Chapter Eight

Stay With Me. Please.

It was like stepping into a nightmare. Strange, how people could feel that they had healed, that they were better, that they had become strong. Strange… how people felt they had scars from the past. The truth was there were no scars. There were only open wounds which people had learned to avoid touching. …One prod, and the pain came lacing back, as if it was the day of that first wound. Only this time… with it came the disillusionment. The realization that one was not healed. Not better. Not strong.

That was what it felt like for Utakata when he stepped into that dome that Yamato had erected over the ritual site. That was the fear and horror that coursed through him when he saw, by the reddish glow of the seal that Sakura had put down upon the floor of the compound, the flickering of the sixteen trunks… all different sizes. That was the desperation with which he gripped into Hotaru's shoulder with his free hand… when he saw that platform again, clear of all its notes, with only the ironwood clamps upon it for decoration.

He felt her hand snake up his own, and looked down to her. His eyes met hers. Two clear orbs of green in a world of red. Just the way it had been when he had first met her. He smiled weakly. He could do this. He had to. It was his only chance at life. His only chance… for Hotaru.

She had told him everything in the hours they'd had together. Precious few that they were. She had told him of how she had gone to the Hidden Leaf. How they in turn had rallied in an instant to come to his aid. And how, finally, Naruto had faced down the Leader of the Akatsuki, and struck a fatal bargain. He hated it. He hated all of it. The Hidden Leaf should never have gone after him. They should have taken Hotaru in, eased her unhappiness, and then allowed her to still live a full and happy life. Now however… they were all dead men standing now.

"You ready?" Naruto said from his other side. Naruto… There was so much Utakata would have liked to ask him. He wanted nothing more than to just walk with the Hidden Leaf ninja for a while and… and catch up. That was all. When they had last parted… it had all been too perfect. Jokes, laughs, Naruto had teased him about being a master, Utakata had smirked lazily back at him, leaning as he was against the gate of Hotaru's village… It had all been too perfect. And there was so much Utakata wanted to know. How were they going to do this when even his own master, the inventor of this ritual, had failed?

Naruto noticed the pause, and gave him a little shake. "Hey, have a little faith, will ya? I didn't just make deals with the Jinchuuriki hunting Akatsuki Leader just for the heck of it." How was it that, even in this reddening glow, that demented lopsided smile of his could still be so reassuring?

"Tish," Utakata looked away from him and back at the platform. ….That platform. "Faith? In you, idiot?" He felt her hands tighten around him. Hold him. "Sure, why not."

…

A blond girl with a ponytail whom Hotaru hadn't seen before stepped up to them. She must have come with the medic team Hotaru had heard about. "Utakata-san," she said, "my name is Ino. I'm afraid that we're going to have to take the majority of your hair."

Utakata blinked. "My hair?"

"Yes. As you may or may not know, we're going to be trying to create a makeshift body into which to store the Bijuu after we've pulled it out of you." After, not if, Hotaru noticed. "We've decided that, to make the process at least somewhat easier, we would try to clone your DNA as best as possible, so that at the very least the body we reinsert the Bijuu into is of a similar structure as that which it just left. And to make a full body... well, we'll need a lot of DNA samples."

Naruto shook his head, "As if this whole thing wasn't creepy enough already. Ino, you're sure this not-Utakata will be... you know... not alive?"

"Sure sure, Naruto. We won't even be attempting to grow it a proper brain."

"Wow... so it'll be a zombi-"

"-If we could proceed," Yamato interrupted Naruto.

It was all she could do to let him go. She couldn't. No. That was what it came down to. When they were within a foot of the platform, when she had to let him go, he had to actually place his hand on top of hers and give it a light squeeze.

You have to let me go now.

…No. I can't.

But she had to. It was that simple. It was so simple! She unclenched her fingers. She felt the final brush of fabric as he took the last shaky step away from her. She watched him haltingly pull off the ninja turtleneck with the one hand he did not have in a cast, thus exposing his stomach where the seal would be placed… and removed. Even in this light she could see all of the bruising from his broken ribs. How were his hands so steady? He bent his head forward to allow the blond girl named Ino to methodically tie ten ribbons in his hair with all the expertise of a girl who had often done such things with her own hair. Snip, snip, snip, snip. Gone. Just like that. Utakata's hair, which had been so long, and Hotaru had admired as so silken, was gone. It now stuck out in uneven tufts from his head. She blinked at him, trying to get used to what she was seeing. She couldn't. None of it seemed real to her.

Sai took Utakata's shirt from him and carried it outside the circle of red. Then, in one jerking motion, Utakata heaved himself atop the platform without any help. She watched it all. And heard as- Clamp. Clamp. Clamp. Clamp.

…So simple. She heard and saw the Leaf Ninjas clasp the four ironwood restraints on Utakata's arms and legs.

…Somebody wake me up.

"Alright." Hotaru blinked, and looked at Sakura, who had spoken. They were all staring at Utakata, who in turn had his eyes fixed on the roof of the dome, where the red glow did not reach. "Kakashi-sensei, Tenten, Neji, Lee, Sai, please take your positions at the rim of the circle. If the chakra in here gets a little crazy I trust you to even it out with your own supply." Kiba and Akamaru had been put on patrol duty, to keep the perimeter of the field they'd occupied unbreached. It was done to the great chagrin of both. "Capitan Yamato, I trust you keep your chakra ready for both steadying any ripples in the ritual, and in case we have any trouble with the framework." Sakura was a direct student of Tsunade in medical ninjutsu. It went without saying that Kakashi and Yamato would defer to her in this matter. In a heartbeat, everyone was in their designated positions, and the only ones left within the circle were Nartuo, Sakura, Hotaru and Utakata.

No. Not again. I can't.

"Lady Hotaru," Sakura said her name so gently. Why did it make her flinch like that? The two girls made eye contact. Hotaru didn't make a sound. She couldn't. "Lady Hotaru, I need you to step out of the circle."

Her lips tightened. Say something. Say something so that you won't have to leave him. She shook her head.

Sakura sighed, and Hotaru could see that she had expected this. However, before she could say more-

"Hotaru. Move." How could her heart leap into her throat and sink into her stomach at the same time, just at the sound of his voice? How had he known that she had shaken her head? He hadn't looked away from the ceiling. He hadn't even glanced at her. Won't you at least look at me? I want to see your eyes! I want to see you and see that everything will be alright! And he hadn't asked her as a friend. No. He had ordered her as a master. She couldn't disobey her master, could she? "If this backfires again," he said, "and I live, even just until the Akatsuki catch up with me again… I will not have you die my master's death. Hotaru. I do not want you even in the dome during this ceremony."

Hotaru swallowed, and looked around her. They were all staring at her expectantly, waiting for her to move. They were pressed on time. She had to do something. They… they could all fall with him, but she could not.

"Relax, man," Naruto said, cracking his knuckles and stretched, almost as if he was getting ready for training rather than to do the impossible and extract a Bijuu from a Jinchuuriki. "We're not going to fail. Anyway, think about what you're saying. By leaving Hotaru outside you're just setting up that Akatuki leader guy's promise to happen. We die. You die a few days later. She lives. Think about it. It doesn't work for anyone." He turned to look at Hotaru now. "I want you to stay right by my side when all of this is happenin-"

"NO!" Utakata flinched. His mask of composure was coming off. But he still wouldn't look at her. "Captain Yamato," he said into the dark canopy of the dome. "Do you remember what it was I said to you, back at Fortress? Do you remember when I said that I would not put Hotaru in danger?! You can vouch for me now."

"It is true," the silhouette of Yamato confirmed from the sidelines.

"He's right, Naruto. She can't stay," Sakura said. "Not even counting the emotional strain it will be on both of them, her very presence could upset the balance of chakra that we'll need to keep in check for the next however many hou-"

"The only reason…" Naruto said, suddenly very careful to avoid eye contact, just like Utakata. "…The only reason that I haven't let the Kyuubi take control again since that battle against Orochimaru on the bridge, is because you are always by my side. If it wasn't for you, and for everyone else around me, I would probably have given into the power a long time ago. But I know that I cannot ever allow myself to hurt you again, the way I did back then."

The air between them was palpable. Hotaru stared from Naruto's frame to Sakura's, tinged as they were by shadow and red glow. Utakata slowly turned his head to stare at them as well. Suddenly Hotaru could see how, just as she had wanted Utakata, Sakura now wanted Naruto to look at her. Wanted to know…. something. She couldn't quite say what.

"…Alright. Lady Hotaru, you can stay. I want you to stand at the head of the platform."

Still without saying a word, Hotaru nodded and moved herself to stand just by Sir Utakata's face, which he turned away from her, now to stare at the dome's wall behind Tenten and Sai.

"Are you ready, Sir Utakata?" Sakura was standing next to Naruto by Utakata's side, holding the paper seal.

Utakata closed his eyes. "Do it."

In one swift movement Sakura, pulled off her black gloves, which she pocketed, and laid the seal upon his abdomen and smoothed it out so that it would stay. She stepped behind Naruto and placed her hands firmly on his shoulders. "Now."

To Hotaru, it seemed to take an eon for Naruto's outstretched hands to clench, his thumbs tucked in… one finger raised. An age, and no time at all. Sakura's fingers curled on his shoulders, Naruto shut his eyes in concentration. She provided the knowledge and he the power and in the moment that fingers rammed into Utakata's belly, a blast of chakra rocketed through the room. Hotaru was nearly thrown off her feet, somewhere to the side someone yelped, and the woodwork all about them cracked.

…

It was all he could do not to scream. This feeling, it was so familiar. Everything… everything was too familiar! He couldn't open his eyes because he knew he would see how his stomach had become clear, like a pool of water, wherein the fingers of the sealer set off ripples through his entire body. He knew he would see his master, dyed in the red glow of the chamber, looming over him. Or had it been the other way around? Had he, Utakata, been the one bathed in red? The red of his master's blood? He convulsed. It was all too much the same!

Except… except for that. There was… a hand… a hand holding his own. Smaller, softer. And, despite his shackles, that hand had slipped into his own. Hotaru. For a moment, dread and relief were one and the same in his chest.

He loved her.

It was as plain and simple as that. He loved her entirely, and the fact that she was here, holding him, both destroyed and saved him. Utakata threw his head back and rocked against the motion of chakra through his body. How long? How long had he known that he loved her? Since the beginning. No. Not at all, actually. He had cared for her. Worried about her. But his emotions when they had first met had been so scrambled and so shattered that they could never form any such feeling so strong and binding as love.

When Naruto arrived then? When that entire ordeal of only a little over a week ago had begun? Still no. No... He knew that Hotaru had feelings for him. Knew that he had feeling for her. Yet both seemed so petty to him... so abjectly pointless... even a week ago he still told himself that he wanted nothing to do with her. The girl who had taken him in when all others were dead or wanted him so.

...It had been when The Forbidden Jutsu had detonated. When he had stayed to contain it. When he had stood at the edge of that terrible destructive power, and realized that he had no fear of it. When his own voice had resonated true within him, at his very core, "My feelings are within her… as well as within my heart." And he had stepped forward, and pulled her into his arms. That was when he had realized it.

That was when Utakata had realized that he was hopelessly in love with Hotaru, heiress of the Tsuchigumo Clan. Even now, the memory flooded his senses…

"It's alright," he whispered, even as she told him to run. To escape the Jutsu inside of her that would surely kill him.

"Sir Utakata…" she whispered, looking up into his eyes, her whole body shaking.

"Believe in your Master." He pulled her into his arms completely, just as the explosion came upon them.

And then another hand reached into the seal on his abdomen. And the terrible familiarity drowned out Hotaru. He slammed against his shackles, and wrenched a scream from his own gut in a way he feared Naruto would never be able to wrench the Bijuu.

...

Gust whipped around Ino as ritual and flesh whirled before them all. She had left the dome where they were keeping Utakata, had crossed the short distance of grass, and was now with her seven teammates in medical ninjutsu. She had to trust that Sakura would do her job and not get them all killed by releasing a rampant Bijuu on the world. Now she, Yamanaka Ino, would do her job.

Without delay she had called everyone to their places, and they had begun.

Neji's surgery had taken three and a half hours. There had been four medics at the scene at all times, and each time one became exhausted, he would have a replacement exchange places with him. Three and a half hours. And that had been a patch in his chest. They had to create an entire body in one night. They did not have the luxury of switching in and out. This was going to take all eight nins working at once.

