Not Sick Chapter 13
The Night
Sasuke didn't know where he was.
He wasn't in his all-too familiar hospital bed. Instead, he was propped up against something hard and cold: a metal wall, with a concrete floor beneath him. His arms were secured at his sides by a stretch of thin steel wire wrapped around his body, digging painfully into his skin; his legs were free.
He was still wearing the simple cloth shirt and pale, baggy pants the hospital had given him. No shoes, though. The floor was just as cold as the wall.
"You're awake."
Slowly, he turned his head towards the voice. It was vaguely familiar.
There was a stretch of silence. His bandages itched. He could hear a steady sound outside: rain, pouring down, creating a constant fuzz of background noise.
"Nothing to say, Sasuke?"
No. He didn't have anything to say. It was clear what had happened. Someone had kidnapped him. He didn't particularly care who, or why.
"I'm disappointed. Has Itachi really beaten you into submission so easily?"
'Itachi.'
Sasuke's hands tightened into fists.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said flatly, laying his head back against the wall.
The man who had kidnapped him chuckled.
"That, I believe, is where you're mistaken."
Sasuke didn't bother to respond to that.
"Do you know who I am?" the man asked.
"No. And I don't care."
His eyes (Itachi's eyes) itched suddenly and furiously. The darkness that had been his world for weeks flickered. Sasuke didn't care about that either.
"I am Madara Uchiha."
If Sasuke could see, he would have blinked. As it was, he merely stiffened dramatically, his head coming away from the wall.
"You."
"Me," the man confirmed.
Sasuke paused. This changed everything.
"Why did you take me from Konoha?"
He heard Madara snort. "Why did I take you away from the village that slaughtered your family? I was told you were intelligent, Sasuke."
"You didn't do it out of concern, Madara." Sasuke's voice was tense. He began to subtly test the wire constricting him.
"Oh? Why couldn't I?" The man's tone made a mockery of the sincere question. "After all, Sasuke, you're one of the last Uchiha. Shouldn't I look out for my own?"
"If you looked out for your own, then you wouldn't have allowed my brother to kill our clan."
"Is that what he told you?" Madara's question was somewhere between shocked and smug: his words clung to Sasuke like black oil. "That I helped him?"
Sasuke shook his head. "Yes. And that it was your fault that they died."
The man laughed. "And you believed him? The man who murdered your family tells you someone else was to blame, and you trusted him?" He laughed again. "Perhaps I was mistaken, Sasuke. It seems you-"
"Shut up," Sasuke snarled.
Madara paused. There was a shuffling sound, and when his voice came again, it was from right in front of Sasuke: the man was bent down, his own head mere inches from the younger Uchiha's.
"Oh dear," he crooned. Sasuke trembled in rage. "You want to believe him, don't you?" The voice receded: the man was standing up. "You want to believe that you're dear brother Itachi was a blameless martyr. That he took my sins as his own?"
He kicked Sasuke in the gut. Hard. The bound teen retched.
"Pathetic," the man hissed, uncaring of Sasuke's choking. "How can someone so weak call himself an Uchiha?"
Sasuke's head jerked up towards the man, his features twisting in hatred. "Who are you calling-"
"The boy who stood by while his family died?" the man shot back. He kicked Sasuke again, harder. "The boy whose brother has beaten him at every turn?" Another kick. "The boy who is too," another kick, "frightened," and another, "-to face the truth?"
Sasuke coughed, and a thin stream of blood ran from his mouth. He didn't look away from where he knew the man's face was. "Truth?" he wheezed.
"The truth," the man said. He took several steps back, his sandals shuffling against the concrete floor. "The truth that Sasuke Uchiha is alone. That his brother cares more about the village that murdered his family than him: that his brother tore out little Sasuke's eyes and gifted him his own-"
There was a rush of air, and the man was suddenly in front of Sasuke, at his level again, so fast that he was barely aware of the change before Madara began speaking again.
"-in a transparent attempt to secure his loyalty."
Madara's hand brushed against the bandages wrapped around Sasuke's head.
"It's remarkable, you know," the man muttered. "I will give Itachi credit for that. Even I, the greatest of the Uchiha, did not replace my brother's eyes with my own, though there would have been little point. You and he are the first I can recall ever choosing to trade them."
Madara's smile was almost tangible. "But of course, you didn't choose, did you, Sasuke?" He clicked his tongue. "Itachi chose. Like he always has."
Sasuke didn't say anything. Madara sighed.
"You can't just remain in denial, Sasuke." He chuckled. "I won't let you."
"I'm not-" Sasuke shook his head, knocking Madara's hand away. Itachi's eyes were still itching. "-in denial," he snarled.
"Oh?" Madara's voice drew back.
"If you think I don't hate Itachi for what he's done…" Sasuke voice choked. His jaw clenched, his nose curling into a sneer.
"Then you are a fool," he finally spat out. His whole body was tense with rage: the world was growing colder. There was a metallic taste in his mouth.
"I hate him more than I ever have. He's done nothing but…"
'I will always love you.'
Sasuke trailed off.
Done nothing but what?
He began talking again, without even realizing it. His ancient ancestor, watching him from somewhere in the room, was forgotten.
"He killed my family."
'It was the only way to save you.'
"He took my eyes."
'After I took your eyes… I took my own as well.'
"He showed me. Over and over and over…"
'I had to make you hate me. Not Konoha.'
"But why shouldn't I hate Konoha?" Sasuke stirred, his voice rising. "Why shouldn't I hate the village that slaughtered my family-"
'The Hidden Leaf is this cruel world's best chance at peace!'
"But what use is peace?" Sasuke spat to himself. "What's the point of a peace bought with my family's blood?"
"None."
Madara's booming voice snapped Sasuke out of his reverie, and for a moment he cast his head around. It seemed to have come from every direction.
"Konoha used your brother. Just like your brother has used you."
Sasuke shook his head. "Itachi…" He shook his head again, viciously. "Itachi hasn't used me. He's-"
"You said you weren't in denial, Sasuke." This time, Madara's voice very clearly came from right beside Sasuke's head. "And yet, here you are again, making excuses for your brother. The brother who has murdered your family and stolen your eyes."
The ancient man sighed. "Why would you defend such trash-"
"Because he's my brother!" Sasuke shouted.
The room was silent for a moment.
Sasuke breathed heavily, his chest straining against the wires holding his arms at his sides. His head thumped back against the cold concrete of the wall.
"Is he?"
Sasuke slowly raised his head.
"I'm trying to help you, Sasuke." Madara was crouched down in front of him: he could feel the man's eyes burrowing into his skull. "I'm trying to make you understand."
"That man is not your brother."
What? Of course Itachi was his brother.
Sasuke had never doubted that. It was just a terrible truth: the man who had killed his family had been one of the most crucial parts of it.
"What are you-" Sasuke muttered, before Madara cut him off.
"Brothers do not fill each other's lives with misery. Brothers watch out for each other: Brothers empower each other. Brothers protect each other." Madara's voice dropped. "Do you know what happened to my brother, Sasuke? Do you know about Izuna?"
"Itachi… Itachi told me you stole his eyes." Sasuke shook. "He showed me, before he stole mine."
"He told you I stole them?" Madara didn't sound angry. Just somewhat saddened.
"I did not steal Izuna's eyes. I was offered them. He gifted them to me on his deathbed."
Sasuke's eyes burned again, his head pounding with them. He ignored the feeling shifted his whole body forward slightly. "Why?"
He couldn't imagine what would drive someone to give away their own eyes.
'Just like Itachi has.'
"To protect me. I was going blind, Sasuke. You, fortunately, will never have to experience the Mangekyō Sharingan without the benefit of a sibling's eyes. It is an intoxicating power… but a very, very dangerous one."
