Title; Fading

Disclaimer; Nope I don't own any of the Naruto characters.

A/N; I thought I should point out that this story isn't about heroes and is very much a grey and grey morality affair. Sasuke in particular is a Byronic hero and will at times border on being a villain protagonist in his actions. Keep that in mind with every chapter.

Chapter - 34;

Despite being unaffected by the magicks the Wraiths are fundamentally linked to the Magical world.

In theory this is due to the governing rule of the Divine, they cannot attack or hurt one another. The Mystics control powers that come from the God's realms but their blood isn't Divine, they only linked to the worlds powers and drew from them. Wraiths couldn't call magicks anymore but their blood was mixed with the Divines.

In the past attempts were made to reunite the power of the Divine with the Blood of the Divine with mixed results. The children of Mystics and Wraiths were always Wraiths regardless of variables. The closest was a design of the Gods themselves, Alchemists enchanted weapons allowed Wraiths to wielded Magic and still be invulnerable.

Hinata's Pov-

"You okay?" I glanced away from the small fire crackling weakly as it ate into the few scraps of dry drift wood we'd found. The Uchiha was standing with his back to me staring idly into the growing darkness. I'd have thought he was waiting for Hanabi or trying to see her coming but he was facing the wrong direction and I'd told him she was stuck at the siblings home, hidden away with the Garaa boy. They might have been waiting for full darkness or just for the siblings to bid their youngest goodbye but she wasn't coming anytime soon.

"Yeah, it's just…" He trailed off sounding almost bashful and shifted irritated on the spot pulling at his belt, there were red marks were it had dug into his skin and I remembered the haste he'd taken off in to fight.

"It's just?" I offered gently shivering myself. It was cold here at night, not so bad as Naru but dressed as we were or more accurately lacking the dress we did it was going to be a long night. After a moment the Uchiha joined me by the fire.

"This might be our last night, here, able to reach…" He trailed off again busying himself turning the fish over the small fire. They wouldn't be cooked for a while yet though. I knew what he meant.

"It was home wasn't it?" I asked smiling gently at the embarrassed swordsman.

"It's not the place. There are people here on this continent that I want…I need to see again." For a small moment his eyes drifted down to the small bangle on his wrist, the one I'd never really seen him without. Blue and black with a dull iron bird on it.

"You're not really a bird." I found myself saying and regretted it for a moment before the Uchiha snorted a laugh, smiling faintly for a second as a finger ran over the design. I took a deep breath readying myself for what I wanted to say next.

"I know how you feel." I whispered but the Raider caught it anyway, an eyebrow arched in question but he was at least going to hear me out.

"Sara and Orca, if there were any way I could I'd see them again. To, to apologise and tell them a story or…" It was my turn to trail off and I glanced away to compose myself.

"But it's not just that is it, we both have someone…someone we need to punish." Now he did look taken aback, it wasn't so often I got to see shock in the man's eye but it was always nice.

"Akame." He grunted contempt ringing in his iron tone.

"Mmm I didn't care for a long time, not really. But after, they caught Orca and Sara…" I hadn't told him before, I hadn't planned on ever really telling him.

"The whip marks." He only knew that much, and he'd seen me in the tower deprived of food and water but still.

"He sacrificed them, used them to power Naru's rains. He would've done the same to me except well, except for you." He'd been terrified of the Uchiha and it had only taken Lord Orochimaru's warnings to stay his hand, so he sent me to die further away in a trap for the Wraith. But Akame was vengeful and there were other ways to punish me. Sasuke didn't say anything.

"I actually wanted to blame you, if you had helped them like I'd asked instead of trying to save me or if you weren't even involved then he'd have just killed me." I'd been in that dark tower in pain for days, hungry, thirsty and sleep deprived trying to convince myself someone else was to blame.

"You hated me?" his eyes flickered back to the fire missing the quick shake of my head and I had to speak up.

"No, I couldn't hate you." I offered a smile at his confusion as he glanced back to me.

"Why not?" I slid closer to him on the sand feeling braver for a moment.

"You're my knight after all." I wrapped a hand around his callous one and rested my head on his shoulder comforted by the warmth of another body. I was surprised when an arm wrapped around my shoulders. My knight, that's what he was.

"I wasn't a knight, only a soldier." He muttered drily.

"So who are you leaving behind?" I asked after a moment, the fish were crackling now and a pleasant smell whiffed through the air. I felt my stomach grumble and wondered if the Uchiha was as hungry, neither of us had eaten in a while.

