Another chapter down! I promise this fight scene is almost over. Maybe.

Neji was forced to watch, silent and helpless, as the Akatsuki's lust for murder was whetted with one of their own, then their demonically cruel faces were turned on him. Oh, he knew that they were directed at everyone else as well, but the piercing eyes glowing red with madness seemed to single him out stare directly into his soul. His hands clenched with mixed terror and rage, but he didn't know which one was stronger.

Oh, why was he so useless? Why did Sasuke have to put him out of commission so carelessly? Oh, Neji knew it wasn't wholly Sasuke's fault, that he'd been under the influence of a hallucination and God only knows what he thought he was attacking, but it still stung. He should be the one up there next to Sasuke, not that stupid chit of a girl who'd just pointed a gun at his head, for God's sake! He was a Hyuuga, dammit; he was the one who'd trained for these kinds of situations, not some damn local whose only advantage was a few guns loaded with silver-tipped bullets! Where was the justice in this mad world? Though, Neji supposed, it made some kind of twisted, karmic sense; he'd been blocked from the fight by someone on his own side, and Zetsu had also been cannibalized by his own comrades.

Neji had felt safe with Shikamaru next to him, but when the phantom moved up to stand next to Sasuke in a defensive line, a sudden rush of fear swamped over him. He felt naked without his eyes, which he couldn't activate without his voice, and that made him feel more defenseless than he had ever felt before.

And yet, even if Neji was able to activate his Byakugan, what good would it do him? He was the observer, the watchdog; he had no business in the thick of the fight, and no natural weapons with with to defend himself. As much as he hates to admit it, even if he hadn't been injured, there was little he could do in this fight except watch and pray, though he doubted that could do them much good now.

From his perspective, Neji could see all four of the Akatsuki's expressions and the backs of the three people standing against them. Tenten was trembling but strong and Sasuke stood firmly resolute but slightly injured, the bandana on his head tied at a haphazard angle. The only one who looked completely confident was Shikamaru, but then again, Neji was sure he'd faced more daunting situations than this when he had fought in World War 2.

In comparison to them, the Akatsuki looked completely confident, their eyes glowing with a demonic red light and their smiles like snarling wounds slashed across their faces. They looked, in all their feral glory, like a pack of starving wolves restrained by an alpha barely in control of himself, let alone them.

The one advantage they had was the fact that all the Akatsuki, except for Pein, had used their powers before, so Sasuke and the others knew what to expect. That meant they could anticipate a first attack better, but all bets would be off after that. Neji saw Shikamaru making those same connections, his head tilting from one side to the other as he focused his gaze on each of the Akatsuki in turn. When the phantom put one hand behind his back and started calling up a shadow, Neji hastily followed his gaze to see Deidara cackling madly and holding both flame-crowned hands to the sky.

"Pein, can I burn them?" He begged like a child, sparks trailing from his hands like red glitter. "Can I make them scream?"

Pein chuckled, but the sound was more depraved now. "Of course you can; just make sure to save some for the others as well."

"I'll try," the pyrokinetic ghost hissed, "but no promises. If they want some, they'll have to come and get it themselves!"

"Oh, we will," Hidan snarled, biting down on his blade hard enough that the indentations of his teeth could be seen in the soft metal when he released it. "Make no mistake about that."

Tobi giggled at that, the high-pitched sound slicing through the residual noise like a hot knife through melted butter. On and on it rolled without stopping even for breath, grating against Neji's eardrums and making it impossible to tell the passing from time. Time seemed to slow almost to a stop, the only recognizable thing in his world the sound of the maniacal laughter. He quickly clapped both hands over his ears and saw Sakura and Ino next to him do the same, but Kakashi could only cover one ear with his one good hand, and Neji watched almost in fascination as a kind of desperate madness came over his features. Quickly looking back to the three people standing in front of them and taking the brunt of the assault, Neji saw that Shikamaru had plugged his ears with shadows and Sasuke seemed to be fending off the attack with sheer willpower, but Tenten was slowly crumpling under the weight of the maddening energy.

A jolt of terror suddenly shooting through his system, Neji jumped to his feet, but doubled over again when a hand slipped away from his ear for a second. No wonder Tenten's flagging, he thought in amazement. She can't even cover her ears!

Careful not to let his hands fall away from his ears this time, Neji leaned up again, raking his gaze over the Akatsuki. They all looked like they were straining forward, fighting against some power holding them back. But why weren't they attacking? With Tenten almost down on her knees, they wouldn't have a better opportunity, unless they were waiting everyone to completely succumb, but Neji doubted the feral ghosts had that much patience in them at that moment. What, then, was holding them back?

