering, a hand pressed to her freshest injury, a stab wound in her side. It had taken the man minutes to trounce us both, and grandma seemed to be at her limit.

"Why you…" the sannin wheezed, glaring up at him.

Uchiha Itachi spoke, indifferent. "You can move with astounding speed in one direction by the very strength and precise application of chakra control with which you push from the ground. This imitation of speed, however… as any illusion, my Sharingan has shattered it…"

"Cocky brat … you think it's over?"

"If you try to fight in your condition, you'll die…"

Incredibly, Tsunade grinned. "Is that so?" she said, rising with remarkable ease to her feet. Her hands formed a seal.

"Wait! Lady Tsunade!" Shizune cried. "If you use that jutsu–!"

"Reserve Seal: Release!"

What's she planning to do? !

"Ninja Art–!"

Ice blasted down my spine. All the blood seemed to flee my face. And I laid wide eyes upon the source of a roar of bloodlust that surely sent a tremor into the heavens as a familiar, evil energy rocked my soul.

As the roar died out, I heard Kisame's scream. The man staggered, crimson gushing vividly from beneath the hand he pressed between shoulder and neck. Standing behind him, facing away, Hinata grinned as her claws blazed with streaming blood.

She hasn't transformed yet, but why – that look in her eye…! "Hinata!" I yelled, pushing to my feet.

I couldn't believe how quickly it happened. But the moment my call and perhaps too-sudden movement caught the attention of the figure some forty meters away, she vanished – and just as suddenly I gasped, incredulous, as two pale arms snaked roughly across my torso from behind. One hand planted itself beneath my jaw, leaving the firm, clawed fingers that framed it to twitch unnervingly against my cheeks as the hand of her other arm, draped up from my side, dug its claws painfully into my chest; and I could sense in her arms the hard strength to crush me where I stood. I dared not blink or even breathe as the girl held me, and for several perilous seconds there was silence.

Warm breath rolled over my neck as her nose thrust itself behind my ear, trailed down the backmost curve of my jaw. Her movements were slow, deliberate but lilting, as she breathed me in and murmured sensually.

"Naruto…" she whispered against me, some unhinged wildness shadowing her voice. She shook with restraint as she forced out more words. "Don't l-let me… take too much…"

And she buried her fangs in my neck.

Initially I cried out; soon enough, though, that silken curtain of wonder began to drift over and enfold me. My gaze drifted upward, and my eyes may have moistened; I bit my lip, hard, shivering as Hinata drank hungrily and sated herself on me. Her unrestrained fervor I had never before experienced, and it made it all the more irresistibly exhilarating. I tried to force myself to frown, to grimace, but soon enough I could withhold no longer a relaxed, airy sigh of elation. My eyes slipped shut, unable to focus, blinking up at the heavens above.

The Demon's B-Bite…

Milking vitality off another… deriving power from the essence of death…

Suckling another's pain, and thriving off of it…

It should be vile and revolting, but … I just can't help it…!

When Hinata feeds from me, it feels t-too good…!

Floating helplessly, uplifted as I was on my bubbly haze of happiness, I could hardly comprehend when her fangs left me, and, by her grip on my jaw, she cast my limp body aside – to spin, turn, crash hard against the solid earth.

Hinata ヒナタ

I licked my lips, grinning in an ecstatic high as I jerked a clawed finger in the direction of the nearest enemy.

"Get ready to die."

The cold man said nothing, merely gazing dispassionately into my eyes. Breathing heavily, I laughed, first quietly, but at last harshly bellowing aloud at the thought of making his boring face twist and scream with pain. The boy had been the last spur I needed; new moon or no, I couldn't be stopped from transforming now.

From embracing perfection.

"I haven't forgotten it – the taste of your blood," I snarled past bared teeth, in a throaty growl, eyes wide and intent as I shuddered in excitement. I ducked my head, flexing my claws before me as my fiery mist of aura intensified, and the glorious darkness whipped up my hair, battered and churned and clamored eagerly in the air about me. "I'll make sure… I'll be sure every last drop of your blood runs free–!"

SHLIGK!

"Uh…!"

My deranged eyes stretched wide, my jaw flung down, shut, falling agape again.

He twisted and wrenched, slashing it free of my strong back in a brutally precise motion. Blood was streaked upon the ground.

And I fell.

What? Nani?

Ka-thud…

I've been stabbed…

Short, shallow breaths seized up in my chest as the man strode past me again.

His knife… That was my kidney, wasn't it?

I wanted to flail and scream. I whimpered, loosing a small, bloody screech as my awesome power slipped away, sifted right through my twitching fingers.

I'm bleeding to death…

The scent of cool grass and damp earth mingled in my nostrils with that of my own surely spilling life.

No…

My prone frame trembled as I turned my face in the dirt.

What's he done to me…? !

I wheezed as water trickled from unblinking eyes.

Heal… I've got to heal it…!

My eyebrows pulled inward.

W-Why…? Wait!

I didn't have any strength to heal with.

Wait, stop … please…!

I c-can't…

It can't… Now…?

Now…

A painful sob wracked me.

I'm dying…?

A breath of a gasp brushed my lips as I felt his hands upon my back. For a few moments, the world froze.

"Bakayarou." He spat the word sharply into silence, and I flinched. "Hinata no bakayarou…

"Even surrounded by people waiting to help you…"

His soft voice was calm and steady as he worked, but I felt as light, cool droplets sprinkled down onto my back.

"You keep trying to dig more and more out of yourself when there's just nothing left. What'd you think would happen?"

His hands continued to mend me. To take the pain away.

"But, y'know… I did break my promise, after all. I'm sorry for that." He almost chuckled, emptily. "I gave you my word that no matter what came up, I wouldn't let anyone lay a hand on you, and now look at all that's happened and all you've had to go through. Look at me – hardly more than a boy, I've already failed you as a man!"

Tears fell from my eyes. "N-no, you haven't. It's okay. I-it's not–!"

"No, see – that's where you're off. I'm making it my concern whether you like it or not. You don't have to sacrifice your soul to darkness, Hinata – not while I'm around."

"N-Naruto-kun…" I sniffed. "I d-don't – I just don't know anymore…! Wh-what… should I…?"

His hand slipped under my arm, and he turned me over to impress his lips upon my cheek.

He pulled away, and I stared up in awe at the gentle grin the blonde gave me even as two silent, glistening streams of silver ran from his shut eyes. "I don't know, either … but if anyone should be facing so much suffering on their own… if anyone's gotta go it alone and destroy himself… Well, I'm thinking that ought to be the guy's job, y'know?"

My lips parted, speechless.

He carefully laid me down and stood up, walking around and past me. "So, if ever you've done all you can and don't know what else to do – have faith in me. Just put all your suffering on my shoulders. And I'll see if I can't take it, ne?" Standing in front of me, facing Uchiha Itachi, Naruto planted the blunt end of his naginata on the ground at his side.

The Uchiha sighed in something near exasperation, tossing his hair slightly and glaring the young man down. "Are you finished?"

Naruto's voice was still pleasant. I could hear it, even as I gazed into his back – could hear his light, urbane smile. "Ah – Uchiha Itachi. You don't quite seem to realize the magnitude of your mistake just now. You see, you tried to kill my Hinata-chan. You made me see her in pain."

"Uzumaki Naruto… No matter how long you babble, the gap remains too great. You cannot defeat me. Nothing has changed since the last time we crossed paths…"

"Seven months ago, was it? Funny you'd mention it, actually, since the last time was in fact when Uzumaki Naruto became…

"MURASAKI KITSUNE!"

Flashes of violet light spiraled rapidly about his form; then a roiling shock jarred the air, and the earth buckled at his feet. His nails grew pointed and clawlike, and the splash of purple in his hair splayed wild violet across his blond spikes.

It's like… howling, I thought, staring as a light vortex of wind thrashed where he stood, lashing up messy hair, rippling his neat attire, and emanating a low, echoing hum – pouring a beast's disembodied cry subtly into the air.

Itachi watched, unimpressed.