"The man that taught me. A friend who saved me and another that kept me sane. A merchant that looked after me, in her own twisted way." I'd seen the teacher, the Captain Kakashi and I knew about his friend Sakura, the prostitute. I had no idea who the other two were though.

"And?" There was one more person here that he wanted to meet again.

"My brother, a Wraith like me." His gaze shifted back north again and I knew that was who he really was bothered about. And there was guilt with that fact.

"The man with the spear, he called you brother." The memory was fuzzy though, I'd been exhausted and running on empty at the time. But I remembered the terror, and Sasuke coming so close to death.

"No he wasn't…he seemed to think I was Itachi. I had no idea where he went after…that night, but I guess he joined some other Wraiths." His grip increased just a little around my shoulders.

"Why do you think he was after me?" I asked breaking our embrace for a second to check the almost finished fish. The Uchiha shrugged and reached for his own.

"Itachi was a madman, I suppose he just found others as disturbed as him. Maybe they want to recreate the rains somewhere else, or just wage war on Mystics." I followed the swordsman's example biting into the smoky brown fish but squeaked as it burned my mouth. I sent a glare toward the Uchiha as he smirked and tried again blowing tentatively on the food first.

It wasn't bad.

"Just us tonight huh?" I let the thought out. Here we were sharing a meal alone together by a fire as the moon rose over the ocean.

"Are you afraid?" he bit out missing my point. What would he say I wondered if I tried to explain it again, that I was never really afraid when I was with him…or at least I was never afraid for myself. I was afraid of what I was going to do, of what I wanted.

"Terrified." And like that his arm tightened around me to offer comfort and all it did was frighten me more. The night air was a bitter chill where he was warm and strong, he was completely bare and he didn't seem to care. He was my knight without armour, and I was his sorcerous. Things like that had existed a long time ago, surviving in stories.

A hundred years ago in another world that's how it could have been, if Mystics weren't caged. They had commanded units most of them, to protect them when they cast but he was all I'd want. Just us.

"Just us." The arm tightened again in misunderstanding and I felt myself drifting off imagining a life without Daemons and monsters, where we could wander together seeing the world and learning. Kissing and making love beneath the moonlight on nights like this.

Tenten's Pov-

It was quite a sight the unit Hatake had managed to gather up. It wasn't that soldiers or men in armour were at all unusual marching through Naru's grey streets, but with the exception of parades they tended to keep bundled up in heavy cloaks and the Raiders in particular kept very loose file.

The soldiers marching now though seemed to shimmer as the rain clattered noisily on their silver armour. At least half of them had alchemic weapons of some kind the most obvious being Kakashi's own great sword slung over his back. He was the only Gifted among them though, that wasn't surprising.

The streets had been quiet since Akame's scarcely attended funeral procession but there were still the few strays that quickly scurried out of the Guard Captains way. Someone should have been intervening, a Saint unit stepping in on the Snake's behalf but nothing came and that worried me more.

I could see the resemblance now clearly. If I'd thought about it really this was exactly what Sasuke would have done in Kakashi's place. Armour up, proud and stubborn and march on the enemy. If he hadn't almost killed me a few days ago I'd have been impressed, few people were that wilfully resolute.

There were twenty four of them not including the Captain himself. They were older men too and unfamiliar to me, that seemed obvious enough. The older men would be most likely to hold loyal to him and the moral ones even more so. It tended to be the immoral ones that came past me. These were the kinds of men that avoided gambling and whores. A shame for them.

Twenty four of them, iron disciplined and experienced. In tight quarters they would be worth five men each and Kakashi himself worth significantly more. But they weren't going to fight smart, they were going to march boldly to the slaughter.

I trailed them through the shadows to the gates of the castle open and unguarded. Kakashi and his escort didn't seem to care but I wasn't going to enter there so easily. The climb would have been impossible without my Chaos charms but I managed to ascend the outside wall to the second level.

There were no Mystics here and with the chaos in the command structure at the moment the Guards were missing. The tower wasn't perfectly laid out but it wasn't that hard to navigate my way through to the Keep's Throne room.

Kakashi had already reached the hall and his soldiers had spread out around the old man sat on his own in Akame's throne. His sword was in hand and I could feel power radiating from his form. The silver haired man had begun to speak calling his accusations against the chancellor but the old man seemed far away.

The old man crackled, his ancient bones creaking as he lurched forward on the throne. The laugher grew louder and louder and I felt magicks begin to leak from his body. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen though, it wasn't familiar enough to be Chaos but it was far too primal to be Order either. The closest it came to was summoning magic, only the called Devils really felt like this.