Swallowing against a sudden gorge rising from his stomach, Neji tried to speak, but only a harsh cough ripped its way out of his sore throat. A new panic swept over him; how long would he be forced into silence? Another hour? A day? A week?

This new fear causing him to momentarily forget the dull blades of sound ricocheting around the beach, Neji closed his eyes and let one hand drop to his throat, feeling the tender bruises that were starting to form. As soon as he did, the maniacal giggle assaulted his mind again, but he gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it, drawing in a harsh breath for another attempt.

"B...ga…. Bya...gan…. Byakugan!"

Neji finally got it on his third try, activating the inner part of his eyes that could see things even Sasuke couldn't. Opening his eyes, he beheld a scene much different than the one he had closed them on. Colors undefinable to the normal human eye swirled about him, resonating with the madness of Tobi's shrill laugh, and a sickly dark aura was creeping over the entire area, leaving only Naruto untouched, who now looked like a prism of pure light to his refined gaze, stretching up into the sky as far as he could see. Squinting past him to the Akatsuki, Neji regarded the three mad dogs and their handler with a critical eye.

To his surprise, Neji found them as equally shrouded in colored light as Naruto had been before he had activated his eyes. Deidara's aura was a mottled yellow-orange, like flame, Tobi's a light blue, Hidan's a deep blood red, and Pein- Pein's was a pure white, like the sterility of a clean white lab coat. A thin rope of aura, shifting in color from the bright shades of Deidara's, Tobi's, and Hidan's auras to that of Pein's, stretched from Pein to each of the other Akatsuki like a leash, seeming to hold them back and urge them forward at the same time. A fourth strand, forest green in color at the end, was flicking free in the wind. It was faded, much duller in hue than the other strands, and seemed to be disintegrating quickly; within a few heartbeats, it was completely gone.

What are those things? Neji thought, a frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows. Some kind of restraint? The fourth one must have been Zetsu's, but for what purpose?

As Neji watched, half fascinated, half scared out of his mind, Pein held up a hand and Tobi's terrifying giggle stopped, leaving the beach in a sudden loud silence that stunned everyone almost more than the noise had. Sasuke reeled, the aim of his gun wavering as he sought to regain his lost equilibrium, but his reaction wasn't as strong as Tenten's, who fell to her knees in the mixture of shattered glass and sand, almost dropping the gun. Neji narrowed his gaze; there was something around her, something white and sticky, like spectral treacle that had been spread over her normally pristine aura. A tiny rope of it, almost too small to be noticed, trailed away from her, and Neji followed it with his gaze until he saw where it lead: directly to Pein.

In less than an instant, it all clicked, the ropes of spectral aura, the thick spectral stickiness around Tenten, why there Akatsuki weren't attacking: Pein was in direct control of the others through those ropes, whipping them into a frenzy by keeping them chained until the anticipation built up past a point where they would be able to control themselves, and then he would release them. And that moment was likely fast approaching, because the ropes connecting Pein to the other ghosts were getting thinner and thinner until they looked like they were about to snap as, inversely, the one connected to Tenten was thickening.

Neji tried to cry out a warning, but only a hoarse whisper, too quiet to carry past his immediate surroundings, came out. Meanwhile, Sasuke and Shikamaru, who were completely focused on the enemy in front of them, were missing the strange convulsions of Tenten, who was fighting but rapidly falling under the spell of whatever magic Pein was weaving over her. She clenched the gun in her hand like a lifeline, and Neji had a feeling it was her last line of defense keeping her from succumbing to the poison of the Akatsuki.

Then, as Neji watched in mounting horror, the gun fell from Tenten's shaking hands, and she went completely rigid, like a corpse. Slowly, her head raised to look, not at the ghost in front of her, but at Sasuke, standing next to her with his gaze averted: a gesture of complete trust. Neji tried again to shout, to warn Sasuke of the danger now amongst their midst, but again, nothing more than a hoarse whisper came out, and an angry frustration born of fear descended over him. Why was he so useless? Why was this simplest of tasks denied him? Why couldn't he just call out?

And then Tenten reached for the fallen gun, and Neji knew, though he didn't know how he knew, that if he allowed her to regain control of it, this battle would be over before it had started. He didn't have time to think; without any sort of plan, Neji got a running start and launched himself at the girl, knocking her to the ground before she could reach the gun.