I shook my head. No – he was amping up the intensity of his fox chakra, but – but this was crazy! He couldn't beat the Akatsuki–!

Hoshigaki Kisame sailed toward him from behind.

"Stupid amateur!"

The boy turned his head, and the great sword crashed down with a roar of contempt. Smoke was thrown into the air. I began to cry out.

"Where?" Naruto inquired, his back facing Kisame's.

"Wh–? !" Kisame flinched in surprise – and wrenched the blade around. Naruto whirled as he did, and as Kisame slashed abruptly empty air Naruto's staff impacted his back with a sharp crunch.

"Your movements are … just a little too slow," Naruto said.

Kisame cringed, and with a gurgling grunt blood fell from his mouth. Shaking in rage, he spun aside so that the boy stumbled. With a yell he heaved the Samehada down toward his back.

WHAM!

The two slid several meters together; Naruto's feet tore, crackling, through the earth beneath him. Then they came to a stop, Naruto's head down, naginata poised on one end against the ground and braced above his shoulders in his hands, as his strong stance held off the mighty sword.

"Y-you blocked…?"

"You think that's enough strength … to break my staff? !" Naruto cried, shoving upward on the spear. He thrust the sword away with such force that one of Kisame's feet began to leave the earth.

The boy vanished – and the man choked, doubling up around a dent that jumped into his stomach. A second invisible blow, thrown from without the victim's sight, kicked his jaw up high, straightening him out again, as the man was lifted onto his toes.

If he strikes with his real body hidden – he cuts the opponent's ability to anticipate the blows…!

"A-aah…!" Kisame croaked out, eyes shut, head turning slowly as blood fell from his mouth.

And Naruto was before him with a crash of force, naginata held to the ground for support as his two feet plowed solidly into Kisame's chest. After a moment of stillness the man shot backwards, eye wide as his back connected with a tree trunk.

"I-Itach–!" Naruto landed from his pole vault kick, and the man hurriedly jumped away from a staff strike as the wraith materialized at his side, violet eyes blazing cold, like some vengeful spirit.

My eyes widened as the man slid back from his leap, sight intent on the one before him.

"Itachi, help–!"

A second Naruto tapped two fingers to his back, and with a thunderous crack a fine shaft of wind lanced from his chest. The other Naruto went up in smoke.

Crimson shot from his mouth as he fell. When his hand touched ground he stumbled away, one eye distraught as he toppled and fell.

"So you shifted enough to save your heart. Nice reflexes," Naruto observed simply, walking up behind him.

"W-wait – hold on!" Kisame pleaded. Then he lashed the blade toward his foe. Naruto's teeth showed very slightly as he ducked away from the strike, holding the staff over himself at a slant; as he deflected the blow, the Samehada popped from the swordsman's hand and returned to existence clattering to the ground, skittering and bouncing – twenty yards away.

Naruto resumed full height as the Akatsuki man stared up at him past an upraised, sweaty, empty hand.

Face blank, Naruto nodded to the side. "Go get it."

Kisame's teeth ground. He pushed from the earth and sprinted desperately for his blade.

Three yards from it, he lurched to a halt.

His hands gripped Naruto's weapon in front of him, catching it in the midst of a downward swing.

Breath fast, Hoshigaki Kisame blinked at the wrapped blade so easily secured in his fingers. He looked up, meeting Naruto's eyes.

"Fool, this weapon–!"

Crimson rained from his mouth and hands alike as a scythe of wind jutted forth as a lance, at once shredding the naginata's wrap and cleanly spearing Kisame's heart.

His hands slipped from the blade as he fell to his knees, and his eyes were blank and stained mouth agape as with a heavy thud he fell to the ground.

"You killed … Kisame…" Uchiha Itachi remarked from where he observed.

"You're next," Naruto stated, his voice equally, frighteningly toneless.

"N-Naruto-kun…!"

"Hinata!" he called. "I told you – just believe in me!"

"Hn," Itachi sneered in dark amusement. "Look at you, setting up to break the poor girl's heart…"

"Whatever you're going on about – sorry, but I stick with what I say!" Slit, bright eyes grew wilder, and whisker marks thickened and defined like war paint upon his face as his fangs developed further. Snarling, he slammed a hand crushingly to the earth as his aura violently intensified. The naginata's bared, acute blade glinted silver with a violet sheen.

"SAN!" Naruto barked.

He was now blazing with raw chakra as liquid energy boiled to the surface of his belly and expanded, wrapping about his torso, enshrouding his arms, his legs, his face, and then jutting independently in the shape of kitsune ears from his head, and projecting from about the base of his spine. A low growl blared from his throat as the flying winds that gnashed about him cast upon the world a great, spectral howl.

Uchiha Itachi raised his head. "The prime form of the one called the Yellow Flash reborn… a mere three tails of power?"

Head down, Naruto's breath steamed past his teeth as he glared evenly through fierce, black-rimmed eyes. He was cloaked in a light vulpine shroud of raging red-violet, and three tails of energy danced behind him.

"I can fight as well!" Tsunade cried from where she stood. "Together, we can–!"

"No," Naruto said simply, his voice leaden with chilling power. "You'll be in the way."

"What are you saying? !"

"It's no use, Grandma. Even if you weren't wounded, you don't have the speed…"

She frowned, biting her lip.

He grinned. "But… how about taking me up on a bet? To beat you in any way possible… Let's see if I can beat you at beating this guy, who was too much for you.

"Gaara!" he called. "I need you to get everyone far away from here!"

"Right!" The redhead's hands flew through a string of several seals. "Hidden Jutsu…!"

Sand sprang forth, streaming to Tsunade, Lee, and Shizune. It spiraled about them, hiding them from view, and then compressed impossibly and funneled back into the gourd.

Then the boy flickered to my side and lifted me in his arms. "I can only manage to store three…"

I shook my head, gripping his shirt as I gazed off at Naruto, eyes wide. "No! We can't leave him to fight alone–!"

"Hinata!" Gaara said. "Even I – even I can tell. Shouldn't you know better than I that we'd only be hindering Naruto-san in this state?"

I didn't answer.

"Now GO!" Naruto urged.

"Hai!"

"Ichibi…!" Itachi growled, passing Naruto in a flash of speed as Gaara began to turn. Teeth clenched, Gaara held me close as the black-cloaked man raced toward us.

Itachi flung his arms before his face. And was bowled over backwards by the ferocious kick Naruto slammed toward his head.

The ex-Leaf-nin hit the ground hard and rolled onto his feet, sliding dozens of meters with a low hand brushing over the earth.

Gaara nodded, and turned and ran.

"Naruto – Naruto, don't you lose to this guy! !" I screeched back at him.

"I don't plan to!"

I lost sight of him as Gaara charged into the trees.

Naruto-kun is fighting… Uchiha Itachi…

"Hinata," Gaara caught my attention. I looked up.

"Just… trust in him, like he says. There's something we have to do…"

Naruto ナルト

My foe stood patiently while I waited a bit for them to get their distance. Made sense enough; despite the exceptional immunity my body had to the damage that could be inflicted by even this intensity of fox chakra, it wasn't like I could keep this state forever. The more time that passed before we kicked this off, the better for Uchiha Itachi. In other words, I had the first move.

'Say … fox?' I shifted slowly, in a smooth action suspending my naginata in both hands to my side.

'Hmm?'

I turned the spear end over end at an easy pace, so that the curved blade sliced upward through the air before me, downward behind. 'If I lose … we're both dead meat. I mean, it is you they're after.'

'I realize this, gaki…"

'So you're with me?'

'How to say this… I'm not opposed to ridding this world of a bearer of those accursed eyes…'

Said eyes narrowed on my smirk as my hands deftly continued their unhurried maneuver, rolling the naginata's weight in a rhythmic lilt at my side. My arms rose and fell, rose and fell in a circular pitch, pivoting at the shoulders as it continued to revolve; then a burst of air, as if a practice shot, was fired off of the gently curved blade as it passed forward above the ground, pushing some force into the successive spin so that the spear twirled thrice more with one of the smooth circlings of my arms. 'I guess that's an answer I can work with.'

