Sasuke thrust his hands into the air, the universal sign for inaggression against a firearm, and the barrel retreated back enough for him to turn around and see the face of his captor, but he didn't take the proffered chance right away. He knew that voice, his mind was screaming at him, but he didn't want to believe it. It can't be! He thought wildly, but something in Pein's cruel smile told him he was all too right.

"What's wrong?" Pein jeered, and the other Akatsuki laughed with him. "Turn around and take a look- if you dare to."

Slowly, Sasuke forced his body to turn around to face the individual behind him. His feet, lagging slightly behind his body, crunched in the sand at the edge of the patch of glass where bits of the hardened stuff had broken off and started wearing back down into fine grit. The toe of his shoe caught on the edge of the plate of glass and broke it off, the sounding ricocheting through the silence around Sasuke like a gunshot. Like a shot from the gun pointed at the back of his head.

The thought almost made Sasuke stop in his tracks, but the cruel faces of the Akatsuki and their jeering smiles propelled him forward again, and he turned his head the rest of the way before he could talk himself out of it.

His eyes were downcast when he turned, so the first thing he saw was her shoes: a pair of purple sandals that looked both fashionable and practical enough to wear hiking on an overgrown trail. Slowly, afraid of what he might find when his eyes finally found their destination, Sasuke's gaze panned up the girl's body, from her jean shorts to her tshirt and finally to her familiar face.

"Hello, Sasuke," Tenten said, a trace of something indefinable in her eyes. "Did you miss me? Probably not; I dare say you never really even noticed I was gone, did you? I can't say I blame you, though. You were rather… out of it, to say the least."

"Tenten," Sasuke said sadly. "I'd rather hoped it wouldn't be you."

"Tenten?" Ino cried, looking back and forth between Sasuke and the end of the gun Tenten was pointing at him. "What are you doing?! Sasuke's our friend, remember?"

Tenten didn't even spare a glance in Ino's direction. "You suspected me?"

"I suspected everyone; I had to." Sasuke took a minute step back. "That's why I cut myself off from everyone."

"Oh?" Tenten raised a single eyebrow. "Not because you had gone mad?"

Sasuke took another tiny step backwards. "That didn't set in immediately. But if you would allow me a question…?"

"Only if you stop your sneaking away," Tenten said harshly, tightening her finger on the trigger,

Sasuke quickly stopped his motion and raised his hands a little higher.

"Good. You can ask your question now."

After a slight uncertain hesitation. Sasuke asked, "Can you… see them? The ghosts?"

"No." A look of contempt crossed Tenten's face. "But don't assume that I'm completely ignorant just because I lack your glorified gift. I can see people's auras like a smudge around their bodies, even the auras of people no longer alive. So, no, I can't see ghosts like you can, but I sure as hell know they exist. I'm a lot smarter than you lot give me credit for."

From behind him, Sasuke heard Shikamaru shift slightly forward, interested in what Tenten had said. "So, that night when we were here about a week ago, when you said you were aiming from the reflections on the surface of the lake, you were actually aiming at the auras?"

Tenten's gaze flickered to focus on Shikamaru for a brief second, then refocused on Sasuke. "Yes, though I'd never aim directly at the Masters."

"Got her well-trained, don't we, little Uchiha?" Hidan, the white-haired Akatsuki draugr, jeered, his lips pulling into a snarling feral mockery of a smile.

Tenten's steady gaze wavered for a second at the words, but it was enough for Sasuke to take note of.

"Please, Hidan," Pein sighed. "Let her be. She still has some use yet."

The muscle directly below Tenten's left eye twitched, but the movement was slight enough that only Sasuke, standing an arm's length away, could catch it.

A strange mix of emotions was bubbling inside Sasuke, from exhaustion to betrayal to hope to a dulled fear, but on the outside he felt, strangely, more calm and controlled than he ever had before. Perhaps it was the exhaustion talking, or the shock of his hallucination that still hadn't worn off, but whatever it was, Sasuke had to thank it, for it was giving him a level head. It was different than the coldness of before that froze his heart and made all his decisions cold as ice in that it didn't limit his emotions, but rather cut them off somewhere around his throat so his heart didn't interfere with his head. And it was this that allowed his head to come up with an idea. A crazy, probably suicidal and definitely stupid idea, but an idea nonetheless.