Madara sighed. "I fell prey to it: in my drive to save our clan, I used my eyes until they were on the brink of blindness."
"And Izuna-"
"My brother saved me. Saved us all. Without him, there would have been no future for the Uchiha. Without him, there would be no Hidden Villages today! The Senju would have held the world in an iron grip, had not our clan been there to keep them in check."
The Senju. One of Konoha's founding clans. The Uchiha's old rival. Sasuke, as he had for the last two weeks, warily watched the darkness that had covered his world.
Could Madara be telling the truth?
No. He couldn't be.
Because the Uchiha were gone.
And all those days ago in the bunker, when Sasuke had asked Itachi who had helped him slaughter the clan...
'His name… is Madara Uchiha."
Itachi was a liar. But would he have lied about that?
"Izuna is a true example of how the children of the Uchiha should treat each other," Madara continued. "His sacrifice-"
"Was wasted," Sasuke said venomously.
Madara went silent in an instant. "Oh?" he said mildly.
"If Izuna sacrificed himself so you could save the clan, you've done a poor job of it."
Madara laughed. "I was defeated by Hashirama, Sasuke. I was lucky to be alive after that battle: hardly in any position to help the clan that turned its back on me for the Senju-"
"And so you wasted Izuna's sacrifice," Sasuke said.
Madara didn't respond to that. Not immediately.
Sasuke took the opening.
"And today, the Uchiha are gone. All that's left of them is you, Itachi… and me. A relic, a murderer, and an avenger." The younger Uchiha laughed hollowly "You destroyed your own clan with your hypocrisy, Madara. You returned, and when they weren't to your liking…"
He gritted his teeth, the sound deafening in his head. "When my family wasn't to your liking, you helped my brother murder them. And now, they're gone. The Uchiha are all but extinct: we will be the last."
"That is where you are wrong."
Sasuke snorted. "Really? I imagine you're a little old to be having children. And somehow, I doubt that either Itachi or myself will be reviving the clan anytime soon."
Madara laughed deeply. "Your thinking is so limited, Sasuke." Sasuke felt him lean in.
"I won't be making new Uchiha. I'll bring them back."
Sasuke froze. The hair on the back of his neck rose. The itching in his eyes abruptly disappeared.
"That's impossible."
'The dead are supposed to stay that way.'
"Is it?" Madara laughed again, barely a chuckle. "I have lived for nearly a century, Sasuke. That alone should tell you something. But consider this: my organization has been gathering the Bijuu, one by one. A greater collection of power than the world has ever seen, or ever will again. Do you think it's been done without a purpose?"
"You're crazy," Sasuke whispered.
He remembered the Kyuubi. That wasn't a force that could bring back the dead, that could create or recreate life.
The fox burned with a familiar hatred. It bleached everything around it red with its rage. Something like that couldn't possibly be turned towards an impossibility like a resurrection, no matter how much chakra it possessed.
"Oh, I assure you, I am very much sane." Madara tapped something that made a dull 'thonk' sound. "In fact, I occasionally find myself thinking that everyone else must be insane, to continue living in this hopeless world."
"What-?" Sasuke murmured.
"But that's besides the point," Madara finished. The fact of the matter is, Sasuke-"
He was interrupted by a terrible creaking noise. A door, long rusted, swinging open on ruined hinges.
"Ah, Konan." Madara's tone immediately shifted: his voice dropped, and there was an undeniable sense of authority suddenly permeating the room. "That means-"
"He's here." 'Konan's' voice was like flint: Sasuke had never heard a woman sound so cold.
"Already?" Madara murmured. "Even for him, that's faster than I expected. I don't suppose he's alone?"
Sasuke didn't hear anything except for the subtle sound of hair brushing against fabric. 'Konan' was shaking her head.
"That's a shame," Madara said flatly. "But still, hardly shocking. How many?"
"At least five, plus the Jinchūriki," 'Konan' said lowly. "But I would not be surprised if there are more: the rain can't cover everything."
Sasuke frowned.
A Jinchūriki had come to Amegakure. That could only mean one person.
"No matter. The village is ours: we'll isolate them while Pain deals with the Kyuubi," Madara said, confirming Sasuke's suspicions.
Naruto had come after him.
"Shall we, then?" 'Konan' asked.
"In a moment," Madara said. "Go on without me: I will join in soon enough."
Once more there was the sound of hair brushing against fabric, and then a great shuffling sound, like someone had dropped a dozen decks of cards. A moment later, the room was silent once more.
Madara sighed. "It seems I have to go, Sasuke. But please, just remember."
The ancient Uchiha's voice sounded nothing but truthful. "I can bring your family back."
There was a twisting sound, like water running over pebbles, or an ancient generator heating up. Then, Madara chuckled.
"I almost forgot."
Something hit the floor with a dull thud, and Sasuke flinched towards the noise. A moment later, something else also struck the ground: instead of a dull thud, it crumbled, the sound unmistakably rock shattering.
"Your friend really is remarkable, if rather subdued at the moment. I would suggest not waking him: there's no telling how he would react."
Juugo. Juugo was here too.
Madara laughed, and then he was gone. Sasuke was left truly alone, with only an unconscious berserker and his own ever-present darkness to keep him company.
His ancestor's words echoed in his head, filling the abyss.
'I can bring your family back.'
His eyes began to itch again, and the darkness flickered.
Sasuke sighed.
Five large hawks winged across the low clouds, drawing steadily closer to the imposing skyline of Amegakure and the curtain of rain surrounding it. Against the black of the newly born night, they were nearly invisible.
If one had looked closely, it would have become clear that these were no ordinary birds. Shifting patterns, black and white artistry: ink given life was what was drawing closer to the Village Hidden in the Rain.
If one had looked even closer, one would probably notice that the birds weren't traveling unburdened. They were carrying people: two to each bird. Four of the birds were carrying the same person: a blonde, wearing a bright red coat.
Three of those copies were seated cross-legged, completely unmoving. The fourth, the original, was talking to someone with bright pink hair.
"Naruto, I really don't think this is a good idea."
The blonde in question glanced at Sakura with a small grin. "Maybe not. But it'll definitely get his attention, right?"
Sakura sighed, staring pointedly down at the lake speeding by hundreds of feet below them.
"It will do that," she admitted, before looking back at him. "It's a bit of a drop, though," she said carefully. "Are you sure you'll be-"
Naruto's grin grew. "Trust me, Sakura. I'll be totally fine."
She frowned, but nodded. "Okay then. If you're sure. Lady Katsuyu, will you be okay?"
The small slug perched on Naruto's shoulder nodded. "Don't worry, Sakura," she said softly. "I'm tougher than I look: so long as Naruto doesn't land on me, there won't be a problem." She gave Naruto a look that could only be called reproachful.
The Jinchūriki smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "I'll be a careful."
"How can you be 'careful' about something like this?" Ino called from a nearby bird.
She'd been eavesdropping on the conversation, occasionally glancing back at the slug on her own shoulder, her face torn between worried and thankful.
She appreciated the summon, but she also couldn't help but notice that she could feel it through her top… and it was rather wet.
Naruto shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I'm about to find out, huh?"
The birds reached the rain.
The water hit the shinobi like a tidal wave, instantly drenching them. Sakura's hair plastered itself to her head, as did Shikamaru's, his distinctive pineapple dying an ignominious death. Ino's frown deepened, her hand unconsciously going to her ponytail. The slug on her shoulder was instantly forgotten: a little slime hardly mattered anymore.
Chōji just shrugged.
Hinata looked up infinitesimally for a moment, before setting her straining eyes on Amegakure again: the village proper was less than a hundred feet away.