My breath was steady and deliberate as a well-timed flare of chakra spiked the spearhead away from the earth again – three rotations, one revolution, the naginata deceptively light, practically afloat in my hands. A misstep here would've sent it careening.

I rooted my feet and braced my arms, and in now blinding succession the spinning spear at my side was kicked into rotation twice more whilst loosing two buffeting gusts of wind. Then, as it neared the earth a third time I seized the shaft in my hands, right over, left under, without breaking or so much as opposing its momentum – and with a mighty heave shoved my chakra down into the blade, where it imbued the cutting edge with cutting wind and blasted forward a shrieking explosion of gale force.

"Howling Kitsune Slice! !"

Had I not planted my feet with chakra, I would probably have been sent tumbling back with recoil. My spear pointed skyward in my hands as I glared coolly at the Uchiha. He had escaped the blast, but an edge of his loose cloak had not; the scrap laid in the grass a few yards from him, on the other side of a straight slit in the earth that ran well into the trees.

Calmly he undid snaps and cast the ruined cloak aside with a sigh. "Like so many Jinchuuriki, you seem to feel you can muscle your way out of this…"

I sneered. "A wind's only as sharp as the mind that wields it, y'know. See, it won't stand for being tossed about just any which way."

Itachi looked up as a sharp, wooden crack sounded behind him. A large tree branch fell to the ground, and many more followed.

"If I wanted brute force, I'd show you the fifth tail. This technique–,"

Another crack, and a tree, with seeming spontaneity, was split cleanly a tad aside of its center. It groaned and tipped, and fell apart.

"–Is about precision!"

A roar of noise assailed our ears as wreckage rained down, revealing the straight scar that carved a slender kilometer through the forest.

"Impressive…"

"Needless to say, if you're hit by this you won't get by in one piece."

Hinata ヒナタ

How Gaara had known it I couldn't begin to imagine, but as I twined four fresh talismans about the arrows I decided now wasn't the time for speculation. I needed to focus. The odd fellow in the ground did have an Akatsuki cloak. To my surprise, he also had youki.

It was of neither the brand nor the concentration that distinguished a powerful offensive type; even so, we didn't know what sort of special abilities he possessed. Despite having just crunched a soldier pill, I could barely spare the meager chakra to do this once. We couldn't mess up here.

Byakugan fixed on the plant demon, I drew back.

TNNG – Thok-thok-thok-thok!

Four arrows studded the earth, and a two yard square of energy lit along the ground between them. I tipped back from the branch I was perched on, flipping to land in a crouch. The youkai had started in surprise, and his body and chakra slipped strangely about within the earth, prodding furiously for an escape only to find himself closed in. The four seals had been set to extend their parameters in the direction of gravity and enclose beneath as well, forming a two yard cube of barrier space.

My left hand flicked up in a half-Tora, and my right smacked to the ground. "Purification! Ensnare the light, expel the darkness!"

I watched as, with a terrible, screeching shrill, the dark half of the youkai was torn from the light and sprang upward, its mouth wide open, its body twisted, thrown deranged and furious into the open air.

Now, Ga–!

My jaw dropped as I was frozen stiff by a crushing wall of murderous intent. An unnatural roar, a monstrous manifestation of the sublime thrill of a frenzied predator upon prey bore down on my ears and rattled in my skull; the dark creature was swallowed in a cloud of sand and thence obliterated in one fleet and ruthless stroke of savagery. An explosion of crimson dusted in spatters the earth, the trees, my face, my clothes, and I sighted across from me the bellower of the triumphant scream grinning vilely, his eyes wild with psychotic excitement.

Then the malicious intensity slipped from his face. Gaara blinked, perplexed.

"G-G-Gaara-kun, what–? !"

"I don't kn–!"

At my distraction the white half of the plant demon broke free of the snare and shot from the earth, lunging toward me. His outstretched hand snapped through a bow held up in defense.

Kuso–!

"HAAAAAAAAAA! !"

His hand was centimeters from my face when he was scooped up in a speeding clot of sand. It arced swiftly skyward, and a slew of rather horrendous noises cracked and crunched from the furiously twisting mass of sand before it slammed tremendously back to the earth. Splatterpaint.

A shaky whimper squeaked out of my throat.

Gaara's head hung down. His fingers twitched with rigid awkwardness; his crooked stance swayed with a brief shudder.

Pull yourself together…! Unblinking, I reached into my tool pouch. A drop of sweat rolled down my face. The Shukaku…

Gaara looked up, teal eyes big and startled.

My mouth opened and closed mutely. It opened a second time, but I caught myself and shut it again as I realized I was about to shout something at him. I tried again. "…Gaara-kun?"

"Hai…?"

"What … was that?"

Brow furrowed, he laid a palm on his belly. "I'm … not really sure."

"Ah…"

The ground shook, and we both looked to spot the columns of smoke rising in the distance. My heart panged with a dizzy mixture of faith and horror.

A hand clapped into my own.

"Come on," Gaara said. "We're not far enough, are we…?"

My lip trembled, and I shut my eyes as another faint tremor rumbled beneath us. "Right."

Nineteen, Part Three: Kazegami

Naruto ナルト

"HA!"

My spear swept laterally before me. A couple dozen yards away, Uchiha Itachi poised two kunai before him.

His upper half vanished from view, and two cleanly cut kunai clattered to the earth. Feet rose as he flipped from his backbend and slid into a crouch, and the trees a ways behind him at once split with a jump and were felled.

The man rushed forward, and I phased from existence; he lunged toward me where I reappeared, and gently I threw myself back, deftly maneuvered the staff to catch a series of knife and taijutsu strikes before light feet returned to the earth – and I slashed, hacking out a sudden wind slice in sharp retaliation. My foe ducked aside, evading with certainty the fine diagonal plane of cutting force that diced the grass and scarred the soil.

I jumped upward and away as he kicked for my ankles, backflipping sharply in the air. One foot and both hands were on the staff as I tumbled through space, and when I was nearly upside-down, blade pointed earthward, I fired a curt blast from the curved spearhead. Itachi hopped quickly back, and as my flip was kicked with acceleration I loosed two more rapid, well-timed waves that were similarly avoided.

Flung further airborne by this maneuver, I adhered briefly to a tree trunk as my feet met it. With the spear pointed forward before me, held firm in my hands, I built up the intense fox chakra and shoved strongly from the tree to launch myself straight toward my foe.

He sidestepped. I sailed past. And when I reappeared in front of him, blade centimeters from his belly, hurtling force and breakneck speed hardly expended, his subsequent evasion was just a little less nonchalant.

This repeated twice more, I swapping back to attack from the same initial lunge as he leapt aside. Then with a greater effort I changed my direction, swapping to fly toward him from his left as he lunged. To his left.

He spun, dodging narrowly; the strong blade was lodged in the earth under me. And as we'd slipped past each other I'd caught sight of the motions of his hands.

Force of chakra blasted as wind down the spear, flicking me into the air and above a dangerous ball of rushing flame. The staff spun thrice in my hands before wind erupted from it as it was poised – slamming its blade back to the ground under me with deadly sharpness.

He'd dodged. I lifted the staff, catching Itachi's kick above me as he plummeted from behind; his foot balanced atop it as the other hooked behind it, and with an artful spin he struck back with a heel to force my weapon from my grasp and knock it aside.

I turned as he landed, just barely diverting his punch with my left forearm. My right hand was up and back, as if prepared to slap him.

A spiked iron mace materialized in my grasp.

Shadow Matter…

WHAM! ! !

The morning star promptly vanished with a pop; Uchiha Itachi broke away from the dust cloud in a great leap. I warped to catch my naginata as it was hitting the ground, and leapt after him. He flipped and turned and spun with stunning grace, escaping whirling strike after slice after jab from my spear as we sailed through the air together.

I whirled and slammed down as we landed, unleashing a great Howling Slice – chopping a log in two. I turned my head, eyes widening on a rapidly nearing mass of flame.

I slid my feet back and planted the naginata in the earth at angle away from the missile, crouching down behind it. My hands swept forward at the ground, brushing either side of the flat of the blade as my sight was filled with orange.