Keeping his gaze locked with Tenten's, Sasuke took a step toward her, and her eyes widened almost infinitesimally. Without breaking eye contact, Sasuke called over his right shoulder, "Shikamaru, my bag got left inside the Hokage, didn't it?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Shikamaru replied, the tone of his voice making it clear that he understood what Sasuke was trying to do and would play along.

From over his left shoulder, Sasuke heard the laughter of the five Akatsuki, in particular a high, childish giggle that went on and on, but they appeared amused enough by his actions that they would probably let him continue without interruption.

Sasuke took another step toward Tenten so the barrel of the gun brushed against his chest, and Tenten started to look less steady. "Wh- what are you doing?"

"Just thinking," Sasuke said innocently, nerves bubbling furiously under his outer calm. "Taking stock, and the like. Without my weapons, it seems the only one a human could wield would be that gun you're holding. If it's loaded, that is."

"'If'?" Tenten's eyes narrowed and her lips tightened into a thin line. "What do you mean by 'if'?"

"Well," Sasuke said, allowing a goading note of incredulity to creep into his voice, "it's just that you've bluffed us once before, so it's only natural to assume you'd bluff a second time, no?"

If possible, Tenten's lips got even thinner. "I'm not bluffing."

"Aren't you, though?" Sasuke asked spitefully, slowly lowering his hands.

"Perhaps the bluff was that I was bluffing," Tenten said with a tone of mockery, her chin and tone raising in challenge.

"I don't think so…" Sasuke almost sang delicately, and when anger flashed within Tenten's gaze, he made a sudden fast grab for the end of the gun.

But not fast enough. Tenten saw the move coming and deflected it by turning so his grab landed on her upper arm, a foot away from the gun, then jabbed an elbow into his unprotected side for good measure.

The sharp jab to his kidneys sent Sasuke reeling back in pain, and he collapsed on the ground holding his side. Bad idea, bad idea! Sasuke's mind started chanting, and the pulsing in his ribs couldn't help but agree with it, panic starting to find its way through his emotional blockage. Sakura gave a cry of protest at Tenten's actions, but neither she nor Sasuke paid her any attention. Tenten took a step forward so she towered over Sasuke like a giant, forcing him to look up to see her face.

For the first time, there was palpable anger in Tenten's voice, and her knuckles whitening as she clutched the gun hard enough that it shook in her grasp. "You think I'm joking, don't you?" She hissed through gritted teeth. "You have no idea what I've been going through these past three years! Constant terror, threats on my life if I couldn't deliver, hundreds of sleepless nights sneaking out to comb that stupid excuse for a library- it was a nightmare! And then you showed up, all high and mighty with your 'I'm so special because I can see ghosts' attitude, and I suddenly have no use left except this!" She gestured wildly to the gun in her hand. "So you can bet your last fucking dollar that this gun's loaded. I'd already be dead if it wasn't."

"I-"

Sasuke got no further than that, for Tenten's face hardened even more than it already was, and she swiftly swung the gun to point at the plate of glass on the sand and pulled the trigger. The glass was a circle about five feet in diameter, and the bullet hit it about a foot away from the center on the side Sasuke was on, shattering it with a crack almost as loud as the one that came from the gun. Sasuke instinctively shielded his eyes, and it was a good thing he did, because shards of glass flew everywhere, peppering the beach and people with the sharp pieces. When Sasuke lowered his hands, he saw that they and his arms were dotted with small scratches, and judging by the cries from behind him, the others had faced similar fates.