Naruto flinched at the sudden cold. His clones didn't. The slugs perched on each of the ninja's shoulders all luxuriated in the rain: Katsuyu was certainly the only one enjoying the weather.
Sai glanced sharply down at his birds. The eagles had immediately begun to run, the swirling ink that gave them shape slipping and sliding.
"They're breaking down," Sai called from the front of the pack. "Naruto, you must go now."
"Got it!" Naruto shouted back. The clone traveling with Sai exploded in a puff of smoke, and the Uzumaki took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, they were completely alien, the pupil horizontal and the iris gold. Orange pigmentation spread around his eyes.
"Remember, you guys gotta find Sasuke! This whole place…" He cocked his head, before shaking it. "Crap. It feels real weird. I can't sense anything down there."
He smiled, the orange around his eyes crumpling strangely. "Hinata, I'm counting on you!"
The Hyuuga nodded forcefully, desperately holding back a blush. Naruto couldn't help but notice that the rain was making her hair practically gleam, despite how soaked it looked.
He grinned at her, before turning to Sakura. He raised two fingers to his head, bumping them against his hitai-ate, already gleaming with rain. His clones stood up.
"See ya."
And then, he and his duplicates dropped off the side of their birds, plummeting towards the village below.
In Amegakure's tallest tower, an emaciated redhead slouched alone, his entire being projected into the pounding rain outside the room he had called home for so long.
Nagato's eyes, closed in concentration, widened slightly, raising wrinkles on his pallid forehead.
'Multiple chakras… clones. And he's falling?'
Six seconds. That's about how long it took Naruto and his clones to cover the five hundred or so feet between Sai's birds and the ground.
A lot can happen in six seconds.
In the first, Naruto's careless smile vanished, replaced with a grim line cut across his face. Now that Sakura was gone, he could stop smiling.
In the second, a mass of white paper cranes gathered on a pipe protruding from one of the taller towers.
In the third, one of the cranes flattened out, and an amber eye peered out of its surface.
In the fourth, the air next to the crane distorted, and a man in an off-white mask covered in chaotic swirls appeared next to the gathering of origami, gazing out into the darkened sky with a whirling red eye.
In the fifth, twelve ringed eyes snapped open, and six cold bodies pulled themselves up.
In the sixth, three Naruto's hit the ground, spread out across a square kilometer of the Village Hidden in the Rain. The soaked concrete streets around them shattered with the impact, shock waves emanating out for meters around the crouched ninjas, creating an obvious crater.
And a second after that, the seventh, all of the Naruto's shot to their feet, standing at the center of the crater with nothing to show for it but a damp cape. Like a switch had been flipped, the rain stopped, its pounding dying away.
All of the blondes took a deep breath…. and shouted, their voices echoing across the dripping streets, rebounding through moist alleys, seemingly filling the whole village with its blatant challenge.
"NAGATO!"
In Amegakure's tallest tower, an Uzumaki twitched.
"He jumped." Madara spoke without an ounce of inflection, leaning back against the soaked iron of the tower. He looked distinctly unimpressed.
"Fell, more like it," Konan said coldly, looking out over the village. Her eyes tracked five dark shapes moving across the sky, closing on the center of the village.
"You see them?" she asked rhetorically.
"Tch." Madara pushed himself away from the wall. "That can't be all of them. They wouldn't commit their entire force to an attack from the sky."
"They may be counting on the Kyuubi as a distraction," Konan pointed out, scanning the streets of Amegakure for the free-faller. She couldn't see him.
There had been three blondes. Now, they could be just about anywhere in the village. The rain had stopped, though. Nagato must have been confident in their location.
"Perhaps," Madara noted. "Still… it won't do to ignore the possibility." He cupped the spot on his mask where his chin would have been. "I'll leave these to you: if Pain couldn't see another group, they must have infiltrated the village from below."
"You're leaving them to me?" Konan asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Do you think they may be too much?" Madara said sardonically, staring at her with a single rotating eye.
"Hardly." She looked back at the airborne ninja. "I'll take care of them."
Madara didn't nod. "Good. I'll be going hunting, then." He began to swirl out of existence, his mask, as always, the last to go.
The last sign of his departure was a mocking, drawn out, "Good luck."
Konan stared at the empty space for a moment, before turning back towards the oncoming Konoha-nin. She sighed.
Her face peeled away, revealing plain white paper beneath.
Naruto looked around, taking in the street he'd ruined.
Once, it had clearly been a marketplace. Awnings extended rusting carts, balconies, balconies hung with soaked, abandoned laundry. There was a railing to his left, and past it, a canal, filled with hollowed-out boats sloshing with rainwater. There was a wooden entryway leading into a darkened building festooned with flyers and menus to his other side… not too long ago, this whole place had been bustling with life.
And now, it was completely and utterly empty. Or at least, that was what his eyes and ears told him.
He extended his other senses, and immediately rocked back, blinking. It was just like it had been on Sai's birds, but a thousand times more obvious.
The whole village was humming with chakra.
Not natural chakra either, the kind that everything generated, filling the world with comfortable contours. Amegakure felt wrong.
Every surface, every inlet, even the air itself, was completely saturated with an unbearably thick, completely alien, chakra. It made breathing difficult if Naruto focused on it: if he looked hard enough, the world began to seem murky, as if he were watching it through a warped glass.
He'd felt this chakra before. In his stomach, and throughout the rest of his body, when he'd been stabbed by a cold, unforgiving metal rod.
This was Pain's chakra.
And now, more than ever, it was clear to Naruto that Amegakure was Pain's village, in a way that he couldn't even begin to comprehend. The man had covered his entire home in his own freezing chakra. Pounded his essence into it, painted it on every surface, soaked the bones of his village with his bitter life-energy.
It was terrifying: like suddenly waking up and realizing you were trapped inside an iceberg. An iceberg that was closing in around you.
But at the same time, Naruto couldn't help but be amazed. The kind of dedication, will, and persistence it must have taken to create something like this was unbelievable.
Now, if only all that dedication had been turned to something that didn't make it impossible for him to find Sasuke quickly.
Pain's chakra rendered any attempt at sensing deeper into the village impossible. Naruto's sixth sense only went out about fifty feet before the thick, soupy chakra rendered it so much white noise: it was almost deafening.
It was definitely annoying.
The silence in the wake of the rain was almost as overwhelming as the water itself had been.
And Naruto, of course, hated silence.
"Anyone there!?" he shouted, looking around.
No one answered. Was the whole village like this? Empty and cold?
Naruto shivered, and shrugged. He took a step forward: standing around wouldn't get him any closer to Sasuke.
Hopefully Hinata and Neji would have more luck.
He cast a glance up, but between the looming buildings on all sides and the dark clouds filling the sky, he couldn't catch a glimpse of the birds that had dropped him off. If it weren't for Sage Mode, he probably would have been lucky to even see that. The whole village was pitch black
"Katsuyu?" he asked.
The slug peeked out from under his collar, watching him innocently with her eye-stalks.
"Yes?" she murmured.
"You'll tell me if anything is going on up there, right?"
"Of course!" The slug paused, and then blinked. "Oh dear. You have terrible timing."
"What?" Naruto stopped. "What is it? Are they-?"
Katsuyu's voice was very, very quiet. "Don't worry about them, Naruto. Worry about yourself. Sakura can handle it."
Naruto turned, and found a lone figure standing in the street in front of him, staring at him with unblinking eyes.
His throat dried slightly. "Ah. Gotcha."
Katsuyu retreated back beneath his collar, while Naruto stared at the solitary figure warily.
He didn't recognize her.