Wedge!

Roaring fire met cutting wind – and two great, shooting blasts of flame flashed intensely past at my sides. I cocked my head a tad, eyes locking with my foe's as we panted lightly for air.

His hands flashed fluidly through seals. I substituted aside as a compact sphere of flame was spat my way – and then I charged forward. He continued to fire, and I swapped left, right, right, left again, dodging unpredictably, my weapon shifting and twirling fluently through the air as I ran. When I was five yards away and directly in front of him I whirled, and he fired once more.

I sprang from my spin, flowing into the air above the projectile – my hands spreading apart on the staff above my head to catch and halt its twirl, my body cartwheeling laterally over the earth.

Wind kicked precisely from the blade, bucking the vicious edge in an arc toward my enemy's neck. Uchiha Itachi began to lean away. His bangs were trimmed, and I wheeled over him.

My feet met the ground, and I turned. My blade was thrust in a Shadow Strike. The man jerked aside – and grunted, eyes wide and disbelieving as crimson jumped from a shallow cut on his arm.

He whirled, flinging shuriken. I dodged, releasing a wind slice. We ran at parallels; my feet danced over the earth as I maneuvered my staff at great speed, dodging and deflecting and diverting precise projectiles even while throwing rapid wind slashes that were all expertly avoided and sent trees tumbling down in his wake.

I threw a vertical slice, eyes focused calculatingly. Wall.

Nine combo-transformed clones materialized in the Uchiha's path at the very last moment. Watching me, he bumped into the Shadow Wall of brick – and shoved from it again, spinning away just as the wind blade flashed by the vanishing obstacle and clipped off into the trees.

The man blurred toward me, and I hastily blocked a kick with the upright staff before boosting myself on it to launch a kick of my own for Itachi's head. He ducked away with ease, reversing his kick to now hack from under me the staff I was balanced on. I fell, and a harsh burst of chakra, cast from my hand the moment I met ground, flicked me from the path of his following heel attack. Spinning in the air, I fired down from close range another slash of gale force. He leapt aside with blinding agility, feet sliding over the ground as he landed in a crouch and I fell to the earth again.

I drew in a controlled breath, shifting in stance and holding the staff horizontally in front of me. I exhaled, and the cloak of power wrapped about me shrank and compressed, streamlining, thinning and further flattening itself against my skin.

"You're … not bad," Uchiha Itachi stated lightly.

The air rustled around me as I began rotating the staff in place. "I'm finishing this."

"You're not that good."

I smirked. "Maybe not. Let's find out."

I didn't watch the staff as I spun it; I didn't need to. It picked up speed, and I now twirled it at my left, my right, above my head, finding a rhythm, moving faster, faster…

Suddenly I began vanishing and appearing, swapping over and over again, in swiftest possible succession, always at the same radius of distance from the man, circling randomly around him. In this state shadow clones could be maintained for perhaps at most half a second, with enough concentration, and only a small few at any one moment. These two factors, however, limiting as they were, were sufficient for me to do what I was now – forming the clones, replacing, dispelling, reaching eight locations every second, nine, ten… eleven…

The staff still spun, light and furious.

Focus. Focus… Clone, switch, control the spear. Focus… mess up once and you'll send it flying, or give yourself a concussion, or slice your shin open.

The air was churning, whirring loosely around the man. I teleported at great speed, solitary and surrounding, hands furiously active all the while.

Then, I began to run. Dozens of afterimages danced madly in a circle around him, some on the ground, some in the air; I was in any one place for so miniscule a fraction of a moment, my inertia had no time to begin to fall. He was surrounded; I could be anywhere, in an instant.

…Haku-san…

The Uchiha was unruffled. "Your courage is impressive … but no matter what you do–,"

"Uchiha – you're about to die." My voice was scattered on the wind, phantasmal, every fraction of a syllable thrown from a different direction.

The man sighed, and it became apparent he no longer found himself inclined to answer.

"My attacks can't be blocked – your kunai tested that out already. So, you can only dodge."

Faster, faster…

"But unlike a kunai knife or other projectile, the Slice covers two dimensions, and to such a range that it's effectively irrelevant to consider escaping outside it. Two dimensions of fatality leave you one dimension to dodge in, y'know? If it's horizontal, you dodge above or below. If it's vertical, you dodge left or right."

He gasped.

"And if it's from dozens of directions and angles at once, you get boxed in and chopped to pieces."

"It's unavoidable…!"

"Correct. Goodbye."

Wrathful Kitsune Claw!

Two seconds, forty attacks. Then I ran for cover – or rather, swapped to the designated safe place I'd left myself in the air. My trained eyes remained on the man all the while, struggling to track instant after instant. Ducking, left – trying to stay on the ground – up, twisting right – forced into the air – leaning, turning, shifting– trapped.

Then black fluttered in the air, and he landed with a grunt, touching his hand to a single spilling but shallow cut on his cheek.

What? ! I thought, landing on my feet as trees scattered in all directions were hacked and felled. It was – how… It was a solutionless maze, so how had he escaped it? Or what had he broken it with?

Teeth clenched, I Shadow Kicked. And I nailed Uchiha Itachi in the face.

I … hadn't been expecting to, admittedly. Either way he went sailing, and then caught himself on a hand to spring to his feet, focus regained.

Kuso! I can't drag this out…! My hands wove through seals.

"Bunta, I need you!"

I surged skyward atop the great toad as he appeared under me. Gamabunta was recalcitrant by nature, yes, but perhaps upon sensing the present state of my chakra and spotting the Akatsuki man staring on far below, he recognized the urgency of the situation.

"The ultimate Flame Bomb, Chief!"

"Alright!" he boomed, leaping upward, rearing back his head, and spewing a torrential mess of oil from his mouth.

'Fox!'

'I know, fool!'

Our roar was a cannon of chakra and chaotic force. The oil bomb exploded into a deluge of flame.

Not yet…! I thought, lashing the naginata around.

The flames blossomed with strength in a grand hellish swell – a fanning mass of white-hot incineration that accelerated, smashing cataclysmically into the ground and surging onward a great distance.

The punished earth quailed as Bunta crashed down again.

…Did we do it…?

"Watch where you're swinging that thing, gaki!"

"What? You know I wouldn't've hit you, Chief!"

"You came pretty darn close!"

"No way–!"

My blood iced over. What…

A huge, skeletal phantom of blue light stood before us in the weakening blaze; it cradled the man in a ribcage that sat at the ground, and held a great, translucent round shield before itself in defense. Enshrouded in this monstrous apparition, amid a blazing forest, Uchiha Itachi stood panting but unharmed.

"What… What in the world is that?"

He lifted hands propped on his knees, straightening his back. I flinched, but it was neither at the cool composure on his face nor the tears of striking crimson that rolled slowly down his cheeks.

Those eyes? !

His hand drifted calmly into the air, extending toward me.

'Not good!' "Bunta, get out of here!"

"What?"

I dispelled the summoned beast myself, and was consequently left falling through the air just as an ominous, impure black flower of flame lashed into existence and razed the air overhead.

T-too close…

I landed strongly, the power of the kitsune cloak protecting me as my feet at last crashed to solid ground. I glowered at my foe, and faltered – stroked by some keen, fleeting and mind-boggling sense that this man possessed powers of a scope beyond the realm of–

His guardian specter dissolved into the air, and Uchiha Itachi selected a familiar handseal and kicked out in front of him.

I yelled as a great deal of force impacted my face, hurling me off my feet.

I just got … Shadow Kicked…?

Crimson eyes shone vivid and strange in flickering, rocking sight. He was in front of me.

My stomach – awareness of pain.

The light was blasted, and my world went dark.

Hinata ヒナタ

Na…ni…?

I'm asleep…? Or something…

But… Why would I be sleeping now?

Something was going on…

What's … happened…

I sank back into the abyss, submerged in the soft, chill embrace of ignorance.

Naruto ナルト

In one of my dreams, people were talking. Sometimes mere voices filtering through the misted veil of a black, inexpressive backdrop, sometimes to random dream-images, nonsense conjured to accompany them in my mind.

"That's… I can't… I'm not sure I can believe that…"

"Oh? That we're sitting here now and talking like this– isn't that to some extent proof in itself?"

"Hm…"

My drifting spirit lost buoyancy, fluttered, lapsed down under nothingness once more.

"Then at the very least, Hinata…? The pact of nonaggression…"

"That's not going to work out…"

"She would be well-cared for…"

"Just like your last partner?"

"You already know that was different…"

"The way you speak… You seem familiar with her…"

"Hn… I suppose…"

"Childhood friends?"

"You could say that… If, back then, things had by some impossibility been able to go any other way… we would probably by now have been betrothed by our clans to marriage…"

"I would do it myself if I could, but I have a duty of my own… Now, Tsunade… I would strongly prefer not to threaten you, but…"

"You won't need to. I've already decided…"

"Very well, then. Thank you for this."

"Wait. When the time does come… will you fight with us as well…?"

"That will in all likelihood be impossible… After all, I'm a traitor and a fugitive. For the time being I must remain as I am and continue to watch the Akatsuki… And you must lead them, and reclaim the village."

"Not 'lead' them."

"What…?"

"These kids … are hardly in need of a leader. Left to their own devices, they would find the path, well more easily than a worn out gloomer like me, to act in accordance with nothing short of the very best way to save that place. I'll lend them my strength … but there's something in this bunch of brats that makes them a force anyone could rally behind."

"I see… Hn. So that's why you wouldn't turn them over to me, even now…?"

"Yes. Perhaps the Akatsuki could end Orochimaru without fail … and perhaps you could look after Hinata, at least… but these three combined have what it takes to defend our home, and just as much a right as you, or I, or anyone else to do it. That's what I feel now…"

"Hm…" Subtlest note of smooth laughter. "I suppose so. To think, a few more years' experience … and I might actually have fallen here…

"Either way, it's time I move on – before someone or another hears too much."

"What…?"

"The best of luck to you all, then…"

"Uuuhh…"

"Naruto? Hey – are you awake?"

"Wh… Baa-chan…? And…" I blinked slowly. "Shizune-san…?" I groaned. "Man… I had … the weirdest drea–,"

My eyes grew. I started to bolt upright, cringed and fell, propped myself somewhat on an elbow. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so low on chakra; my raw keirakukei ached cuttingly. "Wh-what…!" I was breathing too fast; I coughed, and then looked again to the slug sannin's calm face. "Uchiha Itachi – where is he? !" I glanced over our surroundings, a clearing in the butchered forest, a pot of soup simmering over fire, as if the rogue might be seated nearby, hidden amid our very circle of comrades, poised to attack. "I – I lost – how… How are we all…?" I looked to Gaara's inquisitive teals, to the prone and dozing Lee's tranquil expression, to Hinata's pale, resting face. "Itachi … didn't kill you," I stated dumbly. "Or capture us…"

Tsunade smiled, the gesture surprisingly gentle. "You mean you don't remember? You did a number on him…" she remarked, eyes lazily taking in the near-battle site around us.

"I… did?"

She nodded. "Apparently he was forced to retreat… Gaara was left unconscious by delayed effect of another Akatsuki member's attacks; he woke just a few minutes ago. Hinata fainted with fatigue after irritating the healing you managed to quickly impart on her before, but I fixed it up more thoroughly. I found you not far from here–," she waved at the devastation, "–passed out, from exertion…"

"Huh…" I muttered, brow furrowed as I carefully sat up. I started.

"What is it now?"

I chuckled, eyes shut. "I did it, didn't I? I drove off the awesome ninja you could barely lay a finger on, Granny! In other words, I beat you!" I declared, pointing.

"Oh, please!" she snapped with a blush, and I yelped as she smacked my hand down. "You know as well as I do that that wager expired days ago…"

I crossed my arms irately in a huff. "Well still, I mean…"

"N-Naruto…kun…?"

I gasped. "Hinata…"

The girl stared at me, eyes big, lips parted as if in awe. Water trickled lightly down her cheeks, glistened on her pale, bruised face. "You did it…"

I patted a fist to my chest, grinning. "Said I would, didn't I?"

A whimper caught in her throat as she shut her eyes a moment, nipping her lip, the faintest color spared to her cheeks. "I knew you could… Naruto – I'm so glad y-you're okay!"

"I need to stay by your side, after all…" I quickly wiped a hand over the moisture that snuck from my own eye. "I'm glad you're okay, too. Gaara … kept you safe, didn't he?" I noted, meeting the redhead's eye to give him a smile.

"Y-yes, he did…" she said, as he nodded blushingly. The girl pressed feeble hands to the ground, trying to sit up.

"Hold it!" Tsunade ordered, putting a hand on her arm to discourage the girl's rising. "You've already aggravated that injury once – a fatal one, I should add. You shouldn't be trying to move around yet!"

"No…" Hinata shook her head, eyes shut; trembling slightly, she gradually began to sit up, gripping the woman's wrist for support. "There's something … I need to do…"

SLAP!

Tsunade touched a hand to the stung red mark on her cheek, dumbstruck. For a moment she stared at Hinata, who stared back coolly, her hand still extended from the sudden backslap. Then the woman grabbed the injured girl by the neck of her jacket, lifting her a bit and shaking an angry fist. "You smart little–!"

Hinata held up one erudite pointer finger by her calm face. "You changed that wager and its terms, but when you did you neglected to clarify any specific timeframe. You never did get me to give up, after all… and now, I've landed one solid blow."

Tsunade grimaced with a sound of surprise, angry color hot on her face. Then her shaking fist lowered, and she slumped, defeated; I sighed in relief as female animosity reluctantly left the air, and she released her. "Cheeky brat…"

"Oi, you two both seem to be forgetting what Tsunade-sama said before." Lee noted this quietly, his voice weak but steady; he declined to open his eyes as he spoke. "Before we left the inn earlier – she did promise that if we followed her out here, she would afterward come with us to free Jiraiya-sama, did she not?"

I patted a fist to an open palm as remembrance clicked. "You're right, Bushy Brow!"

"Three… strikes…?" Gaara reflected at faint monotone.

"Lady Tsunade …" Shizune said.

The woman sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Alright, I give already!"

"Yatta!" I cried animatedly. "Finally! Ero-sennin, Konoha – here we come!"

"Naruto-kun…"

"Huh?" I met Shizune-san's almost troubled eyes. She averted her gaze to spend a moment taking in the battered landscape, the sparsity of ragged trees, the distant blackened area left charred and cold.

"You … did all this, didn't you?"

My expression sobered. I nodded in confirmation.

"Your – your offensive capability is practically off the charts! Someone like this… someone capable of this…" She paused. "What is it that impelled you to learn medical ninjutsu?"

"That… eh?"

My eyes fell on Hinata. My heart folded with sorrow.

"I wanted … just to be able to help my friends some way, in the beginning … but also…"

My eyes drifted upward, into the cold, prim expanse of pale blue sky.

"A lot of good can be done with medical ninjutsu… And I think that someday, if I might save more lives than I've destroyed…"

I trailed off. The wind stirred softly, rustling the grass, scampering over my hair.

My eyes refocused as Tsunade fastened the clasp behind my neck, and I felt the cool blue gem come to rest against my chest.

The sannin knelt in front of me took my chin lightly in her hand, and she bent to touch her lips to my forehead.

Nineteen, Part Four: Reason for Being

Neji ネジ

The heart monitor's rhythm twinged, its beep frayed with an erratic fitfulness I gasped raggedly, voice tight, almost whimpering for the air that creaked up and down my dry throat. Frigid sweat oozed from my skin, and the liquid heat that wept thickly from my left eye down the side of my face and into a splayed mess of uncombed, sweat-speckled hair was coating my already dubious vision of the dim room a screen of scarlet. Muffled thunder roared down from distantly above, rattled against quailing beakers and test tubes, rumbled in the iron shackles that bolted my wrists, waist, and ankles to the laboratory table.