Since Tenten was still standing with the gun pointed at the now-shattered glass plate, Sasuke dared to take the first look behind him since he had first turned and seen who was pointing the gun at him. Shikamaru had obviously done his best to shield everyone with his telekinesis, but his chest was heaving from exertion and it looked like he'd only partially succeeded. Neji, who was closest to the phantom, had escaped relatively unscathed, but Ino, Sakura, and Kabuto all had some minor scratches and Kakashi, who was the furthest away from Shikamaru and the closest to the plate besides Sasuke, had a shard at least two inches long sticking out of his left forearm. Blood, thick and red, ran from the wound far too quickly and spattered against the ground like raindrops.

"Kakashi!" Sakura cried, jumping up to catch him as he swayed, his face draining of color, leaving him with an ashen look in his cheeks. Ino wasn't far behind, jumping up to grab Kakashi from the other side as his knees started to buckle underneath the weight of his own body.

"Dammit, Tenten," Ino cried angrily, rounding on the girl and trying to help Sakura manage Kakashi's weight at the same time. "What do you think you're doing?"

"The only thing I can do," Tenten said in a slightly softer tone, and something completely different flashed through her gaze. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but Sasuke was sure he'd seen it. Just as sure as he could see the red drops trickling down into his vision.

Wait. What?

Sasuke immediately slapped a hand to his forehead, then just as immediately regretted it as a spike of pain drove itself into his skull. When he drew the hand away with a wince, his fingers came away wet and sticky with bright red blood.

Shit, shit, shit! Sasuke yanked the bandana from around his neck, the one whose original intent was to keep the dust from entering his mouth and nose when he went through all the old records in the shack, and pressed it against the wound. Luckily, it appeared like it was a shallow cut and the glass had just scraped him in passing rather than lodging itself in his skin, but it was still dangerous. Head wounds tended to bleed a lot, and the placing of this one, right above his eye, made it particularly worrisome because it could impede his vision. An Uchiha valued his eyesight above all other things, because without it, he would be, quite literally, fighting blind.

There was a shuffle behind Sasuke as someone started to move forward, but was halted by the barrel of the gun as Tenten swung it in his direction.

"And don't think about pulling anything," she warned the errant mover. "These bullets are silver-tipped, so they can punch through you as well as any human."

Sasuke managed to turn his head around just in time to see Naruto blanch in fear and back away a few steps. At the edge of the beach, there arose a displeased hiss from the gathered Akatsuki.

"Do not threaten the Kyuubi!" Pein hissed from between his teeth. "Remember, we need him!"

Tenten immediately pointed the gun at the ground, but the threat was still there. From across the beach, Sasuke could see the wheels turning in Shikamaru's head, and apparently Tenten could as well, because the gun was pointing at him the next second.

"And before you think about calling this one a bluff," she warned harshly, "just remember what I'd have to do to prove it either way."

Shikamaru also had the decency to loose few shades of color from his cheeks when he comprehended the ramifications of that. Apparently, he wasn't confident enough in his deduction to call that particular bluff.

"So, you see you have no choice," Pein said arrogantly, crossing his arms over his chest in a smug manor. "You can either give us the Kyuubi - conscious being or not - or die trying to protect it."

Sasuke tried to struggle to his feet with the bandana still pressed to his forehead wound, but was confronted with the barrel of the gun before getting halfway there, forcing him back into the dirt. Leaning his head back to try and divert the flow of blood away from his eye, he inadvertently locked eyes with Tenten's unprotected gaze for a second, and he saw past the hard mask she was wearing. She was afraid, deathly afraid, but her hands were too shocked to tremble. Deep within that gaze, something, some untainted, primal part of her, was crying out for help. Then it was gone as soon as it had come, leaving only a contemptuous curl of her upper lip.

"Stay down," she snapped, cocking the gun again in Sasuke's face. "And keep your hands where I can see them!"

Sasuke hastily lifted the hand bracing his weight on the sand over his head, but without anything to prop him up, he fell over backwards, landing hard on the shattered remains of the glass plate. He felt abrupt pain as some of the sharper shards scratched his skin, cutting open the material of his shirt to reach his flesh. Gasping in pain, Sasuke lay still, trying not to move and send the shards of glass even deeper into his body.