She was short, barely five feet tall. Her hair was a short, messy orange, and fell around her head with little regard for how it looked, with the exception of hasty-looking topknot. Her features were extremely delicate: small mouth, small noise, and a small jaw.
In another life, Naruto might have considered her cute, but a couple things ruined the image.
Primarily her papery pale skin, the multitude of black rods buried in her face like metal teardrops down her cheeks, and the billowing black cloak she wore loosely, a red cloud proudly emblazoned on the front.
And most importantly, the ringed eyes, dull purple in Amegakure's night, shining with an eerie inner glow. She didn't take those eyes off of him as she slowly bent down and tapped a finger on the soaked street. Ink spread out in a spiraling circle.
Naruto didn't try to stop her. This was why he was here, after all.
He made the best bait.
There was a puff of smoke, and suddenly the street was much more populated. Five more cloaked figures had appeared, drawn by the summoning.
Four more men, and another woman.
They all wore the same cloaks. They all had the same pale, corpse-colored skin. They all wore a hitai-ate, with Amegakure's symbol scratched out. They were all studded with pitch-black rods that seemed to absorb what little light there was.
And they all had the same glaring ringed eyes. But each of them had a distinguishing feature.
One man was completely hairless: none on his head, none on his face. Not even eyebrows. His cloak's sleeves were ripped off, revealing his rod-filled arms. Another, easily the tallest, had his forehead protector wrapped around his right upper bicep, and crossed his arms as he glared at Naruto. His hair was shorn short, almost in a buzz cut.
The other women, the one who wasn't the summoner, looked almost completely average in every way. Lithe body, slender arms, thin neck: her hair was the only thing that really stuck out. It flowed down and around her back, ending a foot or two below her shoulder blades, just as orange as all of the other's.
One of the other men was… fat. There was no other way to put it. His cloak was bloated: multiple chins hung from his neck, and his fingers were stubby and wide. His hair hung like a mop on his head.
But his features were sharp, his nose like a knife, and the viciousness of his face was only enhanced by the glaring Rinnegan.
The last man, Naruto had already met.
The man, who had once been Yahiko, but was now someone else entirely, stared at him expectantly.
"Nagato," Naruto said calmly.
"Naruto Uzumaki," the pale man said. "I'm glad you've come." He stepped forward, the other bodies falling in behind him. "Will you surrender? I will return Sasuke Uchiha to your friends if you do."
Naruto just rolled his inhuman eyes. Pain nodded slowly. "As I thought. Very well then." His body language didn't change at all: his hands remained at his sides, his shoulders relaxed.
But the other Paths began to spread out behind him, forming a rough wedge.
"Shall we begin, then?" he said lowly.
Naruto grinned, and slowly reached up, rubbing the back of his head. "I'd love to, but…"
His hand dropped, but his grin just got wider. "I'm just a clone."
And then he exploded in a puff of smoke. A second later, a humming sound filled the street. The Rinnegan went wide, and the Deva Path turned.
Just in time to see a red and orange blur headed for his face, a swirling ball of energy pushed out in front of it.
The Deva Path fell back, looking mildly concerned. The corpulent man with multiple chins and mop-like hair leapt forward, interposing himself between the Rasengan and Pain. There was a horrible grinding noise, and the man's chest exploded, showering the rest of the Paths with something that looked a lot like oil.
The thing that had once been Yahiko raised its hand.
"Shinra Tensei."
Both the wrecked body of the Path and the Rasengan-wielding blur rocketed backwards, destroying a restaurant and filling the street with dust and rubble. The Deva Path stepped forward, his features twisting in annoyance.
"So, Naruto Uzumaki… are you ready to stop playing games?"
The rubble didn't answer.
Coincidentally, the petite woman with a hasty topknot smashed face-first into the street less than a second later, her once-cute features obliterated by the unyielding concrete.
"Yeah, I'm ready," Naruto Uzumaki said. He slowly stood up, his knee still planted on the back of the woman's head.
He smirked. "Are you?"
"We need to find someplace to land."
Sakura shivered, looking away from the pitch-black streets of the village. She'd given up on actually spotting Naruto a while ago, but had continued staring. The air above the village was freezing, but at least the rain had stopped.
"Sakura?"
She shook her head and looked over at Sai, whose bird had drawn up alongside hers.
"We need to get out of the sky," he said calmly.
"Why?" Ino called out from the back of the flock. "Won't it be easier for Hinata to spot Sasuke from up here?"
The pale heiress spoke up. "It would be," she said softly, her voice barely raised and yet carrying itself through the chill air effortlessly. "But I believe we've been spotted ourselves."
Sakura followed her line of sight, and saw something that she could have honestly said she would never have expected.
There were a lot of things she wanted to say about the flock of razor-white paper airplanes flocking through the sky towards her and the rest of the ninja perched on Sai's birds. Some of them were expletives: others were reasonable questions. Who had had the patience to fold all these planes in the first place? And then waste them by throwing them above the village?
Was there a technique for something like that?
And, since it was obvious she was missing something, what the hell were the paper constructions?
But Sakura didn't really manage to enunciate any of that. She was too busy staring at a hobbyist's dream taken flight. So instead, all she got to express her many questions was a single, flat, barely audible word.
"What."
"Hinata." Shikamaru didn't sound in the least bit ruffled. Especially compared to Ino, who was gaping at the birds, with Chōji peering curiously over her shoulder. "What are we looking at here?"
Hinata strained, the veins around her eyes pulsing. "I have no idea," she admitted. "They have chakra. All of them, spread out. There's something connecting them together…"
"Is it a disguise? Or an attack?" Shikamaru was frowning intensely, his hands wandering towards each other.
Hinata shook her head. "Neither. Or… both, maybe."
"Troublesome." Shikamaru cricked his neck. "Sai. Can you take us down? I'd rather we not be up here when those things-"
'Those things' suddenly accelerated rapidly, closing in on the Konoha ninja with unbelievable speed. The streamed around the birds, surrounding them on every side, and then maintaining their speed… along with the sudden perimeter.
"Oh… crap," Chōji murmured.
Ino stood up, staying steady on the flapping bird. Her hand ghosted across her leg, fingering the kunai held there. "What are they doing?"
Another mass of the airplanes headed towards the birds, drawing closer and closer together as they approached. Their forms lost consistency: lines went soft, wings folded out, and the fleet turned into a mass of paper floating in the air, the lines between each sheet indistinct.
Then, the mass defined itself. Arms, torso, a head: a recognizable upper body grew out of the floating lump. Blue hair slid into existence, and two amber eyes snapped open.
"Turn back," the flying legless paper woman said.
Sakura blinked.
"Say what?" Ino said, just as baffled as her pink-haired friend.
Which is to say, very baffled.
"Turn back." The woman slowly scanned them, her eyes as cold as the rain had been. "I'm giving you all one chance."
"To abandon Naruto?" Hinata asked quietly, watching the woman intently with her Byakugan.
The figure inclined her head. "If you want to look at it that way, yes."
"We would never," Sakura hissed.
"You'll trade your life for his?" The woman watched her with piercing eyes. Her flawless brow creased. "Or do you think that you can come to a place like this without consequence? That you can enter Pain's domain and leave with your friend without paying a price?"
"No one is being left behind," Sakura said firmly. "We're just here for Sasuke. We get him, and then we leave. It's that simple."
The woman laughed, high and clear, but her eyes remained cold. "Refreshing." Her mouth turned down into a perpetual frown. "A shame to prove you wrong."
She sighed, extending her arms. Flaps of paper floated off of them, swirling around her like a miniature storm.
"My name is Konan. Remember it, because I will be the last person you ever meet."
