Not Sick Chapter 28
The End of the Beginning
Naruto walked on unsteady feet to face the man who had broken him. Kakashi followed after, ready to catch him if he fell. Sakura was behind the both of them, tending to Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha; Itachi had come far too close to bleeding out, so Sakura focused on him while Sasuke stirred, barely conscious. He was only distantly aware of what was going on around him. All that mattered was that reinforcements had arrived, and he, Naruto, and Itachi were not dead.
Nagato waited for him, eyes filled with exhaustion and resolve.
"Naruto," he finally said, his rasping voice barely carrying through the rain. The blond stared hatefully at him, his hands clenching and unclenching.
"I must apologize."
Naruto's gaze shifted to incredulous, and then back to baleful. A cold fire relit in his gut, racing along his nerves and dousing his brain in mercury. The rain faded. He could only hear one thing.
'I'm sorry.'
"You're sorry?" he growled. Kakashi looked like a statue at Naruto's arm, a statue that could burst into sudden, murderous action. Loathing was pouring off of him, as thick as the rain. Naruto took a step forward, away from his teacher's side. "You're sorry?" he shouted.
"It's a little late to be sorry!" Finally, Naruto was crying. He couldn't contain it anymore.
"You kidnap Sasuke, you kill my friends, and the best you can do is apologize?!" Naruto screamed. He staggered forward. Sakura was staring at him, along with Sasuke. The Haruno's mouth was pressed in a grim line. "Do you think I care?!" Naruto was staring right into Nagato's sole Rinnegan. His tears ran freely, but his eyes were deadly and focused. "I don't want an apology," he hissed. "I want you dead."
Nagato didn't flinch away. Blood sluggishly ran from his empty socket, leaking under his eyelid.
"Of course you do," he said. Jiraiya attempted to cross his arm and failed, watching his two students talk. The toads on his shoulders quietly bickered. "Everything I've done… it's more than understandable." He coughed, weakly. "My sole goal has been to break you." Nagato sighed. "I was so sure, Naruto. That you were wrong, and that I was right. That all I had to do was show you, and that you would finally understand. Maybe even come of your own will."
Naruto spat in Nagato's face. The redhead didn't react. "I was wrong." He sagged in his armature. "You've experienced my pain, Naruto. I took all I could from you."
He grimaced. "But you didn't understand. Maybe you never could have. I gambled everything on my pain being greater than yours, and now, I've lost everything." His gaze shifted to Konan, still unconscious. "Mostly everything," he amended.
"I don't care."
Naruto's voice was nothing like it had been just an hour before. It was a flat, cold blade, jabbed between Nagato's ribs. The redhead smiled bitterly. "Of course you don't."
The two students stared at each other for another moment.
"Is that all you have to say?" Naruto said. The fire in his gut was burning out, leaving behind ash and acid. He felt nothing but hollowness and exhaustion. The world had seemingly shrunk to him and Nagato; even Amegakure's endless rain no longer registered.
The man who had broken Naruto shook his head. "We both have the same dream, Naruto Uzumaki, even if we've found different answers." Naruto stiffened. However much he wanted to deny it, Nagato was speaking truth. "That was my mistake here; if either of us had triumphed over the other, that dream would have remained alive." Nagato broke away, staring up into the rain. "But I chose to salt the earth rather than risk your answer triumphing over mine."
"I never had an answer," Naruto whispered.
"You still don't," Nagato responded. "But you're young. These things take time." He coughed up yet more blood, staining his teeth once more. "Now, my mistake has killed our hopes. Jiraiya may still fight for peace-" he nodded towards his master, who just glared back, "-but I am dying, and in my arrogance I broke you. The world's next best chance."
He leaned back with a whistling breath. "That is why I asked to talk to you. And that is why I must make amends."
"There's nothing left for you." Sasuke finally spoke up, limping to Naruto's side. He cast a look back at his brother and Sakura. "You wasted your time trying to save the world," he muttered, glancing at Konan, "instead of what you had left. All that's left is for you to die."
Nagato frowned. "I will die," he said, and Naruto stared at him, an invisible weight lifting off his shoulders. The drum in his head grew just a bit quieter. "But I refuse to die in vain."
He turned to Jiraiya. "Sensei. Would you do me a favor?"
The Sannin snorted. Nagato pressed ahead regardless.
"Wake Konan," he whispered, and the Sage stiffened. "I would like to say goodbye."
"And if she attacks?" Jiraiya asked. Nagato shook his head.
"She won't. She'll listen to me." He grimaced in pain. "Wake her. Please."
Naruto watched the back and forth. He didn't cared anymore. The voice in his head was still there.
'I'm sorry.'
Nagato was going to die. But it didn't matter. Not really. His friends were still dead. Amegakure's god, so frail in his throne, nothing but skin and bone, didn't matter anymore. He barely existed. Soon, he wouldn't.