The barrel of Tenten's gun lowered until it pointed directly between Sasuke's eyes. Quick inhales and sharp exhales, made even sharper and quicker by pain and fear, racked Sasuke's body, and for the first time, he considered the fact that he really could die here. His heartbeat thudded in his ears like the brassy knell of the executioner's gong, slowing down like the sound was reaching for him through a vat of honey as the world around him seemed to freeze. Casting frantic eyes around him for something, anything, to grasp onto, Sasuke found nothing, only the eyes of those as frightened as himself.

It's a shame, really, the spiteful part of Sasuke's mind taunted him. All these people dead, and all because of you and your damn pride. Thought you could take on the Akatsuki alone, did you? Well, now you're paying the price. You've doomed Neji by asking for his help, Kakashi and the others by association, and Naruto… well, Naruto was fucked either way. But most of all, you've doomed yourself by your arrogance and your stupid fucking pride.

Sasuke's mental voice broke a little on the last words, signaling that even it had given up all hope. His gaze flickered up to see Tenten's uncompromising face and the five Akatsuki that had moved in behind her, laughing at his terrified expression.

All five… behind her…

Sasuke could tell that Tenten realized it at exactly the same moment he did, because their eyes widened just the slightest bit in tandem. Tenten's iron control over her face began to falter, showing all the pain she was feeling inside. Her tight grip on the gun caused it to tremble, she mouthed to him, If I help you, can you promise my safety?

Sasuke's heart lept into his throat, hope stirring in his breast once more. This was it! He thought excitedly, his heartbeat pounding in his ears like a drum of life rather than one of death. If Tenten switches sides, she and I, plus the phantoms, could put up a reasonable defense! We might actually have a chance!

Then the second part of her question hit Sasuke, and his hopes plummeted. Can you promise my safety? He couldn't even promise his own safety, let alone hers! There was no way he could in good conscious tell Tenten she would come out of this alive, any more than he could bring any of the Akatsuki back to life.

Tenten must have seen the rise and subsequent fall of hope on his face, because her own tightened in fear. Wetting his lips, Sasuke whispered in the quietest voice he could, "No, but… you're the only shot we have."

Shock caused Tenten's eyes to widen for the briefest of seconds, then she shut her entire face down, a curtain of emotionlessness seeming to drop down over her features to hide what was going on inside her mind. Sasuke held his breath; this could be the turning point.

Suddenly, a glowing blond halo blocked Sasuke's vision of Tenten's face as Naruto jumped in front of him, placing himself as a shield between Sasuke and the gun.

"Please stop!" He begged, and Sasuke could tell by the catch in his voice that tears would be running down his face without even seeing it. "Just leave them alone, please! I'm the one you want, right?"

"Naruto-!" Sasuke tried to struggle to his feet again, but this time, it was Naruto's power that kept him trapped against the ground, not Tenten's gun.

"You need me, not them, don't you?" Naruto continued, his voice growing shrill from both fear and determination. "If… If you don't stop threatening them, I'll stay right here! You… you'll have to go through me!"

"Oh, but we can't have that," Pein interjected with a mild amusement. "The Kyuubi must remain unharmed. Well, his little show has been amusing while it lasted, but now it's time for the curtain to close. You're act is over, but ours is just beginning. Lads - and Deidara-"

"Fuck you," Deidara interjected on a loud mutter.

Pein continued as if he hadn't even spoken, holding a hand up in the air. "-assume your positions. The fun begins now."