And then, she shattered into a thousand fluttering cranes, and the paper airplanes all swept inward at once, dull in the darkness of the low clouds.
Shikamaru shouted a very rude word. Sai frowned thunderously, and all of his birds shot in separate directions: the Nara's forward and up, his own down, Sakura's straight at Konan, Hinata's backwards and at the same upwards angle as Shikamaru, and Ino and Chōji's straight down at a ninety-degree angle, the Yamanaka shrieking in surprise and anger the whole way.
Hinata's bird was tagged first: the paper planes were simply too fast, shooting upward as quickly as the hawk rose. They were also deceptively sharp. The planes tore through the ink-construct's wing, and it fell to the side lamely, flapping desperately with its remaining limb.
Hinata clung to its back, a chakra-grip keeping her from plummeting off into the village far below.
Shikamaru's bird escaped the enclosure of airplanes entirely, as did Ino and Chōji's. The Nara shouted Hinata's name, watching her bird fall steadily lower, towards the village.
Sai's bird completely avoided the fleet of suicidal razor planes. He himself was not so lucky. Crouched low on the bird, the pale boy was nevertheless struck by several of the constructs. One buried itself an inch into his left shoulder, and another sliced by his right arm, opening up the world's worst papercut along the length of it.
He winced, but didn't allow the stinging cut to break his concentration: his hand came up, a brush clenched in it, and with a flourish he unleashed another hawk, which immediately made its way towards Hinata.
Sakura had the hardest time of it. Her bird sent her straight at Konan, who remained floating, watching impassibly. She was barely touched by the razor planes, twisting around them and crushing one in her hand as it sent itself straight at her face.
But her hawk was utterly torn apart by the constructs. It made it less than ten feet before it was sliced to strains of ink, falling through the black sky. Sakura didn't fall with what remained of the bird.
She jumped, high, even as the animal fell apart below her, and cocked her fist back.
Konan didn't even try to dodge. Sakura's fist buried itself in the paper woman's chest, and she rocked back in the air.
And nothing else. Konan didn't scream, or go pale, or do any of the other things people were supposed to do when someone put an arm through their chest. She just slowly tilted her head down, staring at Sakura, who hung hundreds of feet in the air by her arm, stuck in Konan's body.
Sakura stared back up, and it slowly occurred to her that this had not, perhaps, been her best plan.
"It'll take more than that," Konan said flatly. Then, she began to hiss.
Ink swirls slowly whirled into existence across her body, before lighting with an internal flame. Sakura's eyes went wide, and she bared her teeth.
The woman's entire body was made up of explosives. And she'd just punched through it.
'Definitely not my best idea.'
"Sorry Sakura!"
Sakura and Konan both looked up at the booming yell, just in time to see an equally monstrous hand sweep down and slap Sakura sideways, tearing her arm out of Konan's body.
The pink-haired girl tumbled through the air, barely aware of what was happening around her. Her head was ringing, and her arm was covered in a simply horrific number of small, nearly invisible cuts.
Papercuts. She'd gotten papercuts from Konan's paper body.
Sakura laughed. Sai caught her at about the same time, his bird swooping below her, and he stared at Sakura as she fell into his arms laughing like a loon.
"Papercuts!" she wheezed.
Sai just watched her with a single cocked eye. It occurred to Sakura he might have been wondering if Chōji's slap had done more than knock her loose from Konan.
He shrugged, and put her down. Apparently, possible concussions didn't matter at the moment.
Sakura looked up. Shikamaru's bird was circling, harangued by a few scattered planes: the Nara was plucking them out of the sky with a kunai whenever they came close, unable to bring his shadow's into play due to the height. Ino and Chōji were both safe, away from the flock of birds. The Yamanaka was staring down at her with an incredulous look: her larger companion's arm was extended, the hand grown to enormous size.
It was still right next to Konan, who had remained where she was, staring at Sakura.
The woman exploded.
Chōji hissed loudly, drawing his hand away. The back of it was burned and bleeding, but it didn't look like anything Sakura wouldn't be able to fix. Hinata pulled up next to them, secure on her new hawk.
"We have to go," she said, clinging just perhaps a bit too tightly to the birds back. "There's no way we can fight her up here."
Sakura nodded back, before turning her head to Sai.
"Of course," he said tightly, watching the planes that remained swirl through the air in delicate patterns, holding off on attacking for the moment.
Sai made a subtle gesture, and the birds all turned as one, descending deeper into the village.
The planes didn't follow them. Instead, they coalesced behind the flock, as if they were watching them go.
"What are they doing?" Sakura asked, shaking her head out. The buzzing finally vanished. Her right arm was slick with a thin film of her own blood: she barely noticed.
Shikamaru's bird swooped down beside her and Sai, closely followed by Ino and Chōji's, who was cradling his hand.
"They're holding back," the Nara said, watching her carefully, checking for any signs of injury. "I don't understand why, though. If they came at us again-"
"Oh shit." Ino suddenly cursed viciously.
Sakura saw Sai stiffen in the corner of her vision and turned, looking towards the front of the bird. Dozens of copies of Konan were rising out of the village before them, flocking from the streets and pipes set in the taller buildings.
And they were all flying right at Sakura and the rest of the Konoha ninja.
"Down!" Shikamaru barked. "Now! As low as possible!"
Sai didn't say anything. Didn't make a movement. But a moment later, every one of his birds dove straight down, their occupants clinging desperately to their back. Sakura noticed, in a strange flash of clarity that was almost carried away by the speed of their descent, that her blood was running into the eagle, mixing with the ink.
"Not good. Not good not good not good-" Chōji was practically chanting, still holding onto his hand as he watched the wave of paper women approach.
"There," Sai's voice was calm, despite the air pushing his cheeks back as they fell. Sakura glanced at him, not daring to tear her grip from the bird's back.
"That roof will do," he said flatly.
Sakura followed his gaze, and found the only flat building for what seemed like blocks around. It was just as tall as the towers around it, but except for a single enormous pipe sticking up out of the middle, its roof was completely leveled-out concrete: the safest place for them to land.
The birds leveled off suddenly, the g-force sending Sakura's hair fling back, and all of the hawks flung themselves forward, towards the roof… which was when several paper clones burst from the buildings in the street below them, and flew straight up at Sai's birds.
Shikamaru was the only one who was looking down at the time. He stood up silently. Ino glanced at him then looked down as well.
She went pale.
"Well," Shikamaru said quietly. "Time to leave."
The rest of the shinobi stood up as well, Sakura somewhat shakily. The clones struck the birds a second later, and exploded in a horrendous din, the sound echoing through the streets. The hawks were torn to shreds, raining ink on the village.
Their riders didn't follow. They had all jumped.
Shikamaru hit the roof first, the twenty-foot fall barely fazing him. He rolled onto one of his knees, immediately stopping with his hands clasped together. His shadow, extremely faint in the darkness of the cloud-covered village, writhed around him.
Chōji landed second, his lower body growing and bringing him closer to the roof. The concrete cracked at his impact, but remained steady. He was holding Ino in his oversized left hand, and as he landed he released her, letting her alight with a soft tap upon the roof.
Sakura landed fourth, not bothering to roll. She hit the roof flatly, spreading the impact out between her legs and uninjured arm, and immediately sprung to her feet, headed for Chōji.
Hinata was the last to reach the roof. She tumbled off her bird, barely avoiding the blast of the exploding clones, flipping through the air with the shockwave. She hit the roof and skidded, leaving a trail of ink along it, before finally stumbling to her feet and arresting her momentum.
And so, Sai's infiltration group, which had been doing a shockingly small amount of infiltrating, found itself on a flat roof in the middle of Amegakure, watching as what seemed like hundreds of paper clones circled the building, watching them with intense amber eyes.