As soon as Neji touched Tenten, the white aura around her dissipated, the rope of spectral energy connecting her to Pein shattering into a thousand tiny fragments that were reabsorbed into Pein's own thick aura. Within a second, the eyes of all the Akatsuki snapped to Neji, and he swallowed nervously against a dully aching esophagus as he rolled off Tenten, who gave him a wordless look of thanks before taking hold of her gun and standing up next to Sasuke once again. Sasuke gave Neji a strange brief glance before turning back to focus all his concentration on the Akatsuki, but Sasuke wasn't Neji's main concern now. His biggest fear was the four sets of feral eyes staring at him, including the one intelligent gaze that was telling him its owner suspected he knew too much.

With narrowed gaze, Pein dropped the hand he had raised to cut off Tobi, immediately stilling all three other feral ghosts. There was still madness in his face, but now it was tempered with something that wasn't quite fear, but was weaker than confidence.

"Well, well, well," Pein almost sang, his eyes showing the gears clearly turning in his head. "It appears our little mute bird has found another way to contribute. If so, I think our little Mexican standoff here has come to an end. Lads- and Deidara-"

"Fuck you," Deidara almost moaned in anticipation, flames dripping from his hands to sizzle out against the sand like oil against a hot pan.

"-I believe it's time to begin the carnage," Pein continued without missing a beat, then pointed a finger directly at Neji. "Starting with that one."

The icy hand of fear gripped Neji's heart as three sets of mad eyes zeroed in on him, targeting him for the kill. He was caught by those gazes, not able to move, hardly able to even breathe, as they hypnotized him, a single mouse caught by a pack of mountain lions. With a sense of reality separate from himself, he watched as the tethers holding the blood-crazy Akatsuki back snapped, one by one.

Oh, shit.

"Shit!" Tenten screamed as the three bloodthirsty ghosts rushed them all at once, and Sasuke was inclined to agree with her. Stepping smartly in front of Neji, he lifted the gun and fired a single shot at the oncoming ghosts, scattering them but only for a few seconds. He didn't know why Pein had told them to target Neji, but Sasuke wasn't about to let an unarmed comrade take the brunt of an attack, no matter the reason.

Though briefly deterred by the gunshot, the Akatsuki soon reformed and came swarming back. Deidara was the fastest, sending a sweeping blast of fire at the knot of defendants that would be at just the right angle to catch them in the face of it connected. Sasuke saw it coming and hit the deck, dragging Tenten down with him, and buried his face as far down into the sand as he could in anticipation of the heat that would soon sweep over the top of them.

Except it never came.

After a few seconds ticked by with nothing happening, Sasuke chanced to raise his head and glance around. Behind him, Neji had also chosen eating grit over roasting, and Kakashi and the girls had cowered into the sand in preparation for the wave of fire, but none of them had the telltale signs of a scorching. Turning his head to look forward, Sasuke saw something that completely took his breath away.

The wave of fire had been met by a wall of pure shadow, and the shadows were devouring the fire. Shikamaru stood with his back to Sasuke and the others on the ground, one hand extended out in front of him as if to guide the shadows, and even without seeing his face, Sasuke knew by his stance that his eyes would be fierce and his mouth hard.

Deidara, for his part, was utterly stunned that his attack had been defeated, seemingly without any effort. "What have you done to my beautiful flames?" He wailed, reaching out imploringly as if he could grab the remains of the ashes from the air and mourn their passing.

"That's the funny thing about fire," Shikamaru said, and there was an anger and a passion in his voice that Sasuke had never heard before. "The stronger the light shines, the stronger the shadows become."

Deidara gave a scream of rage and launched himself at Shikamaru, flames trailing from his whole body as he ignited himself head to toe. In response, Shikamaru conjured up a wall of wavering shadows, flickering like black flame. The orange and the black collided in a fantastic firework display that shot up over the beach, causing Sakura and Ino to cower away and scream in terror and the rest of the humans on the beach to cover their eyes in an attempt to shield them from the scorching heat. Sasuke had little time to marvel over this surprising, apparently new power of Shikamaru's, however, because Tobi and Hidan, having themselves recovered, split around Deidara's wall of fire and came at them, one on either side. Tenten, whose closest target was Hidan, panicked and fired a blind shot at him, but, by some miracle, it connected, the bullet slamming into his shoulder to send out a spray of blood. Instead of backing off, however, Hidan only grinned more maniacally, stopping only briefly to dig the silver slug out of his flesh with the tip of his blade. Tenten's aim wavered as he held the spent bullet in his hand and then, keeping his gaze locked on hers, deliberately ate it. Horror caused her to take several shaky steps backwards until her back collided with Sasuke's, but he had no attention to spare for her; he had his own opponent to face now, and he didn't dare let his eyes wander.