Ino and three of her team each sat on one point of the four-pointed star which Captain Yamato had etched into the wood with his Wood Release Technique. The other four nins sat directly behind them. This would increase potency, charka amount and, the Will of Fire willing, speed. Ino had placed five of Utakata's clumps of hair in the places where the extremities of a human body should be: hands, feet and head. She had placed one where the heart would be. Two for the lungs. One for the stomach and other organs. And one for the genitalia.

Ino stared at those clumps of black, quivering in the breeze, as they lay stark against the now green-chakra powered seal on the floor, and swallowed. She had never worked without a body in the center of that seal. She had no idea if this would work. For all she knew, they were all done for. She swallowed again, harder. She had to believe that this would work. The wind wiped her ponytail about her and cracked her clothing against her body.

"Hinata, I need your precision chakra!"

"Right!" Though Ino couldn't see Hinata sitting directly behind her, she knew that she was putting her Byakugan eyes to their full use. Suddenly, Ino felt her hair raise like static, about her, and chakra of the clearest and most honed nature course through her. "Wahooo!" she yelped, throwing professionalism to the wind as she narrowed her eyes in concentration.

"Hinata, you are something else!"

There was a twitch, a quiver, and the strands of hair tore to life, pulling at themselves and at each other like they were some mad, possessed spider.

"We're using the boy's own hair as a conductor, so focus on that. Try to accelerate the growth rate of the cells yet to be created!" Shizune, Tsunade's aide, had once used words similar to those to describe the process. Ino now yelled them over the howling wind to steady her teammates. She smirked past the beads of sweat pooling down the side of her face and the moist palms that she had clamped together as strongly as she could, even as her elbows shook violently. Now there was no turning back.

Now... they had to turn flesh into body.

...

"The chakra is getting out of control! Naruto, you have to suppress it!"

"I'm trying!"

"Try harder!"

The room was sweltering hot, and it was impossible to say if they'd been there for minutes or hours or days. Time didn't move except in the rivers of sweat and heavy breathing palpitating off the walls. Hotaru couldn't see those standing at the perimeter of the seal. They were red shadows against a black abyss. Sakura's hair looked red in this light, colored with the light and darkened with the sweat that clung it to her face. Naruto, standing before her, their bodies moving as one, had sprouted a thick layer of chakra which even Hotaru could sense was poisonous, beyond which Sakura stood by a hair's breadth. It had seeped upon him from within the seal on Utakata some moments after he had placed his second sealed hand onto Utakata's belly.

So far it had gone so well. Naruto, with his intuitive understanding of the Jinchuuriki, had made it one step further than Utakata's master, Harusame. He had paralyzed the beast.

Now, however, for all the little that Hotaru knew about advanced jutsus, she could tell things were going badly. Three different chakras were swirling around Naruto. His own, that of his Bijuu, the Nine Tails, and Utakata's, the Six Tails. They were burning the air around him.

"Naruto," Sakura hissed through clenched teeth, taking a step back from him as the chakra swelled. "You've got to get that chakra under control! I can't get in close enough to mold it for you if you can't get it under-"

"I'm trying!" Naruto's hands were shaking.

"You're going to kill him!" Sakura's eyes were tearing as she tried to press her bare hands against the tangible boiling chakra on his back.

"I'm doing what I can with precision chakra from my work with Rasengan. It should keep the damage down. But I can't control his chakra if he keeps doing-" Utakata wretched against his bonds, jolting Naruto's hands with him, sending a new wave of chakra into Naruto that he simply wasn't ready to receive, "-THAT! If he keeps thrashing around like that-" Naruto grit his teeth, the sweat coming down in sheets down his neck. His eyes had turned crimson red, his pupils had turned to slits, and those three light scars on either of his cheeks had swelled and multiplied, until they resembled more whiskers than scars.

Hotaru didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to do! Utakata let out a retching cry, arched his head back, threw his head, and his eyes locked with Hotaru's. His eyes… they were not the gentle brown that she was so used to. They were an acid yellow. Hotaru's mouth went very dry. Up till now she'd known what he was. She had been told. Had come on this mission. Had even seen the proof of it in the charka that Naruto was now trying so desperately to absorb. But this was the first time she'd ever seen it on him. On Sir Utakata.