"Huh," Chōji murmured, watching thankfully as Sakura ran a glowing green hand over his own. "Could have gone worse."
Hinata rubbed her back, wincing: there was a rather nasty scrape running the length of it.
"We're not done yet," Shikamaru murmured. The other ninja fell into a rough pentagon, each facing a different direction, with him at the center.
Konan's clones were flying around the building, like a shoal of sharks circling a wounded whale.
"They might take out the base of the building," the Nara warned. "If they do, we have to be ready to change positions, quick. Sai, can you-"
"I don't think she will," Sakura cut in, watching the clones warily. The remaining paper airplanes had joined them, and Amegakure's night sky was slowly vanishing, replaced by a whirlwind of paper, blue hair, and piercing eyes.
"Oh?" Sakura couldn't see him, but she knew Shikamaru was staring at her with his head tilted to the side. "What makes you think that?"
"This is her village," the medic said slowly. Konan seemed content to let them talk, for now: the clones weren't attacking quite yet. The sound of thousands of sheets of paper brushing against each other was nearly deafening as they continued to surround the building.
"I doubt she wants to destroy it," Sakura finished.
"Correct." All of the clones stopped and spoke at once, and Sakura flinched. The sound was amazingly loud. "But I am willing to do what must be done, even if it denies my people their homes."
And with that declaration, the circle tightened, and clones began rushing in.
The first dozen to charge forward were impaled by shadows springing up across the roof, running the clones through and ripping them to shreds as they expanded. Chōji growled, his hands growing, and he swatted several out of the sky, smashing them to pieces on the roof and flinging the remains off to detonate harmlessly over the village.
Ino began lobbing kunai, hissing tags affixed to their handles. Wherever they struck the circle, the clones dispersed, scattering like spooked insects and circling around to approach from another angle.
Hinata took a deep breath, her eyes focusing intensely. She barely moved an inch, flowing around the clones who came at her. But wherever she touched them, they reverted to ordinary paper, falling into disorganized piles across the roof.
Sai sent out more hawks, much smaller this time, and unsheathed his tanto. The ink animals harassed any of the clones who approached the side of the roof he faced, and any who made it past them were promptly decapitated or stabbed in the vitals.
One attempted to fly beneath his guard, its arm slimming down into the unmistakable shape of a paper sword. Sai kicked up, knocking the blade clean past his shoulder, and sliced it and the clone's head off in a single motion. His other hand darted out and seized the sword before it could revert to simple paper, and flung it into the circle of clones, slicing two in half and taking another's leg with its preternatural sharpness.
Sakura wasn't nearly as fancy as Sai. She just demolished any clone that got close to her. As soon as they got within reach, they were transformed from women into scattered sheets of paper in less time than it took to draw a breath.
It was crude, but very, very efficient.
Shikamaru covered all of his comrades' backs. Any clones which slipped through their defenses were instantly skewered without mercy: any which began to hiss were seized and thrown back into the mass, taking out some of their own.
And yet, it was all barely enough. Less than twenty seconds later, the Konoha shinobi were already on the edge of being overwhelmed.
"Crap." Shikamaru hissed as a paper shuriken skimmed his shoulder, not penetrating his vest but filling his ear with its whistling. "We can't keep this up."
Sakura grunted, seizing a paper clone by the arm and flinging it into three of its compatriots, reducing them all to loose sheets. "What are we supposed to do?!" She pounded another into the cement, the explosive tags that comprised its core sputtering and tearing, emitting smoke and little else. "There's too many!"
"Chōji! Get us a little space!" Shikamaru shouted, throwing a kunai with a little too much force. His shadow, trailing along below it, split into dozens of tendrils and tore apart every clone the knife passed, leaving a momentary hole in the circling wall.
"Got it!" the Akimichi shouted, standing up to his full height out of the crouch he had dropped into to make up for his oversized arms. He brought his hands together, frowning intensely. Then, he roared with effort, and shot up, his entire body hugely expanding until he towered almost thirty feet in the air. Sakura imagined she could hear the building creaking.
"Get away!" Chōji shouted, the sound almost deafening, and then he swept his hand before him, wiping a swathe of clones out of the circle.
Several exploded against his hand, but besides a wince, the monstrous Akimichi barely reacted: he just gritted his teeth, shouted again, and swung once more, scattering even more clones. The circle broke, the Konan's retreating in a flurry.
Ino threw one last exploding kunai, then turned to her normal-sized teammate as Sakura panted, Sai shook out his hand, Hinata took another deep breath and lowered her hands, and Chōji heaved above them all, growling at the swarm of clones which continued to surround the building from a safe distance.
"They'll come again," The Hyuuga said, frowning mildly. "The real one hasn't participated yet: she's hanging back."
Ino shot a look at Hinata, and her face lit up. "Hinata!" she said quickly. "You can see which one isn't a clone?"
The heiress jumped a little at the suddenness of the question, before focusing on Ino. "Of course!" she said. "She's very distinctive: the Byakugan-"
"Nevermind that!" Ino waved her off, turning back to her teammate. "Shikamaru! Do you think-?"
"It's too risky," he interrupted, shooting her a look. "If you miss…"
"Then I miss!" Ino shot back. "But if it works, we find Sasuke!"
"What-" Sakura said, before realizing exactly what her friend was talking about.
Konan was a member of Akatsuki. Konan had been waiting in this village. Konan probably knew where Sasuke was.
Nevertheless... "Ino, can you make that shot? Your Shintenshin-"
"Is a lot faster now!" the blonde interrupted again. "I've been practicing!"
There was a moment of silence. Sai eyed the clones: it looked like they were forming up for another attack.
Shikamaru sighed. "Fine. Go for it."
Ino nodded, and marched over to Hinata. "Point me to her," she ordered, placing her hand on Hinata's shoulder. The other cupped in front of her face: half of the distinctive mind-transfer seal.
Hinata nodded, her Byakugan straining for a moment. The clones swirled again, picking up speed. The Hyuuga's arm came up, above her head, and then fell like a hammer, fixing on a single point.
"There!"
Ino's brow furrowed.
"Shintenshin!"
The Yamanaka suddenly slumped backwards, and Hinata had to reach out and grab her before she could hit the floor. The circle of Konan's slowed down. Then stopped.
One of them fell apart in a flurry of paper.
Chōji panted. "Did she get her?"
There was silence. Sakura watched her unconscious friend, wondering what was taking her so long.
"No."
The cold voice cut through the night air, and one of the Konan's glided to the front of the pack.
"What a shame," she said quietly.
The circle broke. Every single one of the clones charged inward, not even maintaining any pretense of a perimeter.
Shikamaru cursed.
The clones were done playing around. They flung themselves at the roof, exploding on impact, tearing away great chunks of concrete and filling the air with concussive bursts.
Sakura jumped back, barely avoiding a nasty fall as a bit of roof crumbled away below her feet.
Chōji bellowed and picked up Shikamaru, hoisting him up in the air. The ground beneath him was buckling. Sai followed him, leaping onto the Akimichi's shoulders.
The giant reached for Ino, who was still being held by Hinata.
One of the clones broke from the group dismantling the roof and flew right at the Hyuuga at the same moment.
Hinata's Byakugan was still active. She saw the clone coming as clearly as if it were right in front of her.
She was nearly fast enough. The Hyuuga spun on her toes, tossing Ino to Chōji in a single, fluid motion. And then she continued spinning, bringing her arms in close. There was a faint blue light, and she picked up speed, rotating ever faster.
The clone reached her, ink swirling across its cloak. Hinata shouted, her voice almost breaking.