Tobi swept toward Sasuke, but stopped just shy of crashing into him, pulling up at the last second to diffuse his momentum without wasting too much energy. His deadly whirling toys circled about his head like tiny fairies, almost beautiful if not for the small spots of dried blood that marred their shining surfaces. Sasuke raised the gun to point directly at his head and fired off a shot, but Tobi quickly directed his jacks up to deflect the projectile, and Sasuke mentally cursed. It appeared that he had been right and that particular trick would only work once.

"How many shots do these things have?" he yelled over his shoulder to Tenten, not letting his eyes stray from the form of the advancing ghost.

"S-six," Tenten replied, her voice starting to tremble.

Only six? Sasuke mentally cursed again. That meant he was already half out of shots, and Tenten, even though she'd only used one so far, didn't have many to spare, so the strategy they'd been formerly relying on - shooting almost blindly at targets just to keep them at a distance - wouldn't work for much longer. They needed to come up with another plan, and fast, and Sasuke had the sinking suspicion that there was only one that could even offer them the chance to run down the narrow path to victory.

He would have to use his eyes.

Sasuke had entertained the notion of using the full power and capacity of his eyes on several occasions before, but this was the first time this summer that it had seemed to be the only option left. There was a certain inevitability to even considering it, like he'd known the whole summer that it was coming, and had only barely managed to hide the disgusting feeling of familial duty it caused behind all the small oddities and joys of the summer: in books read until the scant hours of the morning, in the sights and smells of the ocean and the shore and the forest and the town, in the sound of laughter - including his own - in Neji's stupid shirts and Sakura's cooking and Ino's prattle and the phantoms' presence and… Naruto.

That' right. Naruto. He was the real reason they were in this pickle. And yet, Sasuke felt no sense of anger towards him. Perhaps his emotions weren't registering again, or perhaps that was simply what happened when one fell in love.

Though he knew it was foolhardy in the present situation and danger, Sasuke allowed his eyes to drift shut for the briefest of moments. How had it come to this? How had he allowed it? Maybe he was just as useless as the wild accusations of his hallucinated father had suggested, letting the Akatsuki manipulate him, lowering his guard in front of ghosts and strangers alike, allowing his heart to be taken with a phantom who had been dead for the better part of a century. Because that's what he'd done, hadn't he? He'd allowed Naruto to distract him at the time he'd needed his head the most. He supposed he could blame that on love too, but could he really claim to be in love? He'd messed around with Naruto over the summer, nothing more. And yet, Sasuke felt, struggling up from deep within his petrified heart, an urge that he'd never felt before: the urge to protect, not just because he was bound to, but because he wanted to.

In the vague space in between himself and Tobi, Sasuke could hear the whistle of the ghost's mad toys of death slicing through the air toward him, and he knew he didn't have the luxury of hesitation anymore.

"Sharingan!"

Sasuke spit out the word in something between a reverent invocation and a curse, his eyes snapping opening with a sudden force that seemed to push all the air away from him, or perhaps that was the rush of spectral energy that fanned out around him on all sides as he activated the offensive powers of his eyes. It knocked Tobi back a few paces, scattering his death toys that had come almost within inches of Sasuke's face and would have sunk into his flesh if he'd been any slower, and Sasuke felt a momentary bubble of panic - he knew he'd be cutting it close, but not that close - rise in his stomach, but he squashed it down. Now was not the time for panicking. Now was the time for action.

Taking a deep breath, Sasuke held one hand out in front of him, palm up, and called up a sizable ball of spectral energy in it. What he was about to do would shatter the few remaining rules of the Uchiha that he hadn't - yet - already broken. But he'd been doing that all summer; what were a few more broken rules when he'd already all but flushed the rulebook down the toilet?

His childlike face distorting into something awful, Tobi snarled and launched himself back at Sasuke, but now the Uchiha was ready for him. Instead of ducking or trying to avoid the whirling balls of death whizzing directly toward him, Sasuke held his ground, teeth gritted to calm down his instinctual urge to move, to either fight or flee, anything but stand there motionless. When the were almost upon him, he thrust his palm forward and the ball of invisible energy in his palm took physical form, splitting into multiple small fragments, each mimicking the shape of the jacks and targeting one of Tobi's weapons. The false jacks collided with the real ones in a spectacular crash of sparks and exploding spectral energy, annihilating both. Tobi, not quite realizing what was going on, tried to slow himself down, but it was too late: he collided with Sasuke, weaponless and suddenly at a disadvantage he hadn't anticipated. Almost as if the fading smile on the Akatsuki's face was sucked out of him and transferred to Sasuke, he felt a mad grin bring his lips back in a snarl almost as feral as the one Tobi had been sporting a scant few minutes ago, and he seized the ghost by his collar, suspending him above the ground. Tobi's eyes widened in surprise as his legs, even though they had been planted only in air, suddenly found the support beneath them gone as Sasuke hauled him close enough that he could feel the spittle of the Uchiha's violent breath as it hissed through his teeth on his cheeks, and for the first time in a long time, Tobi felt the stirrings of something in his breast, something so foreign he almost didn't recognize it. Was it fear?

"Wh-what did you do?" Tobi stuttered, grasping wildly at Sasuke's grip. Tears started to prickle in his eyes as he realized the complete destruction of his jacks, his faithful playthings and the only memories he had left of his time among the living. "What happened to my beautiful toys?"

"They're gone," Sasuke hissed, contempt in his voice and on his face. "And soon, you will be too."

Tobi dared not cry out in fear or pain - he knew well enough what that would get him: an order of annihilation from Pein - but he squirmed, trying to break out of the mad Uchiha's grip. He went incorporeal in attempt to slip free, but to his surprise, those fingers still kept their tight grip on the collar at his throat. Tobi's eyes widened; how was that possible? The Uchiha was only human, despite his superior perception; how could he hold onto something that didn't exist in the plane he resided in? Then Tobi noticed his eyes, and a cold chill went up the back of his neck, despite the heat of Deidara's flame: they were not their normal dark color, but a bright bloodred with three black spokes emanating from the pupil in a triangular pattern and traveling through the red iris until they touched the white of his eyes, and suddenly, Tobi found himself rethinking his earlier statement about the Uchiha's humanity.

His lip curling in disgust, Sasuke threw Tobi down on the sand, and the ghost immediately tensed up, preparing for a blow that never came. Instead of furthering his attack on the Akatsuki, Sasuke turned his back on him, sending a glare up at Pein, who was still floating over the beach as if observing was his only goal. In response to Sasuke's stare, Pein simply smiled a thin smile and let the redness of his own eyes glow out even stronger, like he was answering Sasuke's challenge with a challenge of his own, then flicked his gaze, ever so slightly, at the two Akatsuki still standing, before flicking it back to stare haughtily down at Sasuke. The message was clear: if you want a crack at me, prove it by taking them down first. The notion almost made Sasuke want to gag; a man, fully capable of defending himself, hiding behind his comrades and using them as a sacrifice? What a cowardly way to fight!

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke returned his attention to the fight at hand, and not a moment too soon: while Sasuke had been distracted by Pein, Tobi had seen his moment to take back what control Sasuke had stolen from him and started edging toward the young Uchiha.

Barely giving Tobi a glance, Sasuke leveled the gun at his head. "Come another inch forward and you lose your head, kid. I'm not in the mood to mess around."

Tobi, wisely, stopped his movement and drew in on himself, trying vainly to disappear into the sand. He would not cry - he was a big boy, he reminded himself, and Pein was watching him - but he was more afraid of this boy right now than he had ever been of anything, except perhaps Pein.

Sasuke turned his attention back Tenten and her fight, and not a moment too soon: she was panicking, wavering in her aim as Hidan swung his silver cutlass at her playfully. Letting out a terrified cry, Tenten threw herself backward into the sand to escape that swinging blade and fired a blind shot at Hidan. The bullet, miraculously, connected, slamming directly into Hidan's forehead and propelling him backwards into the sand as well. Sasuke gave a cry of jubilation - she had done it - before cutting himself off when Hidan's previously motionless form started to get back up. The bullet had blown a hole in his head from which blood dripped into his eyes, but otherwise, he was entirely unharmed. He smiled a mad smile when he saw Tenten looking at him with horror in her eyes, then struggled back to his feet and pointed the blade of the cutlass at her.

"I'm back, Bitch!" He crowed, brandishing his blade. "Did you miss me?"

Tenten cried out and struggled backwards through the sand, firing wildly at the ghost's terrifying form and emptying her clip in the span of a few seconds. Of the four shots she had left, the first one missed, but the second one grazed his cheek, tearing it open and showing the teeth and jawbone underneath, and the third and fourth slammed into his chest, forcing him back a few steps but not knocking him back down. Even though there were no bullets left in the clip, Tenten continued to pull the trigger, tears of terror cascading down her cheeks.

"Why won't you just die?" she wailed, the clicking of the empty barrel as good as a death knell to her.

Hidan answered with a terrible smile that showed off his teeth through his ruined cheek. "Because I'm already dead."