And Naruto's friends would still be dead. He watched Jiraiya approach Konan with flat eyes. His head ached. Jiraiya bent down, laying a hand on Konan's arm, and jolted her system with a shock of chakra. There was a slight glow as he did so, like a spark in the night.
The paper woman shot to her feet, looking madly around. Her eyes landed on Jiraiya, and she swept back in a flurry of sheets, razor wings rising.
"Konan," Nagato hoarsely whispered. His friend stopped, staring at him. She looked around, taking in the situation. Sasuke and Kakashi glared at her, three Sharingan gleaming in the dark. Naruto just kept staring at Nagato, unseeing. Konan looked back to the redhead.
"No," she said. Her wings trembled. "Nagato. What happened to your eye?" She sounded ready to destroy the village all over again. Nagato sighed.
"We've lost, Konan," he whispered.
"No." Konan shook her head, fury streaming off of her. "I can still win here. My tags…"
"Would be pointless," Nagato said harshly. "I'm a dead man, Konan." He gestured feebly at himself. "Can't you see it?" He took a ragged breath. "I just… wanted to say goodbye."
Konan cocked her head. Then-
"Oh, Nagato." She sounded horrified. "You can't."
"I must."
"You'll waste yourself like that?" Konan demanded. "For him?" She pointed at Naruto. "Look at him! You made him a shell: you got what you wanted. You'll undo all that now?!"
"What's the alternative?" Nagato shouted roughly, his voice cracking. Konan stared at him, her eyes wide and frantic. "That I die, and he walk away from here useless?" He shook his head violently. "I won't have that, Konan! I refuse!"
"Your dream-!"
"He will carry it!" Nagato hissed. "You've been my pillar, Konan, and my friend, but I've failed. It's not up to me anymore."
Naruto finally spoke up. "Your dream?" he asked. Both Konan and Nagato turned to him. "Why should I?" He shook. "Why should I carry it, when you took so much?"
Nagato glared at him with his single eye, manic. His gaunt face seemed to stretch into a rictus parody of itself. "I took it," he whispered. "I took your friends, Naruto. I destroyed another answer because I disagreed with it. Like a petulant, foolish child." Without ceremony, he raised his hands, clasping them in a simple sign: two fingers extended from each hand, one pair nestled in the other hand's palm.
"I had no faith," he rasped. Jiraiya was staring now, along with Kakashi; they felt something coming, but had no idea what. "No faith that anyone else could find an answer." Nagato laughed. "But now, it seems I have no choice but to be selfish." He shook his head. "Take away one of your burdens, and replace it with another." The Rinnegan pinned Naruto. "I'll put my faith in you, Naruto Uzumaki; better that you carry our dream a bit farther, rather than it drown in this ruin I have created."
"Nagato," Konan whispered, her eyes imploring. "Nagato, please."
Her friend turned to her. For the first time in a long time, Nagato Uzumaki smiled.
"I took his friends, Konan," he said, his voice failing. "It's only fair that I give them back."
The ash in Naruto's stomach exploded into fire. The acid vanished. His head pounded once, intensely, and then the world snapped back: the rain, the wreckage of Amegakure, Jiraiya, Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, and Itachi. They were suddenly there, real. Nagato trembled, his hands shaking, and Naruto's eyes locked on him. The rain was deafening.
"What?" Naruto rasped. He couldn't move. "What the hell are you saying?"
"Please, Nagato," Konan gasped. "Don't leave-"
"It's okay, Konan." Nagato's voice was soft and sure. "It's alright. This is the consequence of my decisions. I'm setting a new path." He craned his head to look her in the eyes. "Do what you want when I am gone; what is left of the village is yours." He chuckled. "You will be their new god."
Naruto broke, rushing forward. Jiraiya caught him; the Sage's eyes were wide with something no one there could identify. "What the hell are you-!"
"Gedō," Nagato gasped, sounding like he was bearing the weight of the world. "Rinne Tensei!"
Somewhere deep within the ruins of Amegakure, a great face erupted from the ground in an invisible explosion. It silently stared out over the wreckage of the village, the eternal rain passing right through it.
Then, it opened its mouth impossibly wide. Six spears of green light leapt out, soaring straight up into the sky and beyond the clouds. They froze for a moment, like archers picking their targets, and then bolted back downwards. Frozen shards of life, they fell from the sky like viridian lightning.
Pain's last and first gift to Naruto Uzumaki burst through the clouds, carrying with it Nagato's final hope.
Hiashi Hyuuga turned back towards the Village Hidden in the Rain, his brow furrowing. His daughter's body light in his arms swayed with the motion, her sodden hair halfheartedly swinging.
"What is it?" Tsume Inuzuka had finally released her son; now they walked side by side with their nin-dogs, a hunting pack with nothing to hunt. The group had just moved beyond the rain; the downpour abruptly terminated at the edges of the village, creating a curtain of water and mist. Yamato shook his head dully; he'd tired himself out carving a path out of Amegakure with the Mokuton, simultaneously running a vanguard and rearguard action. He was carrying Neji Hyuuga's corpse, hanging from the crook of his arm.