Smoke or gas leaked out and covered everything in the room except for the Snake, after a moment Kakashi's weapon flared to life and the magical flames forced back some of the gloomy mist. Orochimaru's laughter came louder and louder until finally there was a snap, a creaking brittle shatter.

Lord Snake's mouth was opening wider and wider as he cackled. It was inhumanly wide as the shrieking began, death shouts from the mist broken by only the occasional battle cry that was silenced in moments. But Kakashi couldn't seem to draw his attention away from the grotesque sight as Orochimaru's skin fell away. Hands emerged from the too wide mouth and began to pull it down to reveal a new body.

And I decided it'd seen enough as something wrenched Kakashi from his feet with a furious crack. I had wanted to see how Kakashi's challenge went but I didn't need to see how it ended.

Hanabi's Pov-

I wanted the others here. I felt distinctly out of place alone with the boy and even more so now that his siblings had returned to offer their goodbyes. He hadn't spoken yet, just stared silently into space, completely vacant.

Whatever had been possessing him had held onto him for a long time, far longer than the Shadow God had held onto me and it hadn't been as restrained I suspected. Whether or not the creature had decided to screw with the kid's head or not it didn't matter, he'd killed people using his body and if he remembered that.

The mobs had been around a few times, threatening and imploring the siblings to give them information but they didn't offer any. We were already gone.

I could feel where Hinata and I assumed Sasuke had set up camp far away in the sand dunes. We'd have to go soon if we wanted to avoid a fight, they'd have hopefully burned themselves out by now in their passion. People on a Witch hunt were terrible at pacing themselves.

The red headed boy didn't seem to hear any of his family's words and moved away as quickly as he could to grasp my hand. I didn't missed the hurt in their eyes.

"They'll um, they'll meet you at the furthest point on the beach. I've sold them stuff before, little things but they know me and they'll take the promise of goods upfront with this." The brother passed me a thick sheet with odd markings on it. It wasn't the same kind of writing Sasuke had been teaching me and I had no idea what it said. I trusted him though.

"We'll leave them a message then, if he…" would he speak again, the boy had seemingly regressed to a toddlers mentality. It might even be better if he stayed like this. Gently I got him to climb onto my back.

"Please, please do." I only offered a nod to the siblings before I pulled away and out into the night air. It was cool and crisp and I felt the boy on my back shiver slightly. We had to get to the beaches end before the sun rose and that was a hard deadline to make with a kid.

My Double Step propelled me onto a roof top and earned a squeak from the boy as he gripped my shoulders tighter. There were still torches flickering as groups moved around the town scouting, they were slow though and few in number.

I was too heavy with Garaa to make the jumps without using the Double Step and after a few leaps my legs started to get shaky. It could have been Garaa's extra weight making the cost higher or exhaustion from earlier carrying over. I was going to be skin and bones if I didn't get a few good meals in me soon.

The initial fear Garaa had been showing was soon replaced with wonder as he let out small gasps as we took to the air. He seemed distinctly surprised when we finally touched down on the sand again just outside the towns limits and I beckoned him down off my back.

"Come on kid, time to walk." Or carry me, I'd probably have to wait for Sasuke to get that treatment though. We made slower time than I'd have wanted but I couldn't quell the nausea in my stomach or summon up any more strength. I was tapped out.

There were glimmers of light colouring the sky by the time I made it to the rest of the party. The camp fire had all but burned out and the bones of their meal were scattered nearby but what surprised me was the position they'd taken up. It was a cold night so I suppose it wasn't that weird, Hinata and I had cuddled like that before when we were kids to keep warm in Naru's wet streets.

"Yo!" Both startled awake the Uchiha half jumping away after from my sister and allowing the girl to fall backwards, stifled and red faced. I pulled a shirt free from my pack along with the paper offering both to Sasuke.

"The ships at the end of the beach, and you might have to carry me." Hinata still hadn't stopped blushing and seemed only more exasperated at my request. Sasuke was a bit more understanding accepting the two items with good humour.

"How's the kid?" I heard him whisper as I climbed onto his back. The Uchiha had lost weight too since we'd started away from Naru, he'd always been a touch thinner than some of the other Raiders due to his training, the little fat he had carried had faded away though leaving only muscle and bone. We were both on a different level now though, his Wraith abilities had enhanced somehow and while I may have lost my right arm I'd gained the shadow blade…it wasn't a trade I'd have made if it were offered but I couldn't argue with its powers.

"If you took how damaged you, me, Sakura and about another dozen like that are all together….you'd still have a ways to go." The swordsman nodded and I had to adjust my weight as I started to slip down his back.