He drew the silvery blade back and up, letting it hesitate at the top of its arc probably a little longer than necessary, enjoying the terror he was causing. Neji, who saw what was coming, tried to pull Tenten back out of reach of the blade, but her panicked struggles mixed with her weight and Neji's weakened state made it impossible for him to drag her far. Neither the attacker or his would-be victims paid any attention to Sasuke as he now fully turned his back on Tobi and stepped toward Hidan, a spiritual aura once again gathering in the palm of his hand. Tenten screamed and Neji tried one last time to haul her backwards as the cutlass sliced down through the air with a delicate whoosh, heading straight for them, coming nearer and nearer, on a course right to slice directly through both of their necks-

And then it was turned away by a second silver cutlass that appeared almost out of nowhere, the two blades sliding along each other's length and singing out a piercing high note as they kissed each other delicately, despite the force with which they were wielded. Hidan stumbled back, his balance compromised from the force with which he was repelled, but Sasuke didn't leave him any time to recover, following up with a second blow from his own silver cutlass aimed, not at Hidan's body, but at his sword. At the second impact, both swords shattered, the weak metal bending and malforming under the stress it was never meant to receive.

"Wh-what's happening?" Hidan cried, his eager expression disappearing with the dissolving shattered remains of his mutilated sword. "What have you done to my sword?"

Sasuke didn't reply, but, dropping the gun with three shots left into Tenten's lap as he passed, let momentum take over the job of moving his body and slammed into Hidan, knocking him to the ground. When he grabbed the ghost's collar and slammed his head back into the sand, Sasuke found something new reflected in his face: uncertainty.

"Let's just say I gave you a taste of your own medicine," Sasuke hissed. He shouldn't have said anything - the power of the Uchiha gift lay in its secrecy, a secrecy that had to be protected at all costs - but the urge to brag was overwhelming and he couldn't help it.

To his left, Sasuke heard a garbled cry and looked up to see Shikamaru had gotten the advantage over Deidara's flames and currently strangling him with a rope made of shadow. He looked exhausted but determined, the unnatural pallor of his cheeks and circles of darkness under his eyes playing a supporting role to the strength of his gritted jaw. Looking around, the phantom muttered under his breath something that might have been an irritated, "Where are they?", but Sasuke couldn't quite tell for certain. On Sasuke's other side, there was another cry, and he flicked his gaze over briefly to see that Tobi had made another bid for revenge, only to come up point blank against the barrel of the gun Tenten was pointing in his face. Grimacing slightly, Sasuke pushed himself off of Hidan and stood up, planting one foot directly over one of the bullet wounds Tenten had inflicted, and the ghost gave a small cry of pain. He might have enjoyed the bite of silver, but true pain could still cause him to wince.

An unspoken challenge in his gaze, Sasuke glared up at Pein, daring him to be afraid with his eyes. To his surprise, however, Pein put his hands together in a startlingly loud slow clap, the sounds echoing over the water of the lake like another set of gunshots.

"Bravo, Uchiha!" He chortled over the sound of his slow clapping, his apparent mirth shocking Sasuke and leaving him more than a little unsure. "Congratulations! Your family would be so proud. You managed to bring down all three of my men almost single handedly, and in the process, tell me exactly how to beat you."

A cold breath tickled down Sasuke's back, but he refused to let it show. "What do you mean?" He demanded, narrowing his eyes as he glared at Pein.

Pein simply spread his arms open wide and smiled at Sasuke. "Why, my boy, you've just shown me how you fight! That interesting, endearing little power of yours works by turning a ghost's own powers against them, so-"

Suddenly he was gone, causing an icy stab of panic to shoot through Sasuke's heart and the hairs to prickle at the back of his neck. Whirling around, he found that Pein was directly behind him, his eyes suddenly cold and every trace of even false mirth gone from his face.

"-so all I have to do is defeat you without using any spectral powers. It's time for you to die now, Uchiha."

Quicker than a striking snake, Pein reached for Sasuke's neck, his greedy fingers twitching as if they anticipated the warm flesh they would soon wrap around and sink into. Sasuke threw himself backwards just in time, jumping away from Hidan on the ground and leaning out of Pein's reach just as his fingers closed around the spot his neck had been a mere second before. His upper lip curling in contempt, Pein went after him again, but this time, Sasuke was ready for him. Summoning up the same kind of energy he had used before, Sasuke thrust his hand out in front of him, and Pein abruptly stopped inches away from him again, partly in surprise and partly in pain. Looking down at his chest, he beheld a small metal object embedded in the center of his breastbone that, when he pulled it out, letting a spurt of congealed blood seep from the wound, revealed itself to be a jack. One of Tobi's jacks.

"I don't necessarily turn a ghost's powers against him," Sasuke said to Pein's shocked face, smiling a little in triumph. "I just borrow them for a little while and use them as I wish."

Pein's face showed only surprise for a few seconds, then it split open in a wide smile and he laughed the sound strange in the sudden still of the fight. "So you can!" He chortled, wiping tears of mirth away from his eyes. "In that case, I'm glad I never used my own power; I'd hate for it to be used against my companions."