"We can't go on…"

"Wh-what?" I wheezed, breathless. My distraught eyes twitched about the two faces above me.

"If we keep this up, your life will be in jeopardy, Neji-kun," Lord Orochimaru explained. "I can't have that. You're in agony, aren't you…?"

"B-but–!" I coughed, gratingly; the sputum and whatever else may have chanced up my throat was swept away, a trail of watery red in one of the two thin, clear tubes that led into my mouth. "Then – then how f-far…? !"

Yakushi Kabuto prodded his glasses upward, boredly detached as his lenses glinted intermittently under the light of the monitor screen. "So near that at the next session, we can probably accomplish it without any trouble at all. We've learned quite a bit; the method's been just about perfected, and it seems the formula is nearly complete. But at your insistence we've already pushed things further than we ought to have in a single day; to be blunt, your body won't be able to take this much longer."

"Th-then… then please–! If you might just continue a bit l-longer … if you might perfect it today…!" I shuddered involuntarily in my constraints, teeth locking.

"No. We will try again, another day–,"

"Th-then for h-h-how many weeks will we have to wait as I recover from th–!"

I yelled aloud, body becoming rigid and thrashing what little it could; the table shook beneath me. A few thick strings of saliva spanned my gaping mouth. Vibrating fingers spread and stretched and twisted themselves to nearly unnatural postures, and I tossed my head and howled again over the heart monitor's insanely skewered rhythm as my forehead blazed with pain.

"Kabuto, void the unsealing circle – quickly!"

"Alright–!"

"NO!"

By some violent convulsion of my will, my right hand then broke from the metal brace about the wrist to lash out and seize the bespectacled medic's forearm.

"Neji-kun…?"

The visiting Otokage's arm was held firm in my clammy grip as I gasped, as the monitor to some minor extent normalized. My glazed sight focused as intensely as it was able to on my Lord Hokage as he glared, teeth clenched in something akin to concern. He spoke.

"Not only adamant that we conduct the tests on you alone … but now, so unlike you, in an emotional rush to see the technique's perfection. Do you not fear death…?"

"No!" My searing head shook numbly as I fought for air, halfway to sitting up, still clinging to Kabuto with unconscious fury. Words were flung from my mouth. "Discontent – dissent – I c-can see it spreading, taking root – little by little, they l-lose faith in m-me–!" I ducked my head and hacked out a sharp cough. "Y-you promised me, and I promised it to them, and they're d-drifting away from me!" I screeched out, shuddering. "A leader – a leader must be s-someone who strikes hope and vigor in the h-hearts of his followers – you see! – I c-cannot let them wait anymore – I cannot let them grow dispirited and lose sight of it all now!"

I hardly heard Kabuto's grunt of discomfort.

My voice was an intent, enfeebled yowl.

"This accursed symbol of eternal i-inferiority … this iron brand of subjugation that scars us all like a p-plague of days past … until this scourge of injustice is e-e-eradicated…!" I stumbled, wheezing past phlegm, reclaiming my breath – meeting his eyes determinedly again and forging roughly on, haggard and pained, nearly screaming in desperation. "The clan's power is important – but even more so, my family cannot be allowed to fall apart! W-we must stand as one if we are to crush our oppressors! !"

"…Very well…"

Kabuto wrenched his arm free. "But, milord…!"

"Kabuto – do not let him die."

"Sir."

My eyes watered; were I not in pain I would have truly smiled. "Oroch-chimaru-s-sama…!"

"With you in this condition, I won't be able to anesthetize you any longer…" His thin hand hovered over my forehead. "You'll just have to endure it."

"Th-this pain is nothing!"

Not when it's the p-price of liberation…!

My teeth ground together.

I … can taste freedom…

Fisted hands shook at my sides.

I can…

And I felt with stunning clarity that it was rightfully mine – that it was mine and I needed nothing more direly than to feel it, to experience its full sweet brilliance and share it with all the others – and cursed with all my soul the foul, twisted creatures who would and had for centuries denied it.

I won't die… not yet… There are still things that I must do…

Naruto ナルト

I sighed quietly as I relieved myself in the bushes. Just as I was finishing up, a small sound caught my ear; startled, I turned and could barely spot some small figure skulking by, twenty feet away, in the obscurity of the trees and moonless night. Brow furrowed, I headed silently after it. It had traveled only a short way before emerging from the tree cover into the dim company of the starlight, and promptly seating itself almost expectantly at the foot of clear water.

A … wolf? I realized, blinking at the russet canine from where I stood by a tree trunk. My bewilderment deepened as I recognized with awed trepidation the several dark forms dotted and huddled mysteriously along the large lake's banks, all waiting patiently for something surreal to take place.

All, gazing calmly toward the slight and motionless figure that stood fully unclothed not on, but in thigh-deep water at the heart of the pristine lake. She was facing mostly away from me, her head down, her delicate frame quite intimately relaxed in posture without being slouched or slack. The small girl stood perfectly unmoving, as if in a slumber, suspended in place where she was, a clean, smooth sculpture of ethereal quality and grace. Her bare shoulders and back shone softly, a luminous, marble tone that drew the eye from the predawn realm of darkness around her. The glossed surface of the lucid water in which she stood lay completely tranquil, untroubled by any external force, as if daring not disturb the maiden's serene vigil.

The water quaked about her as she shuddered once, her head inclined skyward. A spell was unraveled. I observed, entranced, as a single slender chip of white, the shy edge of the disc for which she waited, grew at length discernable in the night sky above.

The girl gasped, a sharp, inward drawing of cool air. Silvery white lined her silhouette and radiated from her lithe form, as if ladled so graciously down upon her by the waking celestial body despite its present lack of splendor. The light trickled down, showered, hastened, and with it her stunning luminescence intensified until at last nothing could be seen of her for the brilliant glow that cast a radial powder dust of gentle, ephemeral white upon all it touched.

As the glow declined, I found I had been left the sole human in the vicinity.

Vibrant silver lingered still in her skin as she expelled her first breath – a howl of piercing intensity, long, smooth and passionate, fired beautifully into the sky.

As the note faded, another rose up from a separate orator. A number more, from the far bank, followed, and russet one near me was not far behind. Soon countless lupine voices were pouring into the night, at this moment undivided by any apparent boundary of their packs as they sang together. Their sister had rejoined them.

It occurred with a pang that I was an intruder here. Could I have possessed the right to be here, to witness this occasion – this moment they shared, united in this place under the mythical banner of one strong clan? Of what did the ookami sing? What were they communicating? Was it welcome – a greeting? Acknowledgment, praise, sheer rejoice? Or sorrow that she had ever left them? I didn't know. I didn't know.

Why…

An inexplicable drop of water fell from my chin. Eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar, I stared on in silent awe.

Hinata… You can't be a normal girl anymore, can you? A human … happy, in the sunlight.

Is this your way … of defying destiny…?

Lee リー

Somehow… Somehow, we have made it through yet another crisis.

My eyes were calmly shut as measured breath flowed slowly in, held a moment, and filtered out once more. Immobile though I was, my face and arms alike dripped; my bare upper body was slicked with perspiration.

Those two kids … those cute little rookies… It remains nothing short of amazing how far they have progressed.

I shook briefly at a sudden stab of pain in my torso, nearly stumbling before I snapped determinedly to focus, persevering in my meditation. My teeth clenched.

"Lee-kun! What're you…? !"

"Ah – Shizune-san," I greeted easily, recognizing the voice a ways behind me.

"You – you'll hurt yourself–!"

"The first time the three of us faced the Akatsuki … that time as well, I was the first to be taken out of the battle."

My foot shifted very slightly.

"Why is that, I wonder? I simply want … to protect my friends–,"

I grunted as the wound tore partially under my body's strain. The still-fresh scar that stretched from shoulder to hip throbbed along with my heart.

"Your injuries…"

Blood plitted to the lush grass already well showered in sweat.

"I … do not have fangs or claws, or awesome jutsu. My flesh and bones … w-will never restore themselves at astonishing rates… I can neither regenerate limbs nor take fatal blows in stride…"

My fingers curled slightly but with a sharp vigor to them, and forcefully I shoved upward, heaving from the low, strong stance in which I was crouched – and hurled ten meters upward the veritable boulder balanced atop my shoulders.