His lips parted, he tried to suck in air, and his body convulsed. Naruto swore. Sakura cried out. "He's going to die!" Utakata… her Sir Utakata… was going to die. They had failed. They had all failed.

….No. No. No! She pulled her hand out of his, and took his head in her hands. "Sir Utakata!" her voice cracked. His hair was cropped and uneven as she wracked her fingers through it. But it was still so soft. His eyes pressed into focus, and blinked at her. She leaned in closer towards him. She had to make him stop. Somehow, she had to save him. "…Sir Utakata!" What could she say? What could she possibly say? There was only one thing to say. Only one thing she really wanted. Had really ever wanted. "…Come back… come back to me…" The whole world seemed to melt away from around her. There was only her, the tears that never seemed to stop pooling out of her, and those almost inhuman yellow eyes.

She stroked the side of his head, gently, tenderly. "Don't leave me again. Don't abandon me again." She closed her eyes, and squeezed the rest of the tears out of them, then opened them the clearer. "…You think I didn't realize when I woke up that night in that field of yellow flowers… when it was so dark, and I had slept so much longer than I should have…" It was just the two of them now. No one else. They were more alone now than they had even been in that cabin, waiting for sunset. Hotaru exhaled shakily, and leaned in further still and pushed her cheek against his ear, and whispered, "You think I didn't realize that you had used genjutsu?" She met his eyes again. Willed his recognition. "I thought I had been dreaming at first. I thought I must have been dreaming when I recalled falling into that field… somehow not getting back up… and a bubble landing so perfectly in the palm of my hand." Her voice was choking. She needed to keep it from choking. He needed to know this. She needed to tell him. "And so many more of them cascading down around me." She shook her head, smiling through the tears dripping down and along her lips. "You'd laced them, hadn't you?" She caressed the side of his face lovingly. Intimately. As she had always wanted to. "You'd laced every single one of them… to make certain that I would not realize too soon that you were gone… and try to go after you. But that's not all, is it?" She ran her fingers through that cropped hair, willing his attention to remain on her words and not on Naruto's fingers as they tried to claw the Bijuu out.

"…You also laced them with your last words." She paused, and pressed her lips together. Recomposing. " …Hotaru, you must live.' That was it, wasn't it? Those were the last words that you wanted to give me. Those were the last words that you laced into my mind with that last genjutsu."

Her fingers coursed across his scalp again, and again she brought her own face to a hair's breadth from his. "Well I found you! I found you despite yourself! I am not letting you go! And I fought, and struggled, and pushed on every day from that day to this one with only one intention! One thing that kept me going through all of it!" The tears were splashing out of her eyes now. So many tears. Like bubbles. "To tell you… one thing…" she swallowed, their eyes locked. "Sir Utakata… we must both live."

Hotaru brought her face down to his, and kissed him.

Utakata's body froze, then clenched, and then, very slowly, eased back against the ironwood platform. Naruto exhaled and, as he did, the chakra around him seemed to ease, part, and subside. His forehead still creased in concentration, he seemed to be suppressing his own charkas and only allowing for Utakata's to layer over him. Sakura, seeing the wane of energy around him, immediately stepped back into place and returned her hands squarely onto his shoulders, wincing as she did at the chakra that did still remain there. Naruto swallowed, and again moved his hands in motion.

Hotaru raised herself back up a fraction, and met Utakata's eyes. They were half lidded, and still yellow, but he was there, his lips parted just slightly. She could see he was there. She smiled weakly, and placed one of her hands in his, still keeping the other at the side of his face, running her fingers through the sweat ridden hair.

There was silence in the dome, and the Bijuu's chakra pulsed around Naruto as Sakura directed his movements with a surgeon's accuracy. The extraction Harusame had invented…seemed to be working. Time passed. Hotaru stayed as she was, cradling Utakata in her arms, mouthing to him in the silence, 'We must both live…we must both live...' And he, in turn, remained still, his breathing steady, his eyes fixed on her as though she was the only creature in this life or the next.