"Oh, you mean this power?" Sasuke asked innocently, flicking his fingers at Pein. A kind of sterile-smelling white mist, like a cloud of anesthesia, rose up from the ground and settled about the wound on his chest, and when it dissipated a few seconds later, Sasuke saw that it had dissolved the cloth of Pein's shirt and left the skin underneath red and inflamed, as if from an infection. "Poison, huh? So you were a poisoner in life. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that I actually can use that power of yours. I can't copy your style exactly, since I never saw you use it, but I think that might actually be better because that means I can use it however I see fit without your style tainting mine. Isn't that wonderful?"

Now Pein looked visibly nervous. "How did you you…?"

"Now, now," Sasuke admonished with a superior smirk, relishing finally having gained the upper hand. "We Uchiha rely on our covert nature just as much as you Akatsuki do. We can't give away the secrets of our existence, you know."

Pein allowed a wry smile to pull up the corners of his mouth as he recognized the echo of the words he had said to Sasuke a week ago. "So we've come almost full circle, haven't we, Uchiha? There's only one thing left, and that's for you to die."

But Sasuke only smiled wryly, giving his head the slightest hint of a shake. "You know, I think that's at least the third time you've threatened my life now. If you don't start following through with your threats, I'm going to stop believing them."

"Oh, really?" Pein arched a delicate eyebrow at him. "You don't believe you're going to die? You think you're going to live forever? What hubris is this?"

"I… I…" Sasuke stuttered to a stop, suddenly confused. Somehow, Pein had twisted his words around, and his brain was getting foggy trying to make sense of what he had said. Was he going to die? He wasn't going to live forever, so he must… and if he had to, would there ever be a better opportunity than now…?

"Wake up, Sasuke! Now isn't the time to be dreaming!"

Suddenly, something hit Sasuke on the back on the head, knocking him out of the dark thoughts he had been thinking. Looking back, he saw that Shikamaru had cuffed him with some sort of baton, like the ones nightwatch policemen had used in seventeenth century London. In doing so, though, he'd been forced to step away from his prisoner, and Deidara took advantage of the moment to burn away the rope of shadow around his neck and escape Shikamaru's grasp. On either side of Sasuke, Tobi, who was being held in place by the barrel of Tenten's gun, and Hidan, who was being held down by his own ravaged body, struggled to their feet and fled, together with Deidara, to stand behind Pein. They were probably supposed to look like they were protecting and supporting their leader, but it just looked like they were scared, hiding behind the skirts of their mother in the face of the proverbial Big Bad Wolf.

"Sorry," Sasuke apologized to Shikamaru as the phantom came up behind him. "I… I don't know what came over me."

And he still didn't; why was his head so fuzzy? It didn't make any sense. He had been fine just a few minutes earlier. What was going on?

Unexpectedly, a new laugh broke the stillness, one different from Hidan's sadistic chuckle, Tobi's childish giggle, or even Deidara's maniacal laugh. This one was almost normal, full of normal delight and happiness, but when Sasuke saw that it was coming from Pein, its unexemplary sound took on a whole new meaning. Sometimes the worst monsters weren't the ones covered in blood or cackling like a maniac, but the quiet ones, the ones who looked normal enough on the outside but housed a mind not fit for gutter rats to live in. Sasuke flinched at the noise; though his mind told him it was harmless, that it was a sound he himself might make, it made his flesh crawl as if a thousand scaly snakes had decided to slither up his pant legs and across his bare skin. The experience was utterly terrifying, and Sasuke started to itch desperately at his skin, trying to keep the snakes away, only to find that they'd delved underneath his skin, their small wriggling bodies attacking him from the inside. Sasuke wanted to scream, to rip at his skin until he tore it off and could pick the snakes from the bare and bloody sinew and muscle that would cover his bones, but something stopped him just in time. It was the words the Itachi in his mind had spoken to him, back when he'd been under Pein's hallucinogenic spell and trapped in his own dark mindscape: They can poison the mind with a single carefully crafted sentence and make a man go mad... You can beat their mind game, and once you do that, you can win. I know you can.

Poison… mind game…

All of a sudden, everything clicked. The white mist that was Pein's power wasn't just a poison: it was also a hallucinogenic, and a drug that allowed him to manipulate other's consciousnesses. That was why he'd seen Pein in his hallucination when he'd been chasing his brother's shadow, why, when he'd awoken, he couldn't quite remember what had happened or how he got to be where he was. As if the very knowledge gave him power over Pein's hold on him, the snakes inside his body disappeared, and Sasuke looked up to find Pein staring at him in interest.