"Lee–!"

I turned sharply in place, sinking, rising, striking upward with one foot.

Crk–BOOM.

I felt as the great stone shattered on contact, landing in several fragments around me. My bare foot returned to the grass. Turning my head, I tugged down on my blindfold and grinned back at Shizune-san's shocked face, my eyes shut.

"All I have is my youth, my willpower, and this one body … and I will make it as strong as it may possibly be!" I declared brightly, my hand popping as I clenched a fist and then flicked up a thumb.

"Lee-kun…"

"Guhf…"

I coughed, blanching and slapping a hand over my midriff as a fair bit of crimson jumped from the wound.

"O-oh…" I murmured, vision swimming and muddying as I looked down at my red hand and collapsed with hearty exhaustion.

Naruto ナルト

Chk.

"Twenty-two meters, sixty-one centimeters, eight millimeters," I declared. The shadow clone at my side let fly another senbon.

"Sixteen meters, eighty-two centimeters, one millimeter," I enumerated promptly as it landed.

Chk.

"Fourteen point nine forty-one."

Chnk.

"Twenty point three seventy-two."

Chk.

"Twenty-eight point two eighty-four meters."

"The angle?"

"Sixteen degrees left," I replied without hesitation, my right hand extending above a neat line in the dirt before where I sat. I poised forefinger against thumb, and steadily, without moving wrist or arm, flicked over the needles in the order in which they'd landed. For this reason, senbon rather than kunai – it was considerably more difficult to strike a senbon squarely with the nail of one finger from twenty meters away.

Precision. I need greater precision. Sheer power is wasted without efficiency.

–"Who would trust you to protect the village?"–

The fifth one, furthest away – glanced at the side, it tipped without falling.

I blinked twice, shook my head. Focus.

"Twenty-eight point two eighty three meters at … sixteen point two degrees, perhaps?" I muttered, knocking down the needle.

I needed to hone my eyes, my mind, my jutsu.

"Next," I said, gazing ahead as my doppelganger scattered five new senbon on the littered terrain.

I need to make myself strong enough … to protect them, even from enemies like Uchiha Itachi.

"Ga-a-ra," I sang in greeting, flicking more needles.

"Naruto-san," he responded, walking up behind me. "Shizune-san sent me to find you…"

Hinata ヒナタ

Kurogiba and I roared as we hurled ourselves toward each other. Shoulder met shoulder with staggering force, and we broke apart, I stumbling a bit as we landed. He lunged furiously, and I lifted my arm from harm's way as powerful jaws snapped savagely shut.

I drove my elbow down into his muzzle, and he snorted. Kurogiba dodged from a following kick and reared to slash with burning obsidian claws, clipping my side as I narrowly evaded. A few more blows were traded before suddenly his strong tail hacked my ankles from behind; I kept on my feet, but he pounced while I was unbalanced, paws striking my shoulders, fangs going for my throat. My hands whipped up, struggled to hold him off as he snapped and snarled. My left gripped his lower jaw from below with fingers folded safely into his mouth between the points of the teeth, and my right latched similarly above his muzzle as I growled and pushed to remove my neck from his range – and punch him hard in the nose.

My back met ground, and I rolled and drove both feet into Kurogiba's belly, throwing him off of me. I twisted to land on all fours, already springing as the wolf was halted against a tree. He shifted aside. My solid fist shot a clean crack through the trunk.

I dodged hastily as a beam of red-hot flames surged by. Agile in spite of size, Kurogiba sprang to the trunk of the tipping tree and shoved away from it, powerful hind legs thrusting it toward me as the wolf broke from it in a spinning leap. I thrust my hands out in front of me, breaking the force, stepping forward to catch it in my hands above me, and lobbing the tree with a yell toward Kurogiba.

He rolled nimbly under the crashing trunk before it hit ground, and with his shoulder down whipped his body around to lash nipping hind claws back across my belly. Finding his feet, he rose and slashed, reared and slashed, and twice was swiftly evaded; then he hopped in place and slammed hind paws blindingly into my upper chest. The fierce kick knocked my breath out and shot me into the ground as he backflipped curtly to his four feet.

I sprang with my bounce, flipping into the air and lashing around claws swiftly bloodied on my shoulder – and the grand ookami blurred from the path of five rushing waves of darkness.

He cut toward me again, ramming his head into my gut. I yelped and planted left palm at the base of his neck, and he ducked as I swung with claws.

Ducked, and darted by. And chomped down hard on my flicking tail.

A tight grunt, as if a protest, was all that could be manifested of my throat as my soul screeched, and my gut clenched, and my heart clenched. One eye screwed shut, a stiffening of the body, a sharp, high grunt of utmost displeasure – and a ferociously severe growl blazed into the air as my teeth snapped together and my eyes clamped shut and I shuddered and wrenched back to send a tremendous surge of force all at once straight into Kurogiba's face.

Right fist extended behind me, I watched a flash of black jet to the treeline and fire a grand plume of dust into the air with an enormous crash.

I-it … actually worked…

I coughed and gasped lightly; gingerly embracing my midriff, I panted for breath, drained.

He came hurtling from the dust cloud with a demonic shriek, a burning clot of amorphous black from which burst the form of a head and gaping maw. Eyes wide, I stepped back and raised my arms in defense. Five meters before me the flaming wraith dematerialized with a crackling pop, dissolving once more into a great mess of black as it corkscrewed aside in a screeching, tumbling flare of speed, swept from low along the ground to my right side, and carried me from the earth. As I rose the flame that gripped me shaped once more into the grand ookami, and I yelled as the demon bit down into my flesh, dug crushing fangs mercilessly into my lower ribs and abdomen.

Then he, balanced so upon his hind legs, drove my shoulder blades down into contact with the earth.

The wolf growled lowly against me, and I choked, breathless, as he continued to hold me this way. Pinned down in his vice-like jaws, I lay with arms splayed out and immovable, legs limp, feet dangling uselessly above me.

He entered my mind. 'Better give up…'

'Not gonna happen…!'

I whimpered quietly, eyes shut, face reddening as he pressed harder and my back popped most unhappily. I endured several seconds more, until I grimaced and blood spurted from my mouth, and he released me. I flopped flat, gasping.

"What the heck are y'all doing? !"

I sat up slowly as I saw Naruto running toward us, Tsunade walking not far behind.

"Is he rabid? !" the boy cried, pointing angrily at Kurogiba. The wolf snorted.

"Yeah, blame the wolf…" he muttered.

"He makes a valid point," Tsunade said. She looked me evenly in the eye. "Are you rabid?"

"Tch…" I looked away, glaring weakly at the ground and rubbing the base of my neck.

"Kurogiba," Naruto said seriously. "You two have hardly given yourselves any time to recover from the other day. What are you doing here? Trying to kill each other?"

"I need to get stronger," I said, meeting his eyes sharply. "We both do."

"Not to mention," Kurogiba added, "now's a fair opportunity – a period of sensitivity, if you will – to instill and build up the pup's tail offense retaliation reflex. After lacking her tail for the last week, she's highly receptive to the training. You've seen its effect…" He looked off toward the settling dust and debris, and then shut his eyes and coughed. "Hopefully we'll be able to avoid any more … mishaps, in the future."

Tsunade blushed as she scowled down at the wolf.

"Hinata," Naruto said. Hesitating a moment, I looked to him again and gasped as the blond knelt and softly embraced me. His smooth voice was a playful caress to my ear.

"A little training's fine, as long as you're not overdoing it. You told me you'd take care of yourself, didn't you?"

"Naruto…"

"And that means no beating yourself up, right?"

"Naruto…!"

"Don't go forgetting what I said." His embrace tightened, firm but gentle, always gentle. "I'm here for you, Hinata – always, just for you. I don't want you worrying yourself to death. You're one of the strongest people I know… And the weakest you can become is when you hate yourself and start forgetting who you are. Back there, in desperation … you almost became something terrible. I never…" Voice low, he held me close, fingers of one hand nestling into my hair. "I never want to see you pushed that far … to see you try to do that to yourself, ever again."