Immediately, all the Akatsuki straightened up and stood at attention. With evil smiles starting to creep across their faces, they each produced something with which to fight. Zetsu, the one with the green-tinted hair and face, raised his hands and the tree limbs behind him began to writhe, as if they were made of snakes, and next to him, Tobi clapped his hands in childish delight before summoning up, seemingly from thin air, a set of children's jacks that had been sharpened to deadly points, elevating them off his palm with telekinesis and forcing them to orbit his hand like murderous planets around a bloodstained sun. On the other side of Pein, Hidan, the platinum blond one, pulled a cutlass made of solid silver from inside his robes, its shining surface made dull from dried blood. Grinning fiendishly, he drew the edge of the blade across one forearm, spattering drops of thick, congealed blood on the ground, then licked the edge of the blade, staining his teeth with blood and turning his smile inhuman. Next to him, Deidara simply lit both of his hands on fire, the flames rising up to illuminate his cruel face. Pein was the only one whose hands remained empty, but his sharp gaze made it clear that he wasn't without a weapon.

Despite the glass at his back, Sasuke scrambled to his feet, gritting his teeth as he felt his skin minutely tear in dozens of places, and tied the blood-soaked bandana around his head to cover his wound and keep his hands free. Tenten had pointed the end of her gun away from him as soon as Naruto had decided to become a human shield, but at the sight of Sasuke on his feet, she readied it again, pointing it just to the side of Naruto's, and therefore Sasuke's, head.

"Naruto, get out of the way!" Sasuke yelled, trying to drag Naruto back behind him and being foiled by his sudden insubstantiality. "You're not helping!"

Naruto turned back to Sasuke with a tearstained face. "But… But maybe… maybe if I let them take me-"

Sasuke cut him off before he even had a chance to finish his sentence. "Don't be a fool!" He roared, grabbing for Naruto's shoulders once again and this time finding them solid enough to touch. "They'll kill us all!"

"Quite right," Pein said calmly, as if he was discussing the weather rather than murder. "And starting with you, my fine Uchiha. Zetsu?"

Before either Sasuke or Naruto could react, a set of vines neither of them had noticed creeping across the ground lept up and wrapped around Naruto, binding him fast and starting to haul him backwards. Fear causing his eyes to widen, Naruto tried to fight off the vines, but only succeeded in slowing his progression back towards the Akatsuki. Sasuke tried to reach out and grab him, but was halted by the cold metal of Tenten's gun pressing up against his temple.

"Naruto!" The cry came from behind Sasuke, most likely Shikamaru, and a blast of power surged past Sasuke to Naruto, but was deflected by a second vine.

There was a scream from either Ino or Sakura behind Sasuke as the vine shot past Sasuke and collided with, based on the shout that followed, Shikamaru, but he didn't dare turn his head to see what was happening. The cold metal of the gun bit into his temple like a shallow snakebite, spreading a poisonous fear throughout his body that robbed it of its free will.

"Tenten, you fucking traitor!" Someone screamed, but Sasuke was too numb from fear to tell who it was.

"That's right. I am a traitor."

The words were spoken so quietly that Sasuke almost missed them, but so strongly that they stilled everyone in the clearing. Even Naruto and Zetsu stopped in their struggle to hear what Tenten was going to say. Sasuke dared to turn his head the slightest bit so he could watch her face out of the corner of his eye.

Tenten's face was troubled, but in an unreadable way. Her hand was shaking slightly, making the gun against Sasuke's head tremble. Mouth slightly open, she wetted her lips before speaking again.

"I've betrayed everyone: my friends, my family, my very home. I have nothing left to lose, nothing left to live for. I am a traitor, and there's nothing I can do to change that."

"That's right! You're our little bitch now!" Pein crowed, extending his hand forward to point at Sasuke. "And now, Bitch, you're going to put a bullet in the Uchiha's head."

"No!" Several voices screamed at once, but the loudest of all was Naruto. He started struggling harder against his bonds, but his effort was in vain, and he only succeeded in entangling himself even further in the vines.

But Sasuke felt no fear as he looked into Tenten's face, only a numbness that came from shock. His gaze flicked back and forth between her eyes and the message they were trying to convey and her free hand, inching down her side to her hip. His eyes darted back up to meet hers, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. He understood.

"I am a traitor," Tenten echoed hollowly, her eyes telling Sasuke to be ready. "And I'll stay a traitor, because I'm going to betray someone right now."