"So you figured it out," he mused delicately, stroking his chin in thought. "I'll admit I rather hoped you would. It's not often that I get the pleasure of a foe like you, Uchiha."

"Glad to know I'm not a disappointment to you," Sasuke snapped, trying to cover up sudden weakness with bravado. His head was swimming, his legs jelly, and he didn't know what was causing it. Had Pein somehow gotten some of his poison into Sasuke without him noticing? If so, how?

Unfortunately, Pein was buying none of his bravado, and he just laughed again. "Come now, Uchiha, you don't have to put up that front. I know how you must be feeling by know. You've been choking on my poison since the moment you pointed that gun in my direction, and her too," he said, inclining his head in Tenten's direction, who, Sasuke saw when he glanced at her, was starting to sway on her feet and looked just as hazy as he felt.

"There's no shame in admitting defeat," Pein continued blithely, as if simply commenting on the weather. "While I can't promise to keep you alive after all the trouble you've caused me, I can promise that we will kill you quickly, out of respect for your skills. After all, we are very good at what we do."

He chortled at his own joke, and the three other ghosts behind him laughed as well. Sasuke gritted his teeth against the headache that was starting to pound through his temples and reached inside himself to find the last pieces of strength he had left. Next to him, Tenten finally gave in and fell to the ground in a dead faint, but Neji immediately swooped in and picked up the gun she had been holding and moved in to stand next to Sasuke. He was holding the gun wrong and looking it slightly nervously, as if he were a little more scared of it than the ghosts he was planning on shooting, but Sasuke found that understandable; it was probably the first time he'd held a gun, let alone thought about shooting one. Now all that was left would be for the third part of their trifecta, Shikamaru, to come take his place, and they would start over again from the beginning again, one side trying to wear down the other, for while Sasuke had managed to disarm both Tobi and Hidan of their main weapons, in the grand scheme of things, that wasn't really that big of an accomplishment.

Glancing around, Sasuke looked for Shikamaru, only to discover that he couldn't find the phantom anywhere. Trying not to give away his sudden shock and fear, he glanced around one more time just to make sure, but he was right: Shikamaru was nowhere to be seen. Anger overtook Sasuke, and he gritted his teeth to keep himself from doing something he would regret.

Damn that phantom! Had he abandoned them? Granted, this wasn't his battle per se, but it affected both his friends and his home! Could he give up and leave so easily, when they'd only just begun to have the upper hand?

Though he was trying to surreptitious, Pein noticed Sasuke's glances and laughed even harder at him. "Ah, yes, you're wondering where your friend went," he said, laying a heavy emphasis on the word that made Sasuke see red for a moment, and not just because of the wound above his eye. "Well, I can answer that question: he vanished a few minutes ago; sunk down into one of those dreadful shadows of his and disappeared. Terrible, isn't it? And here I thought he had better character than that."

Sasuke felt Neji stiffen at his side at the accusation, but he had no energy left to spare for the Hyuuga: all his reserves were going directly into the effort of keeping him on his feet and stationary. Strangely, whatever poison Pein had fed into his bloodstream seemed to be making him more volatile rather than sedentary, and it was taking all his concentration not to let his anger get the better of him. Forcing his gritted jaw open, Sasuke took a calming breath before reaching forward into the air and drawing a silver cutlass from an atmospheric sheath.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Pein asked, his tone still terribly uncaring. "The last time you were under my influence, you attacked the poor Hyuuga next to you! I don't think I need to tell you what would happen if you lost control like that again, and with a weapon like that one! Not to mention that the one who pulled you apart the first time is conveniently not here anymore."

He was right; he didn't have to tell Sasuke what would happen if he lost control again. He already knew. If he succumbed to Pein's poison and started hallucinating again and attacked Neji, he would kill him. That's all there was to it. Glancing to the side, Sasuke saw Neji also shooting him a short fleeting look, and the half second it took for their gazes to collide was all it took for Sasuke to understand what Neji wanted. Konoha may not be their home and the ghosts living within it might not all be their friends, but this was personal now. Not only were their lives at stake, but their pride as well.

Sasuke raised the cutlass before him and got ready to strike.

"You're seriously going to keep resisting?" Pein asked incredulously. "After everything that's happened? When half your fighting force is gone? When you know you have no hope?"

"No hope?" Sasuke asked with a grim smile, tightening his fingers around the hilt of the sword. "As long as we're still alive, there's hope. We will defeat you!"

"Oh, you will, will you?" Pein asked, a red anger starting to flash in his eyes. "You and what army?"

From high in the air, a familiar voice rang out. "Actually, this army."