Soundless, I hid my eyes against his shoulder.

"I failed you before, but I'll become stronger … and my strength will become yours. So – can you find it in you to forgive me, and have faith in this failure?"

"I-I can!"

He smiled, patting my back. "Arigatou."

Tsunade let out a cough.

"Aha – there you are!"

Warning-cough. Naruto smoothly stood up in front of me so I could dry my eyes as Lee, Shizune, and Gaara emerged into the open. "Yep – found her! Just had to patch up a little injury, you know?"

I got up. "What's going on…?"

Naruto absolutely beamed. "Rounding up the group. It's about time we got moving, y'know?"

"Yosh!" Lee said, his hands clapping on mine and Naruto's shoulders. "We have places to be, and people to save! Are you ready, Hinata-san?"

I nodded. "Yes!"

"That is the SPIRIT! Then let us be off – to find our adventure, charge into every sunset, and scour the ends of the earth!"

"Oi, Bushy Brow – do you even know which way you're going?"

"Is he always like this…?"

"I wonder… Eek! Lee-kun – if you irritate the wounds I just closed again–!" Shizune reprimanded, running off after him with Tonton complaining at her heels.

"Here we go," Naruto sighed. "Let's not fall behind, ne?"

He handed me my backpack as it appeared in his hand, and I smiled as he took off after the others. I pulled my regular pants quickly up over my training shorts, and stuck my hands through the sleeves of my shirt, slipping it on over a cropped tank top and already starting to follow.

"Hyuuga-san…"

I looked inquisitively to Gaara, and he shut his eyes to give me a smile – his brightest, in fact, that grin so uniquely perplexed and flustered and timid yet most of all giddy – before he, too, ran off.

At my side Tsunade smirked, a hand on her hip. "What a lot you've got around you, wolf-girl," she sighed, shaking her head with a wry smile. "Just what've I gotten myself into, I wonder…?" She tossed her hair, and flickered after them.

What a lot, indeed! The corners of my mouth tugged the slightest way upward as I slung my bag's strap onto one arm. How could I have not seen it before? It's true… I'm not alone. I have great friends … all around me–!

I was lifted up by the back of my shirt – and flung unceremoniously forward. I yelped, stumbling, striding once on all fours, and rising to shrug my bag's other strap onto the appropriate arm. Kurogiba nudged me from behind, urging me to hasten as we ran.

"Wh-wh-why are we sprinting?" I asked as the wolf drew to my side.

"As much as I'm sure you'd love to sit and daydream, first thing first – how about catching up to inform them that east would be the other way?"

"Hai!"

Hanabi ハナビ

With one open eye Hikujaku peeked unobtrusively over my shoulder, rocking on his heels, arms crossed. Hitaka read curiously from my other side. Harumi pursed her lips but declined to speak.

My brow furrowed. I looked up from the half-sheet of paper in my hand to Uncle's calm white eyes, blinking in annoyance as I found some calculating glint to be assessing, sizing me up. He nodded subtly to himself.

"Hiryuu-oji-san, this is…?"

He nodded simply. "New Konoha's Chuunin Examination – and you, my lady, are entering."

ナルト / リー / ヒナタ \ ハナビ \ ネジ

End Chapter Nineteen

Naruto: Celestial Paintbrush: Power Slash!

Lee: Naruto-kun… thinks he is an Okami-fied sun goddess…?

Naruto: Galestorm! Galestorm, Galestorm–!

(–static–)

Hinata: This is Hinata!

Hanabi: And this is Hanabi!

Hinata: Proud to assure you that no trees were harmed in the making of thi… Dang it!

(–static–)

Hanabi: What? ! What do you mean you signed me up for the Chuunin Exam? Don't I have to sign a release form first or something?

Hiryuu: Well, we're calling it a Chuunin Exam, but being New Konoha's own unofficial competition of promotion there's obviously no killing permitted.

Hanabi: I don't even care about making chuunin! Just let me focus on my training–!

Hiryuu: As your sensei I urge you to consider this a part of your training! Win this contest and bring honor to your name!

Hanabi: 'Win'? !

Kiba: Hey! I heard you're entering the competition! Well, don't think you'll be able to beat me just yet!

Chouji: I'll say – I could've made chuunin ages ago!

Sakura: Huh? ! I don't want to fight against Hanabi-chan!

Konohamaru: Hanabi!

Hanabi: Oh, no, don't tell me…!

Konohamaru: Get ready to lose, cause there's no way you'll top me!

Hinata: (chuckles) Next time, Chapter Twenty: The Champion!

Phew… Yep, this chapter might have been better off in halves. …Each half would be as long as Chapter Seven. O_o

Gosh, this thing is ugly… or as a friend of mine might say, a hot mess. Stupidly long battle there – sorry. I hope the chapter was at least somewhat enjoyable.

'Perchance'? 'Thus'? 'Thence'? I have no idea. Well, I do actually – I'd just read The Scarlet Letter, (awesome book, which came a bit of a surprise since it was a summer assignment) and accidentally started getting a little … archaic-y.

On another note – yeesh! Sorry, okay – I'm sorry I made Naruto such an effeminate wuss, who uses wimpy twirling staff tricks, and possesses unmanly finesse, and is apparently weaker than Hinata! Sorry for demoting the main character to the type of whipped, emasculate loser who would pass up an opportunity for sex! Blasphemy! How dare I? (Sarcasm) -.- First of all – there are a million 'look at Naruto being awesome' stories out there, but more importantly – we have three slash five main characters. It has to focus somewhere. And everyone can't get the spotlight every single chapter. Since the story started it's been going back and forth – why is Lee stronger than the other two, but now why is Naruto lightyears ahead, now why is Hinata so beast – they take turns. I get where you're coming from – with long chapters and infrequent updates, if one character or another takes the spotlight for a couple of chapters, it probably seems like they're suddenly the strongest, but I'm probably not just flat-out neglecting the characters. An important chapter like thirteen is balanced; Hinata gets the spotlight against Gaara; Naruto was due for his shining moment here all along. If I tried to make three people constantly shine the brightest and each be the one who saves every day – well, does that even make sense? I'm not talking to anyone specifec here, just wanted to say.

Moving on, what'd you think of the ridiculous battle? The surprise twist? The beginning of the chapter ought to have answered questions of why Tsunade betrayed them; the Shizune with them at the end of last chapter (the one that burst into smoke after being hit by Kurogiba's attack while trying to kill Lee) was Itachi's transformed clone. Lee didn't get to do too much this time around, but it should say something that he pushed Kisame… Hinata versus Kisame? Note that vulnerable, tailless Hinata is prone to fighting underhanded and/or like a psychopath. Remember, she was not only weakened by losing her demonic power but also by her spirit being fragmented (which the Akatsuki didn't know about). Any thoughts on her chat with the wild wolf? Her trip to the dark side? Or the later transformation back to han'you? Was the NaruHina tidbit okay? Oh – yep, I gave Kisame a pretty crappy death (and, well, I started writing this before we learned more about him, so instead of changing it I just left him the belligerent, mercenary-type character), so if you're fans, sorry! Same with Zetsu (about whom we still don't know all that much), who I decided to make a demon XD Gaara's scenes? Sort of an exception here, but I really don't intend to make his a frequent POV. Naruto versus Itachi – I'd been looking forward to writing that one for a while. How was their fight, and their overall interaction throughout? Naruto's full power? I'd really like to know if Itachi was well done – his lines, his actions, whatever. How about that mysterious conversation in Naruto's 'dreams' ;) ? Anything you liked, anything you didn't like... you get the idea!

I know I kind of failed last time, but the goal this time is to reply to every single review – because each one is appreciated! And I think I can do it, if I can just get myself to reply to reviews when I receive them. Questions, comments, complaints – feel free give feedback, about anything at all!

Thanks for staying with me! I'll try to have the next chapter out more quickly than this one was, anyways ^^' See ya!

:o)Hinata0321:o)