"Kaiten!"
It was almost enough.
The Heavenly Rotation burst out, half-complete, carving a divot in the roof and wiping the clones' face away.
Its loss of facial features didn't stop the copy from exploding.
Hinata was thrown backwards, the Kaiten taking the brunt of the blast, but not able to completely protect the heiress. She tumbled across the roof, dazed, and then went right over the ledge, one hand catching on the lip and holding on with a frantic grip. She swung into the side of the building and grunted, the air knocked out of her.
"Hinata!" Sakura shouted.
Chōji's eyes went wide and he lurched forward, moving for the Hyuuga. Sakura blew right past him.
"Chōji!" she shouted. "I've got her! You get Ino out of here!"
Chōji paused, then nodded, turning and running for the edge of the roof, the ground crumbling away beneath him. More paper clones flung themselves at him, but whichever ones he didn't manage to swat out of the air Shikamaru picked off with kunai, a grim look seemingly stuck on his face.
Chōji leapt off the roof, the whole structure shaking with the force of his jump, and Sakura lost sight of him and his passengers. She refocused on the dangling Hyuuga.
Hinata's hand slipped back: the roof was still covered in rain-water, the concrete slippery. Even with chakra, she was having trouble holding on. Sakura leapt forward, landing on the edge just as Hinata's hand finally slipped off the roof entirely.
She stuck herself fast to the roof and snatched at Hinata, barely managing to grab her hand as she tumbled back into a long, long fall. Sakura couldn't even see the street below. There was only darkness down there.
"Hinata!" she shouted down at the heiress, who stared up at her with fuzzy eyes. "Hinata, are you okay?!"
"I'm…" The Hyuuga shook her head. Blood was matting her hair, darkening it further. "I can't…"
She started to slip out of Sakura's grip. The medic's hand was still covered in her own blood: it was making holding on to Hinata even more difficult.
"Hinata!" Sakura screamed. "Snap out of it!"
Hinata's head jerked towards her, suddenly alert. Her grip tightened.
"I'm okay." She panted, on the verge of hyperventilating. "I'm okay."
Sakura smiled. "You're okay?"
The heiress shook her head again. "I'm fine. Pull me up-"
The Byakugan went wide.
Sakura jerked her head up, just in time to see another paper clone headed straight for them.
Time slowed to a crawl.
There was no way she could dodge it. If she tried to pull Hinata up, it would blow up the both of them. If they both went to the side, the blast would still reach them.
But if she dropped her and jumped back… Hinata was still stunned. There was no way she'd be able to stick to the side of the building, and even if she did, she'd be a sitting duck for the other clones Sakura could hear behind her.
Left, right, up… nowhere to go.
Only one choice.
Down.
'Oh, this is such a bad idea.'
Sakura screamed in frustration and kicked down and forward, front-flipping off the edge of the building. Hinata screamed with her as Sakura's momentum carried the both of them off the lip, out into the black night.
As she flipped downwards, Sakura caught sight of the clone hitting the side of the building and exploding, sending more rubble tumbling down towards the streets of Amegakure after her and Hinata.
And then, everything became rushing wind and impenetrable darkness as they fell into the void.
"Katsuyu," Sakura murmured, holding Hinata tightly and placing her own body between the Hyuuga and the oncoming ground. The girl had evidently given up on staying conscious: the exploding clone had done more damage than had been apparent.
"Yes?" the slug on Sakura's collarbone murmured back, clinging fearlessly to her.
"Do what you can."
"Of course."
Their hundred-and-some foot tumble was going to come to an end sooner rather than later.
Sakura hit something: a balcony, an arch, or an overhang. She didn't know what it was in the dark. All she knew was that it was hard, and that hitting it while traveling at about half her terminal velocity hurt like nothing else had in her life.
She smashed right through it, and then hit something else even harder, crashing through the air, coming ever closer to the street.
The world was going black and red.
One final obstacle. It was made of wood: a cart, or something like it, placed by the side of the street.
The Haruno reduced it to matchsticks, landing with a thunderous boom and an explosion of splinters.
There was a moment of silence, heavier than the darkness that cloaked the rain-soaked streets.
But silences were made to be broken.
"Ow."
Sakura pulled herself up slowly, gently setting Hinata to the side. Very, very slowly, she put one hand to her head to combat the horrendous headache.
"Goddamit."
Everything ached.
"Shit."
Everything burned.
"FUCK."
But nothing was broken.
That didn't stop Sakura from muttering some of the most virulent curses she knew as she slowly pulled herself to her feet. Hinata stirred.
"Lady Katsuyu?" Sakura bit out. "Are you-"
She turned, feeling something damp on her back. She reached back, twisting to look.
Katsuyu was crushed along her entire backside. The slug had put herself between Sakura and the street. She was unmistakably dead.
Sakura stared.
"You didn't have to do that," she choked out, tasting blood.
Another slug slithered from Hinata's collar, slightly smaller than it had been before.
"I disagree," it said politely but firmly. "If I hadn't, you would probably be in much worse condition."
Sakura sighed, then winced: even that small movement shot pain down her back like a fiery whip.
"Yeah," she whispered, trying to ignore the crushing pressure in her chest. "Thanks."
"A little premature for thanks, don't you think?"
Sakura turned, favoring her left leg heavily, and found Konan floating in the air behind her.
The real Konan. Patchwork wings flowed out behind her, and she held a long paper sword in her right hand. She looked like an avenging angel.
The Haruno chuckled. "Ah, crap."
She shuffled backwards, Konan watching her imperiously the whole time, and bent down next to Hinata, shaking her lightly.
The Hyuuga shifted, but didn't rise.
"Lady Katsuyu," Sakura said, sounding exhausted. "Please get her on her feet again: I'll buy you time."
"It may take a minute," the slug said quietly, sitting on the back of the Hyuuga's neck. "Will you be-?"
Sakura cracked her neck.
"I'll-"
Then her knuckles.
"Be-"
Sakura Haruno smiled, her green eyes bright in the abyss of Amegakure's streets.
"Fine."
She settled into a relaxed stance, her entire body aching, her muscles burning, and her head pounding.
None of that mattered. Hinata was behind her, and Hinata was vulnerable.
And Sakura would be damned if anything happened to her.
Her smile widened, and her hands tightened into fists, her gloves creaking.
"C'mon," she snarled.
And Konan swept forward, her amber eyes cold, leading with her paper sword.
"This place sucks."
Shino glanced at his teammate, who was shuffling along the catwalk, his hands in his pockets.
"It is rather unyouthful," Rock Lee said slowly, carefully stepping over a protruding pipe. He smiled, glancing down at the dark water running below them. "However, it is doubtlessly the finest sewer system of any village!"
Kiba just groaned. Akamaru made a chuffing sound that reminded Shino greatly of a chuckle.
It was indeed an impressive sewer system. A pity about the smell.
Neji's omnipresent frown intensified. "We're nearing the surface. I can't see any farther than that: the chakra screen resumes there."
The second infiltration team had taken the opposite path as Sai and his hawks. Rather than moving in from high above the village, they'd done the exact opposite and approached from below. It was fortunate that Neji's Byakugan had revealed the extensive undercity necessary for this approach.
It was unfortunate that said undercity had eventually diverted into a sewer as the team made their way closer to the center of the village.
Now, they were all slowly making their way along an old, rusting catwalk, with barely enough room to have two walking side by side… and the guardrails were suspicious at best.
Considering the nature of the near-black liquid running along below them with a constant muffled rumble, Shino found that somewhat distressing.
"You guys don't get it," Kiba whined, sounding more like a dog than a peeved teen. "It's the smell… I can barely handle it."