Hiashi's eyes narrowed. "Something is coming."
Inoichi let out a brief, aborted laugh. "'Something.' Perhaps you could be a little more specific, Hiashi?" Beside him, Ino followed Hiashi's gaze up towards the sky.
"Oh…" she whispered. Her father looked to her and then towards what had caught her attention.
Five green spears descended from the sky, making their way directly towards the group of Leaf-nin.
"What on earth?" Shizune had slung Rock Lee's broken body over one shoulder, and Tenten's over the other. She instinctively clutched them tighter at the sight of the lights. Shibi Aburame, carrying his own son's body, wordlessly turned and began running, his stride tearing up the concrete bridge beneath his feet. The rest of the group followed after a moment's pause.
The light had emerged from Amegakure; it was almost certainly nothing good. The way it streaked towards them seemed to confirm their fears. This was some weapon of Pain, striking at them from within the village.
It moved faster, faster. The retrieval team's initial burst of speed had carried them away from the glowing bolts, but now the light had accelerated enough to begin to gain. The gap closed, the green streaks clearing the curtain of rain. A kilometer, eight hundred meters, five hundred, two hundred…
One hundred meters. It would strike at any moment.
It was at that exact second, as the vivid lights sped into an undodgeable vector, that Hiashi Hyuuga realized what their targets were: himself, Shizune, Shibi, and Yamato. The only common factor there was that they were all carrying bodies.
No, he realised. They weren't the targets.
The bodies were. His daughter, and her peers.
Hiashi frowned, what faint rain there was beyond the village whipping past his face. There was no sensible reason for that to be the case. No reason for Pain to target the corpses of ninja he had already slain. It made no sense, an utter waste of chakra.
Nevertheless, the light grew closer and closer. It was barely ten meters away now. Hiashi poured on another burst of speed, but all it accomplished was buying him another half-second.
The light reached Yamato first. Tired as the Mokuton-user was, he lagged behind the group by a half step. The brilliant green bolt hit Neji Hyuuga's body like a lightning strike, and Yamato cursed. He dropped the broken, pierced Hyuuga, half expecting him to explode or something similarly gruesome. Hiashi winced, the most microscopic of motions, as his nephew's body hit the ground and rolled.
Tenten and Rock Lee were next, both bodies jerking as the light hit them. Shizune stopped, closing her eyes, and waited for whatever was next. Kiba Inuzuka leapt in front of the second to last beam, his fangs bared, but it did him no good; the light sailed right through his stomach and buried itself in Shibi's son, still held in his father's arms.
Just as Hiashi was holding Hinata.
He was the last to be struck; the green bolt soared right for his daughter, uncaring that he was between it and her. Hiashi could see it coming from behind through the Byakugan. It was just outside his blind spot.
There was nothing he could do to stop it.
That didn't stop him from trying. Hiashi cradled Hinata's body close, trying to saturate it with his chakra. If he moved enough into her system, it was possible that Pain's jutsu wouldn't be able to gain a foothold. It was an impossible endeavor. Hinata had been dead long enough that her system was completely dry; attempting to introduce more non-hostile chakra was like trying to fill a dam with water pumped through a straw.
The viridian light struck him in the back, pouring out through his chest and into his daughter's body. Hiashi stared at it, his face a statue. He blinked.
It looked... familiar. The light looked familiar. Felt familiar. It sunk into Hinata's body, and Hiashi stared down. There was something inside him, screaming out. Something that was absolutely impossible.
Kiba's nin-dog barked viciously, sitting at his master's side. The Inuzuka was glaring at Shino's body, waiting for the unknown. The rest of the retrieval team was all frozen, barely breathing. Whatever was about to happen, it would doubtlessly be bad.
Neji twitched. The entire retrieval team's gaze snapped to him, eyes going wide. The teen slowly rolled, over, getting his hands under him, and laboriously pushed himself to his feet. He stared at his uncle with uncomprehending eyes. The holes in his hand, shoulder, and chest were gone as though they'd never been. He smacked his lips, as if waking up from a long nap, and blinked.
"Ow," he muttered. Suddenly, comprehension returned. He lurched back, his hand going to his chest. The retrieval team backed away as well. Kiba said something that made his mother unconsciously slap him upside the head.
"What." Neji looked at Hiashi again, this time with eyes that were full of confusion and desperation. "Uncle? How… why are you-!"
Rock Lee yawned, stretching his arms. Shizune screeched and dropped him to the bridge, and the enthusiastic ninja's yawn turned into a muffled, slurred protest. Tenten seemed to snap awake, looking around wildly, and wrestled herself from Shizune's grasp as well, smashing to the ground and rolling towards Lee. They ended up crashing into each other with a panicked noise, and both leapt to their feet, circling back to back. Lee's hands dropped first, and he stood there like a stringless puppet.
The Retrieval Team looked around wildly as the dead sprang back to life. