Welcome back! Sorry for the cliff hanger, hope the update makes up for it!

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What treason did we commit, other than to be born,

to bury our dead, to properly morn?

The wind blows in the east and storms in the west

we wander the mountain ever evading death.

-The Third book of Akash, Verse Four

Chapter 42: Evading Death

Shikamaru jabbed his walkie talkie. "Tsunade-sama? Tsunade-sama, come in."

As he waited for a response, one of the undead-zombie-freaks threw a barrage of poisoned senbone in his general direction. Thankfully, his wife blew them all away with the deft motions of her fan. Temari was panting from the exertion, but the battle was far from over. It seemed that for every zombie they incapacitated, another rose from the earth and took its place.

Finally, the walkie talkie became active. "Kchhh. Shikamaru! What's happening by the front gate?" came Tsunade's bark.

"It's not good," he replied with a grimace. "We're sorely outnumbered. And even though the antidote will keep a shinobi alive after they're hit…" Shikamaru stated, while incapacitating a zombie with his shadow just as the soldier attempting to scale the walls. The Nara took the hissing ninja and threw him at another group of zombies who were trying to set ladders up against the walls, successfully foiling their attempts. At least for a moment.

"Kchhh. Shikamaru?"

"Sorry, busy. I was saying. Even thought the shinobi doesn't die, he's incapacitated and is no longer able to fight."

"Kchhh. It's the same story over at the other parts of the walls, too. We're completely surrounded. Analysis?"

"Not good, Hokage- er, I mean, Tsunade-sama." Shikamaru winced at his slip.

"Kchhhh. DON'T TALK LIKE THAT SHIKAMARU!" Shikamaru winced again at Tsunade's shout. "Naruto's still alive. He has to be! He wouldn't dare die while he's Hokage."

"Damn straight!" Temari bellowed into the walkie talkie before pushing back another group of zombies with a gust of wind.

"Analysis…" Shikamaru replied at last. "We can probably hold for another hour. Maybe two. But we're going to need some serious back up if we're going to withstand this."

Tsunade hissed on the other end. "Kchhh. I'm dispatching Katsuyu's clones to heal the wounded. Maybe she can get some ninja back on their feet. Until then, continue engaging with the enemy!"

Shikamaru didn't even bother responding. He had his hands full commanding the legion of ninja guarding the front gate. As he barked orders, his heart sank. He'd crunched the numbers and analyzed hundreds of scenarios: none of them looked good.

They had been counting on Naruto's transportation jutsu to help bring back-up from Suna, the nearest hidden village. Without him, it was a long journey to the Hidden Leaf, and now, without their Hokage their back up wouldn't make it on time. They were on their own.

Shikamaru had told the Hokage that he was spreading himself too thin in this operation, but his concerns had been glossed over in Naruto's haste to save Sasuke and Yuki. Shikamaru wished he'd been more adamant with Naruto about the village's security, but in all honesty, Naruto had always seemed invincible.

No one ever imagined the Hokage going down in a fight.

Shikamaru gulped. In his heart, he had wanted to believe that Naruto was all right, but the facts were facts. After careful consideration, Shikamaru knew it was all too possible that Naruto was dead.

And it was all Shikamaru's fault.

"We need explosion tags thrown right in the thick of their forces on the left!" Shikamaru ordered his troops. Soon, the smell of gunpowder and burning flesh wafted on the air. Shikamaru saw another one of his ninja get struck down with a kunai and bit his lip until it bled. His comrades were falling, and there was no one to blame but their commander, Shikamaru.

The best they could hope for was to evacuate the civilians out of the village before it was completely overrun with zombies. Hoping against hope, he told himself to hold on for just a few more minutes. Naruto was known for making miracles happen, for ruining all of Shikamaru's precise calculations, and for the better.

For the first time since the last ninja war, Shikamaru prayed for a miracle.

#

Madara stabbed Yuki with the glinting kunai, but the latter made no motion to move to avoid his attack. Instead, she dematerialized her body at the spot where he hit her, while simultaneously sending a fire ball jutsu straight into his face. When the smoke cleared, Madara reappeared many feet away from her, having transported himself at the last possible second.

"Well isn't this just delightful! Yuki-chan, I can't begin to tell you how fun this spar is going to be. It's been at least a decade since I've had a proper work out. But tell me child, where did you learn my old jutsu?"