Without warning, Tenten flipped the gun she was holding onto the air and grabbed a second gun from the concealed holster at her back. Sasuke grabbed the gun out of the air, the grip sliding comfortably into his hand to sit like it belonged there, and pointed it at Zetsu while Tenten pointed hers directly at Pein's head. The element of surprise was with them - the cruel smiles of the Akatsuki had yet to slip from their faces and be replaced by shock, or better yet, fear - but wouldn't be for much longer, so Sasuke took advantage of the moment and fired a shot directly at Zetsu's head.

The ghost reacted to the sound of the shot, pulling a section of branches in front of him to stop the bullet, but not quite fast enough. Instead of deflecting the bullet entirely, he only managed to angle it away from his face, and it sunk into his shoulder with a sickening sound.

Zetsu roared, the sounding echoing through the clearing like the mad cry of an injured wild beast. He staggered, one hand coming up to cover the bleeding hole in his shoulder, and lost control over the vines he was using to bind Naruto. The phantom immediately broke free from his constraints and flew to Sasuke, burying his face, suddenly that of a child, in the Uchiha's now filthy shirt. From behind them, there was a deep inhaling gasp as Shikamaru tore the vine that had been choking him away from his throat.

Patting the crying Naruto awkwardly on the head with one hand and keeping the gun trained on Zetsu, who was now kneeling on the ground, his face racked with pain, with the other, Sasuke surveyed the strange scene now unfolding in front of him. The rest of the Akatsuki rose high into the air and surrounded the grounded Zetsu, their faces all unfeeling masks except for Pein's, whose face was filled with a terrible fury.

"You let him injure you?" He seethed, a wild rage rampaging across his face. "How dare you show such weakness! You dishonor your name- nay, the name of our entire race! How dare you allow even a dream of defeat into your mind!?"

A sudden fear overtook Zetsu's face, and he cowered against the ground, vines starting to creep up his form like some kind of living shield. Confused, Sasuke looked from him to the four ghosts hovering over him. They all had wild, hungry looks in their eyes, as if the scent of blood had turned them all into rabid beasts. What was going on?

"N-no!" Zetsu cried, cringing on the ground in fear. "Forgive me, Master, Comrades! Please, forgive me!"

Pein drew in a sharp intake of breath, pulling it through his teeth so it resounded with an ominous hiss. "Forgive you? Forgiveness is for those who deserve it, Zetsu, and you've just shown us that you clearly don't deserve it. Didn't he, comrades?"

Chilling laughter echoed over the beach, making everyone present shiver and curl into themselves, instinctively huddling together like mice from the sound of a hawk's wing beats. Even Zetsu flinched back into the ground, but realized his mistake almost as soon as he'd made it, his eyes widening even further in pure, unadulterated terror. Sasuke faltered in his aim, pointing at first one, then another, then another, of the ghosts. Which one should he focus on?

Zetsu tried to push himself up from the ground, but only made it halfway before fell again, clutching his injured arm. "Please, don't!" He begged, tears of terror starting form in his eyes. "I- I've known you as long as I've been dead! You're my comrades, my… my friends! Please don't do this to me!"

He broke down in sobs of terror, and the other Akatsuki looked down upon him with a mixture of loathing and bloodlust. Pein in particular had a hungry expression on his face, like someone had just placed a huge slab of rare beef on his plate and he couldn't wait to devour it.

With a wicked grin, Pein hissed, "Begging will get you nothing; you of all people should know that, Zetsu. You must remember the oath you took when you joined us?"

The other three Akatsuki joined him, speaking the words in a disjointed, hellish chorus. "Show no weakness, or be shown no mercy."

"Oh, God," Zetsu sobbed, tears as fat as raindrops rolling down his face and splashing against the leaves that trembled around him.

"There's no God here," Hidan cackled, running the edge of his silver cutlass down his uninjured forearm and causing blood to drip down and spatter in Zetsu's terrified face, anticipation clear in the hungry light in his eyes and the cruel tilt to his sneer. "No God- only Pain." But the way he said it, it was impossible to know if he meant pain, or Pein.