"If we're lucky he'll have blocked things out, but…" he whispered back and I glanced at the boy walking hand in hand with my sister. I couldn't help remember what Sakura had told me about the Uchiha though, after he'd been transformed. Would it take years and Garaa would just snap, his fear and the mental block just breaking. What would he do then? Sasuke had had a target for his anger, Garaa's target would be himself.

"Can we help him, if he doesn't?" I whispered back as the end of the beach came into view and the small wooden ship not far in the horizon. There was a smaller raft though and men loading things from the caves onto it. I'd let Sasuke handle that though, right now I was much too tired.

Tenten's Pov-

"He's waking up." Called one of the healers scurrying into the front room. The sun was just about peeking through the planks of wood we'd nailed up and my bottle was almost half empty but I couldn't feel any of it yet.

"Is he lucid yet?" I found myself asking but it was a wasted question, I'd already risen and grabbed the bottle to take with me. I didn't want to see the man yet, he was probably still as horrible as before and the magicks I'd forced into his body were too fresh. They stung at my senses as I couldn't help but feel his pain though the Sixth Sense that we shared now, for better or for worse.

The room was low lit, just enough to work by as we kept hidden. It was still too much though, once Orochimaru realised he was gone. The three women still surrounded the wounded soldier forcing life into the body that clearly wanted to die. His one good eye stared at me loosely but with a tinge of recognition.

His right arm had been tied down and his legs too but his left arm still reached out and his eyes fell to the bottle in my hand. I could have laughed at it if the sight wasn't so pathetic. I allowed him the bottle watching morbidly as he missed first and spilled some of the rough whiskey on his bandages before he found his mouth and gulped back more than could have been healthy.

"I…I'm not dead?" he sounded more disappointed than shocked and the bottle slipped to the floor. His nurses glared at me frantic at the introduction of the booze to their healing process.

"No, but I'm not sure you're alive either." He was seeming better than I'd have expected though, his magicks at work I had to imagine.

"My arm." The fingers reflexed roughly and the Captain flinched in pain but did it a second time anyway. This time I shared the grimace.

"He removed the bone in your forearm…we've replaced it but, it probably won't feel right for a long time. If it ever does." It had been the first charm to go into the Hatake's body, how well it would work would remain to be seen.

"And my legs." He bit out after glancing to his left hand in apparent wonder at the loss of his drink.

"The right had to be amputated and the knee joint in your left is…completely fucked." It hadn't been a pretty sight and even now his legs looked unnatural. Something powerful had crushed both legs beneath him and the right leg had been tore into by some creatures massive fangs.

"And my eye, he tore that out too." He prodded the wound and had to be restrained by his healers.

"It was gone when we found you alright." It had been replaced too but that was even less certain to take than the rod in his arm. Kakashi seemed to be taking it all quite well.

"Half the man I used to be. Why'd you free me?" I nodded to the girls a signal to leave the room. It would be better they didn't hear me now.

"Those three adore you, a lot of them down here do. Years ago you drank with them, a few of the girls have stories of you rescuing them from other soldiers." I found another bottle among the bars back shelves and uncorked it taking a swig. Kakashi was still waiting for an answer as I passed him the bottle.

"They've been force healing you for hours now, you know what that means. Two more like them distracted the guards on your cell, got fucked bloody by the sadists but they're alive. A few people raised a fuss at the gates too, shouting and rioting…think they got a hand looped off, or maybe it was their tongues cut out. And a nice old man climbed into your cell to cover your loss. He's probably been tortured and executed by now but he doesn't know anything." He'd been silent as I explained the cost as I knew it so far of getting him out of the castle dungeons.

"That's then…why?" He'd gained some more clarity as I'd spoken.

"The whores and thieves, the drunks. Just the poor. They'll be his first victims, some of them already have been actually, I think he's breeding some captured girls with the high Gifted, fucking breeding Mystics. You owe them your life now Hatake. They've bled and suffered for you." I took the bottle back and took a swig, it tasted more bitter than usual. Maybe I was more pissed than I'd realised.

"I still don't have a leg to stand on." He returned and I shrugged passing the bottle back.

"I've seen you create a fully functioning clone with your Gift, legs can't be much harder." It wouldn't be easy for him but I didn't really care. If I had any other option I'd have left the Captain to die, but as it was he was the only one who could oppose the mad Lord.

"Then you'd better take this away from me." Growled the swordsman passing the bottle back to me and shutting his good eye to rest.

Wow there's a lot of chapters on this story now. Not much left of it now really as Fading will only tell the story up until the southern continent. Another two or more chapters I think.

Once it finishes I should be able to focus on Lucky Island and Shadows on the moon.

Hope everyone's still enjoying.

R&R