Tenten rolled her eyes. "Stop complaining. It's not that bad."
"Hey! Just cause your nose isn't as awesome as mine, doesn't me you can just-"
"Is Akamaru throwing a fit?" Tenten pointed out. The dog looked back at her, panting slightly, and shook his head. "See?" she said with a triumphant air. "You could learn from him you know!"
"Stupid dog," Kiba muttered. Akamaru whined. "Making me look-"
Neji stopped in his tracks, and Kiba bumped right into his back.
"Hey? What's the-" he protested, briefly, before the jonin slapped his hand over his mouth.
"We're not alone," the Hyuuga hissed, motioning back to stop the rest of the party in its tracks.
"Quite right."
The baritone emerged from the darkness ahead of them, shortly followed by a cloaked man in a mask. He stepped forward, the catwalk subtly ringing with every step.
"I was wondering where I would find the rest of you," he said slowly. "And here you are: scurrying through the underbelly of the village." He paused, staring at them. Neji could see his single visible eye, slowly rotating.
The rest of his face was hidden behind a white mask, splattered with seemingly random black markings.
The Byakugan couldn't see through it. The whole thing just registered as a solid clump of chakra, stuck over the man's face, masking his features. Neji wondered how he'd done it.
"Like rats," the man finished, taking another step forward. Neji raised his hands; beside him, Lee did the same. Tenten and Shino, at the back of the group, leapt straight up and stuck themselves to the ceiling, Shino's coat falling down around him.
Kiba and Akamaru jumped left and right respectively, sticking themselves to the sides of the sewer. The enormous white dog snarled, and his partner did the same.
"So, little rats." The Uchiha came to a stop, leaning casually against one of the railings, uncaring of the array of shino watching him from every angle.
"What do you do now?"
"Maybe we'll just take you down here, huh?" Kiba suggested, his elongated fangs all too obvious. "Do everyone a favor and put you out of their misery." Akamaru barked, his eyes slits.
The man chuckled. "The only one being put down today is you, Inuzuka." He pushed himself off of the railing. "And your mutt."
Kiba didn't respond. He just charged, along with Akamaru.
"Gatsūga!"
Neji slowly closed his eyes.
'Idiot.'
The masked man shifted as slightly as possible to the left, and Akamaru blew right by him. Kiba readjusted, setting himself straight for the man's chest… and Tobi spun, lifting his leg high, and stomped the Inuzuka straight through the catwalk with the horrific sound of tearing metal, spiking him down into the sewage below.
Neji fired a blast of air from his palm, tearing away the railing as it sped along the catwalk. Tenten unleashed a hail of shuriken, trailed by Shino's insects, which flowed along the walls of the tunnel, darkening them further.
It was an impressive showing, but none of it touched the masked man. Though the walls and catwalk behind him were completely torn apart, he simply phased through every single single thing thrown at him.
Neji blinked. Despite how it looked, parts of the man's body simply vanished wherever an attack made contact: chunks of his chakra system disappeared, transforming him into a patchwork figure. How could he survive something like that?
"Hmm," the impossible man muttered. "Is that really all you can do?"
Lee stepped in front of Neji, his arm stiff. "If that is what you think, perhaps you would like to try me?" he challenged, lowering his hand, the palm extended.
The masked man crossed his arms and snorted. "If you insist, I suppose I…"
He trailed off, then held up one of his hands.
"Wait."
"Huh?" Lee's hand lowered slightly. "Do not think you can distract me! I have been practicing my subtlety! There is no way you will-"
"Not you," the man said abruptly, turning his head to the side, as if listening to something. His arms slowly fell to his sides, and he straightened up, while the Konoha shinobi watched, confused.
"Well," he slowly said, his tone on the knife edge of curiosity and annoyance. "It seems today is your lucky day. I have something else to attend to."
He took a step back, towards the edge of the wrecked catwalk. "Oh. But before I go…"
Tobi ran his hands through two quick signs, tilting his head up. "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu."
Team Gai and Shino leaped back, along with Akamaru, watching as an enormous fireball burst from where the man's mouth should have been, rocketing up into the roof of the tunnel. It struck with a tremendous roar, lighting up the dark for hundreds of feet in either direction, and the roof crumbled, tons of concrete crashing down and ruining the path forward.
The man in the white mask waved as the rubble fell around him. "Perhaps later," he said mockingly, and then vanished, leaving behind nothing but the din of the collapsing tunnel.
The rubble finally stopped falling, the new obstacle settling, and for a moment there was silence.
A silence which shattered when Kiba exploded from the sewage, swearing viciously and covered in something that defied categorization, but smelled like the product of a thousand years of constipation.
"You son of a bitch!" he shouted, sprinting up the wall, leaving behind a viscous trail. "I'll-!"
He blinked, taking in the devastation wrought upon the tunnel, and turned to Shino, watching him from the ceiling.
"Hey!" he called up, his face twisting in confusion. "What happened? Where'd he go?"
"He left," Shino said flatly, inspecting the rubble. He'd lost several insects in there.
"He just left?" Kiba shot back. "What the hell?! That doesn't make any-"
Neji cut in, wrinkling his nose. "He said he had something else to attend to." He glanced at Tenten, who shrugged, storing her weapon scroll. "I have no idea what he meant," he finished.
Kiba just blinked again, considering the new information.
"That guy's an asshole," he decided.
Tenten laughed, and Kiba chuckled with her.
"Anyone got anything that'll wash this shit off?" he asked, gesturing to himself.
"Kiba… I don't believe that is the kind of thing that washes off," Lee offered.
Kiba sighed. "Dammit."
Akamaru whimpered, pacing along the wall towards his partner. Then, he took a long, obvious sniff. The dog immediately groaned and backed up, putting as much space between himself and his partner as possible.
"Oh c'mon, Akamaru!" Kiba groaned. "It's not that-" His nostrils flared, and he wobbled on his feet, almost falling off of the wall.
He shook his head viciously. "Okay. That's pretty bad." Then he sighed again. "Let's just get the fuck out of here. Maybe the rain will clean it off."
"Agreed," Neji said. "There's a path around the rubble, over there." He gestured vaguely to the left. "Let's get going."
At that moment, a small slug slithered from his collar, alighting on his shoulder. He looked over at it, blinking. "Lady Katsuyu?"
"You need to hurry!" the slug insisted. "The other team… Sakura is in terrible danger!"
"What?" Lee practically shouted, his voice rebounding off the walls. "We must go now!" He seized the slug, bringing it in close to his face. "Lady Katsuyu! Show us the way!"
"Of course!" the slug murmured. "Though if you would mind not squeezing so tightly-"
"Oh!" Lee loosened his grip. "My apologies! But please! We must hurry!"
"Just continue down the path," the slug said, much more calmly. "I will direct you once you're closer."
And so, Team Gai and two-thirds of Team Eight set out once more, moving along the walls and ceiling of Amegakure's sewer, deeper into the village. But despite Katsuyu's warning, all of them were thinking the same thing.
'What did that guy have to 'attend to?''
AN: So, we've started.
Thus begins the Battle of Amegakure.
This chapter kinda swelled out of control. Meant to cover the whole of Naruto's fight with Pain, but then Konan showed up and basically told me that wasn't gonna happen if I didn't want the chapter to be like 17,000 words.
Which I didn't, for obvious reasons.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter will cover Naruto's fight with Pain… and maybe just what Tobi went off to do.
Remember, do the standard things: follow, favorite, review… they make me very happy.
Fun Fact: Tobi's only ever told one lie.
Serendipity, out.
Edit: Version 2 is up as of March 2015. Chapter is now much easier to read. I apologize to everyone who had to deal with my obsession with one word paragraphs.