Sasuke watched in horror as Pein rose higher into the air, towering over Zetsu and the others like an ancient pagan deity of murder. "Alright, lads - and Deidara -"

"Fuck you," Deidara snarled, but it was anticipatory rather than angry.

"-you know what to do. Finish him."

Like feral dogs that had been let off their chains to feed for the first time in days, the three Akatsuki shot downwards toward Zetsu, who screamed at their approach and tried to throw up a barrier of branches and vines, but it was no use. Tobi was the first one to strike, sending his sharpened jacks to hack through his leafy shield as easily as if it was damp paper. Hidan was next, jumping through the opening Tobi has created to draw his cutlass sharply across Zetsu's throat. Abruptly, his screams changed to gurgles as blood erupted from his cut throat and mouth, clogging up his windpipe and making breathing impossible. Not wasting any time, Deidara sent in a fireball that caught Zetsu straight on the chest, splashing outward and engulfing his entire body in flames. The inferno raged, strong and hot, over his entire body before going out as suddenly as it had flared up, leaving behind only a pile of ashes and a few charred branches.

Everyone on the beach stood aghast at the spectacle they had just witnessed. The whole episode had lasted only a few seconds, but the horror it invoked lasted much longer, stretching the silence until it was broken by Ino's piercing scream. The scream continued on and on, and even Sakura's hysterical attempts to calm her down seemed to be causing her more panic than Ino comfort. Sasuke could only stare, frozen, in horror at the remains of what had, only a few seconds ago, been a sentient creature, the gun becoming slippery in his grip as a cold sweat broke out over his whole body. From behind him, Naruto clutched his shirt harder, spectral tears dripping onto the fabric and dampening it.

Slowly, the eyes of the three ghosts near the ground swung around until they focused on the group of humans and phantoms. Sasuke took a couple of steps backwards, closer to the injured and their caretakers, and saw Tenten on his left do the same. Glancing to his right, he saw Shikamaru come up next to him, the three of them forming a single line of defense between the murderous and the potential murderees. He and the ghost exchanged a single glance and nod before refocusing all their attention on the evil auras now being broadcast in their direction. Sasuke may not see eye to eye with Shikamaru over everything, but right now, he was glad he had the war-experienced phantom at his side.

A childish giggle echoed over the beach, its high timber easily cutting through the din of Ino's screams. It was coming from Tobi, who was delightedly clapping his hands together in time to the swirl of the bloodstained jacks over his head. "That was fun!" He giggled, his eyes starting to glow red with a mad bloodlust. "Say, Pein, can we do that again?"

Pein floated down towards the ground so he was just barely taller than the other Akatsuki, then he smiled a terrible smile, his face losing all traces of humanity. "Yes, we can do it again, Tobi. In fact, I think we can do it many, many times."

"And the Kyuubi?" Hidan asked, licking what remained of Zetzu's blood off his silver cutlass. His eyes, too, started to glow with a demonic light.

"Don't harm the Kyuubi, but take from any of the others the pleasure you crave!" Pein roared, throwing both arms to the sky. "We have a hunger to be satisfied! Tonight, we kill."

Somehow, Sasuke found his voice, and he raised the gun to point at Pein, shouting in a voice that sounded pitifully weak to even his own ears, "We won't let you!"

Four sets of glowing red eyes confronted him with hellish laughter, as if the very notion was absurd. Cackling like a maniac, Pein roared, "You've awoken our bloodlust now, little Uchiha! Nothing can stop us from getting what we want, and what we want is blood. We're not leaving until every last one of you is dead!"

Oh, shit. If there was any doubt about it before, they were certainly in trouble now.

And yet another pause in the action? Will this fight scene never end? Find out in the next installment of Spectral Eyes: Blood and Smoke, but for now, from me, until the moon rises again over Uchiha and Uzimaki, goodnight.

(This sounds much cooler if you imagine it being read by Mike Bennett.)

Addi out!