…

Time passed. Naruto felt his limbs burning. The Kyuubi … it had almost taken over earlier. Naruto didn't know if he had intended to take this opportunity to wrench free from his body, or if it had all been to screw with him and his beliefs. But when he'd felt the Kyuubi's chakra on top of that which he was already trying to control by Sakura and extract from Utakata… he'd almost lost it. He had really almost lost it. If not for Hotaru… but she'd calmed him down like nothing else. It was as if she'd hit an off switch inside of him, and all his fear and panic melted away right from underneath Naruto's fingertips. If the situation was not so dire, Naruto might have taken a moment to throw out an 'I told you so.' However, the situation was that dire. In fact… for all the good that Hotaru had done… he didn't know how long he could contain all of this chakra before he had to spill it over elsewhere. He only knew that he had to… had to contain it.

"We're going to need the body soon," Sakura said into the silence, voicing what Naruto would not. "Captain Yamato, please send one of your wood clones to the other dome." Beyond Naruto's line of sight, he heard the cracking of wood as Yamato created a messenger. "Naruto," Sakura said, "how are you holding up?"

Naruto swallowed, and found his mouth was dry as dust. "Eheh, never been better, Sakura-chan. I'm doing just fine." It was a lie. And he knew that Sakura knew it was a lie. Despite her carful control of his movements and the flow of his chakra, even she couldn't entirely keep his hands from shaking from the sheer raw power and exhaustion coursing through them. They needed to get this done.

Sakura gave his shoulder a little squeeze. "Just hold out a little longer," she whispered.

Tish. Of course he couldn't lie to her. He had never been able to properly lie to her. "No worries Sakura-chan. I told you…" he swallowed, "I've got this." He couldn't close his eyes. If he closed his eyes he felt that he'd succumb to the colossal energy rippling around him. The fact that Utakata's master had even been able to think up a technique like this… what a crazy, amazing man. It was no wonder Utakata had been so mortified at the idea that he'd tried to kill him, his student. Utakata must have held such respect for him before that moment. Naruto directed his thoughts to his own master, the Pervy Sage. He had to remember the Ninja Way that he'd passed on to him: to never give up! Naruto gritted his teeth. When he told the Pervy Sage this story… he wanted it to be one his master could be proud of!

…His head spun.

Running footsteps. Yamato's clone was back. "They're almost ready! Just a few more minutes!"

"Captain Yamato, you tell them to move their asses and get that vessel in here right now! We are out of time!" Sakura barked.

"Y-yes Sakura!"

"Hold on Naruto," she whispered again, clutching his shoulder now.

"Any day now would be a-okay with me, Sakura-chan," he rasped. He could clearly see his fingers through the ripples of Utakata's water-like stomach. …And the tips of them had started to bleed and pool ten little red droplets therein.

"We're here!"

Naruto couldn't tear himself away from what he was doing, but he recognized Ino's voice. Though it was becoming muffled. Utakata trembled underneath his touch.

"Hotaru, keep him steady!"

"Ino, get that body over here! Kakashi-sensei, please perform the Eight Trigrams Sealing summons, now." Sakura's voice was going in and out of focus. Naruto left like his skin was boiling.

"I told you it would be too much for you," the Kyuubi's voice echoed from within him.

"Shut up…" he murmured, "Shut the hell up…"

"Naruto! Naruto, can you hear me!? Naruto, now!"

With a jolt that was entirely made of his strength of will, for the strength of his body had probably failed him some ten minutes before, Naruto forced himself into action. He pulled his hands from the seal on Utakata's body and, carrying the weight of not one, but two Bijuus upon him, he turned on his feet. As he ripped that power from body into air he could not even distinguish where Utakata's scream ended and the Six-Tail's roar began. Both in that moment blended together. And both were entirely inhuman. There, where Sakura had stood mere moments before, Kakashi had summoned the ritual cushion on which a body had been laid. There, about the body, were the summoned candles, lost in the red sea of the ritual. Naruto noticed none of it. He forced his hands into the air, and then brought them down on the new body's exposed stomach.

"EIGHT TRIGRAMS SEAL!"

The world seemed to explode at his fingertips. He flew backwards. The dome snapped and clapped with a defining roar. Naruto braced himself for the terrible collision- and was caught in someone's arms.

"I've got you," Sakura whispered urgently. "I've got you!" he heard as he lulled into darkness. "Stay with us …NARUTO!"