Ignoring his convivial tone, Yuki went straight into attack mode. I've got to get him while he's engaged in an offensive move. He's underestimating me. It will be his last, fatal flaw, Yuki calculated. She flew at him with kunai and explosive tags, pursued him around the clearing until they were just two dark blurs flying over the field and shot fireballs the size of small buildings at him. But Madara seemed completely unfazed.

"How can you be so cruel to your dear old dad?" Madara called in that fake, syrupy voice. "You could have burned his face off back there, you know."

"You're not my father," Yuki spat. "You are my psychopathic great great uncle who's possessed my idiot father's body."

A thoughtful look passed Madara's face as he dodged Yuki's attacks. "Actually, I think I'm your great great great uncle."

Ignoring his sorry excuse for a joke, Yuki demanded, "Why would killing me activate some kind of jutsu upgrade for you?"

"My, aren't you the live wire?" Madara practically cooed. "Well, I'd like to see if these quasi-rinnegan, quasi-sharingan eyes will get some kind of mankegyo upgrade once I kill someone dear to Sasuke-kuuuuuun. And I can just tell that his optical nerves are going to get all kinds of crazy when I slaughter you are rip your pretty little eyes out of your head."

He's just playing with me, Yuki mused as she attacked with a taijutsu combination, which Madara neatly avoided by dematerializing his body at will. He's not even going on the offensive. That was fine though: in reality, Yuki was merely playing with him as well. "Tell me, great great great uncle, what do you hope to achieve by doing all of this?" she intoned gravely as she continued to attempt to land a hit on him.

Madara merely shrugged as he avoided her movements. "When you get to be as old as I am Yuki-chan, living long enough for three lifetimes, one gets awfully bored. Oh, and your father did ruin my plans for world domination about a decade ago. So, I'd say it's a combination of boredom and revenge, with a nice big helping of aiming for world domination again. But to be honest, mostly boredom and revenge," he replied mirthfully, a creel smirk twisting his mouth.

Yuki couldn't help it: her stony facade was broken by a look of sheer incredulity. "You've literally ruined my dad's life, and are trying to kill my whole family, and probably all of Konoha...because you are bored." It was not a question.

Madara made a tut-tutting sound. "Yuki-chan, please don't forget the revenge part."

"Don't you call me Yuki-chan!" she raged, losing her cool completely. She transported herself rapidly all around the elder Uchiha and let loose with a wide range of taijutsu, pummeling him with her arms and legs with all of her might. Most of her blows missed, but she noted with a grim satisfaction that some found purchase in his flesh. Her satisfaction faded, however, when she realized that any injury she dealt him was truly given to her father.

As she danced around Madara like an insane, homicidal shadow, flitting through dimensions with practiced ease, she made the mistake of looking into her enemy's face. Her father's face. Her latest flare of rage aside, up until this point, she had been the stony-faced, collected Uchiha kunoichi she had always prided herself on being: lethal, brilliant, and calculating. But when she saw her father's face, askew with the emotions of another, her heart leapt in her chest. She paused on the battlefield, panting for breath, her heart pounding like a drum inside of her ribs and aching, as if her heart was attempting to cry the tears her eyes refused to weep.

This was a sight a child should never see, their father's body hijacked by someone else who was trying to kill you in the most "entertaining" way possible. And no matter how Yuki steeled herself against her emotions, her facade cracked. A single, recalcitrant tear ran down her face. She balled her hands into fists and looked down at her father's hands.

"Seems like you are upset about hurting your dear old papa. Silly girl!" Madara laughed in an annoying sing-song voice. "Your death will be the most fun I've had in years."

Quickly, her grief was replaced by anger. She pushed away the memories—star gazing with her otousan on warm summer nights by the training grounds; how she rode on her father's shoulders as he took her to her first day of school; the way he played guitar, so soft and sad like he was afraid of breaking the strings—she pushed these memories deep inside of herself and forced chakra into her hands, boiling with rage. If she wasn't prepared to utterly destroy her enemy, she would never win.

"That's it, Yuki-chan! The blood lust! The intent to kill! It's what I live on, it's what I feed on, yes, yes! Come at me!" The look in Madara's eyes was pure madness, gleaming red from the moon and purple from his ringed irises. In the rutilant light the man in her father's body looked more like a demon than a person.

No, she thought, balling her fists with newfound determination, I will not sink to his level. Kami, give me strength. The look of disappointment on Madara's borrowed face was ignored by Yuki as she closed in to attack him once more.

I fight because I love my otousan, and I will fight his body until I beat the invader out of it. It is an act of love, she swore. She let those beautiful memories bubble up again, her very earliest memories: Sasuke pushing her on a swing in the park. Her father telling her ghost stories late at night and Yuki laughing at them instead of being scared. She remembered when Saki-chan was born, and her father letting Yuki hold her. These were the precious things she was fighting for.

As she unleashed more fire katon, and the smell of smoke and charred hair filled the clearing, some idle part of Yuki's mind mused that she actually felt sorry for Madara, and she said as much. "I pity you, Uchiha Madara."

Through the billowing smoke, Yuki heard cruel laughter. "I will make you eat those words, you chit of a ninja." At that, she felt the magnetic pull of Madara's jutsu, but before she could get sucked in, she quickly dematerialized and traveled to another dimension.

But when she got there, a space solely comprised of modular units and a thin, watery darkness, Madara appeared, still laughing wildly.

"No," Yuki murmured, composed in the face of his madness, "I really do pity you. You must have not known love, or if you did, then you quickly forgot it in the face of great pain. No one in their right mind would wreck this much sorrow for nothing."

Madara pointed at her accusingly, all trace of supercilious mirth gone. "You have no idea what you are talking about, girl." And that's when Madara began attacking her—really attacking her. Their bodies traveled across the wide expanses of alternate dimensions, flinging themselves at each other with the deftness only true ninja possessed, a lethal dance across time and space. Yuki received a few gashes on her upper arm and torso, but she wasn't worried about the poison; she knew was immune to it at this point.

No, what she was worried about was the look in Madara's eye, the look that said he was going to go in for the kill soon. She was running out of time.

Please Kami, she prayed, help me stall him.

"Uchiha Madara," she intoned gravely once they returned to the grassy clearing in ordinary reality, "I'm asking you—no, I'm begging you—let my father go."

The killing intent lessened slightly from him, though Yuki found it to still be overwhelming. Madara laughed, the cold sound sending shivers down her spine. Pausing in his attacks, he murmured "My dear. I will do whatever I damn well please. I am not going to listen to some scrap of a girl! But I will delight in sucking the chakra out of your body once I slice through that pale, pretty neck of yours."

Yuki suppressed a shudder, the mental image of a large spider sucking out her blood making her nauseous. Schooling herself to remain impassive, she retorted, "Haven't you lived long enough? Aren't you ready to join your brother in death?"

"Fool," Madara hissed, "I. Can't. Die. It's called the little curse of the eternal mankegyo, my dear."

"My father traded his eternal mankegyo to save his friend's life," Yuki whispered. "You can use izangi like he did and remove yourself from my father's body. Go and rest. You don't need to do this anymore!"

"I'm through messing around, child," Madara whispered; the sound was more like a hiss, and it curdled her blood. "I don't need to be lectured. What I need is your life force. For your death to be a catalyst for my rebirth! New power for my eyes! For my—"

"Oh shove it, you old geezer," Yuki spat as she took a leap back from the insane man. With her sharingan eyes, she had seen the hand-signs he had been weaving, and she did not want to get pulled into his magnetic force again. It had been a huge effort to transport herself out of shinra tensei the first time.

But with horror, Yuki realized that he had not been preparing to use the shinra tensei at all: instead, a demon's head spurted up from the ground, and its ridiculously long tongue was reaching out for her. She paused in shock, and her hesitancy cost her. Before she was half-way done with the hand-signs to teleport away, the tongue had already bound her and brought her close to Madara.

"And now," he breathed, his eyes glinting hard in the red moonlight, "you die."

#

Saki could feel her body converting any extra fat and protein stored in her cells into chakra. She wiped her brow and forced herself to continue to help mend Naruto's organs. Soon, she knew, her body would start destroying her own cells for energy, but she tried to ignore that fact.

Sakura raised an eyebrow as she worked on mending Naruto's heart. "We're making good progress. But..."

"We're going to need to get him back to the Konoha hospital, and soon," Hayato mused. "I'm no medical nin, but even I can see that his organs have been severely damaged."

Naturally taking the reins, Sakura continued, "If the Kyuubi were helping him with chakra, it'd be another story. As it is... Kids, take a break. I can stabilize the patient for a while—"

"No! Let us help!" Hoshiko shouted, all the while her hands were trembling from chakra depletion.

"Hoshiko. If you're going to be of any more use, take a rest," Sakura murmured softly. "He'll be fine with me for a little while."

Saki was about to protest, but she realized that her own limbs were trembling with overexertion. "Cho-san," she mumbled in her weariness, "why don't you dispel the mind-jutsu? I know it takes a lot of power."

Cho simply nodded, then collapsed on the grass by Naruto's feet. "Let's rest for a few minutes, then I have some soldier pills we can all take."

The rest of the children murmured their agreement before throwing themselves on the ground. Sakura clenched her teeth and continued to work on Naruto's heart and lungs. In truth, Naruto was far from being in stable condition, but she saw no need to exhaust the children in the process. She had been completely useless thus far. It was only right that she should take up the burden of healing Naruto.

She worried that he wouldn't have enough chakra to heal himself. But as she worked on healing Naruto's tissues, a soft, blue energy began swirling into his body. Nature chakra, Sakura mused silently to herself. She was sure of it, because as she healed Naruto's body—and hence, increased his body's ability to mould chakra— his body's chakra reserves continued to be replenished. Thank Kami for Naruto's Sage Mode, she thought, relieved. With the new chakra flowing in, it shouldn't take long to fully heal him.

Sakura heard gentle snores around her and smiled. The children had well deserved their rest. "Hayato," she called softly to the one genin still standing, "how are you holding up?"

The Nara shrugged. "Better than my teammates I suppose. But I'm worried about Yuki."

Sakura's joy at Naruto's stabilizing condition evaporated instantly. "Can you see them at all?"

Hayato shook his head. "No. Not a thing. I think we should wake Hoshiko?"

Sakura replied, "She needs to rest or she won't have the chakra to use her byakugan."

"I know. But I'm also worried about another thing. Shino-san said he would send us ANBU back-up about an hour ago. However, the back-up hasn't yet arrived."

Sakura shook her head gently from side to side. "We need to concentrate on the task at hand. Right now, if we don't do our jobs, Naruto might..." Sakura trailed off at that thought. Naruto had always been invincible in her eyes, and it was harrowing to see him in such a pitiful state. Truly, Madara had planned his use of poison well. "We let her rest another five minutes."

"Okay." Hayato went back to silently scouring their surroundings for threats while Sakura poured her chakra into repairing Naruto's organs. Thankfully, it seemed like the first organs to rupture were the ones that were easier to repair, like the liver. The heart and lungs, though, they had sustained minimal damage, but any damage at all to these essential organs was worrisome. I just have to trust him. He'll pull through, he always does...

Sakura repeated these words like a mantra as she worked, because she knew that she had been utterly useless again that day, had almost thrown away her own life and the life of the baby in her body. Unbidden, tears streaked down her face at the memory of what had happened not long ago. How could she give up her resolve to save Sasuke so easily? She tried to convince herself that Madara had been using some genjutsu to make her stand still like a startled deer, but she knew it wasn't true.

She was always getting in the way.

The one area in which she excelled was medical jutsu. It was the only thing that she could really do well, that she could hold her convictions and her strength to reclaim lives from the death god's icy hand. And with that thought, she funneled all her disappointment, and anger, and dark, dark sorrow, into her hands, and with rekindled determination, she put as much chakra as she dared into her dear friend.

In a few moments, she was rewarded for her efforts: Naruto's eyes fluttered open. She put a steady hand on his forehead to keep him from trying to rise and softly called, "Naruto-kun! Don't move. You've been severely wounded."

Naruto blinked for a few moments, and Sakura began to worry that perhaps there had been some brain damage, but thankfully, her worries on the matter were assuaged when he finally spoke. "What...happened?" he asked in little more than a croak.

"Otousan! You're okay!" Hoshiko sprang up from the grass and practically threw herself at her father, stopping short of his body only by a few inches when she remembered he was injured.

"Hoshiko-chan," he replied quietly, a soft smile on his lips. He tried to raise an arm to reach out to her but lacked the strength.

"Otousan! I was so worried..." she began, her lower jaw trembling.

"Heh. Sorry..." Naruto whispered. "Forgive me 'Shiko-chan."

Hoshiko broke down in tears. Sakura was about to put a comforting hand on the girl's back, but realized that Saki was already taking care of it. Hating to ruin the moment, but also aware of the battles raging on around them, Sakura broke in.

"Hoshiko-chan. Now's not the time for tears. I'm going to keep working on your father here, but you need to use your doujutsu. We need to know what is going on with Yuki and Madara—"

"What!" Naruto tried to shout, but it came out as more of a shrill gasp. Sakura groaned and held him down firmly but gently, before he could rise.

"Idiot! Don't break yourself! Yuki is fighting Madara—"

"That's insane!" he shouted as he struggled to rise.

"Naruto. Stop it! I...I have faith in her." Sakura smiled. "Plus, she mentioned that she wouldn't be fighting him alone. I want to know who's helping her. Hoshiko?"

Nodding enthusiastically, she activated her doujutsu and swung her head around to the center of the clearing. "I...I can't see anyone... Hold on!"

But after searching valiantly, she still couldn't see a thing. Sakura hissed. "It's possible he's transported her to another dimension..."

"Genjutsu?" Naruto offered in his gravelly voice.

Hoshiko shook her head and then gasped. "Wait. I see them! They're just moving so fast. Whoah. I didn't know your sister could fight like that." In a moment, when Cho had connected their minds together so they could all see what the byakugan user was seeing, Saki chimed, "I didn't know she could fight like that either. What the hell happened to her?"

Hayato stepped in at this point. "Hoshiko-chan, what are the other ANBU doing now?"

Naruto, from his prone position on the ground, chuckled. "You say that...like you're an ANBU now, too. Those clothes are a little big on you," he managed with good humor. Hayato colored at this, realizing that all of their pilfered ANBU clothes now hung quite loosely off of their smaller bodies. With a smile, Naruto asked, "Cho-chan? Connect me in as well. I want to see."

"Of course, Hokage-sama!" Cho popped a soldier pill in her mouth and in a moment, Naruto could see as Hoshiko swiveled her head around to the opposite direction.

"There's a barrier between us and the ANBU," he muttered darkly.

"Oh no. The barrier is being fueled by the zombies," Sakura added with a shiver. Indeed, in a wide perimeter around the clearing, a circle of the undead were creating a gleaming red shield. The two disciples of the Sanin looked at each other, and it didn't take a mind connection jutsu for them to understand each other's thoughts: was the barrier to keep them in, or to keep the ANBU out?

"That would answer my question as to why the ANBU didn't get here sooner," Hayato mumbled. "Madara is after all of us," he concluded.

"We need to help her," Naruto called softly, but above him, Sakura, who had been working steadily on him this whole time, shook her head.

"Naruto-kun. You didn't see her. We would just get in her way," she replied sadly, "like the time you took on Pein and told everyone not to interfere."

Sakura exhaled sharply, remembering Yuki's firm hands that had recently saved her from certain death, her daughter's determined eyes, rutilant and tattooed with the black, the geometric patterns of the mankegyo. There was strength and purpose in those hands, and certainty in those eyes.

Upon seeing the mental image of her daughter in her mind's eye, Sakura's own resolve strengthened, her own purpose became clear. "We need to work on getting you well enough to hiraishin us all back to the village, Naruto," she ordered.

Naruto nodded, but his eyes looked bleak. "Forgive me. Hoshiko-chan, keep an eye on Yuki. Cho, is it much trouble to keep the mind connection up?"

"None at all," she murmured.

As Sakura, Saki, and Cho got back to work on putting Naruto back together again, Hoshiko and Hayato keep sentry. Not that they were able to see much: Madara and Yuki were blurs on the battlefield, and even the byakugan was little use in surveillance.

However, just as Sakura had begun to relax, Naruto gasped.

"What is it Naruto-kun!" Sakura asked, her hackles up once again.

"He's summoned the naraka path! And it's got Yuki!"

Sakura closed her eyes. "Connect me to the juts, Cho-chan." Naruto was in stable enough condition. If she needed to protect her daughter from Madara, she would. No more reservations. No more fear.

If Yuki was in serious trouble, Sakura was going to use the death seal on Sasuke's body, as he had wanted. She would end this, once and for all.

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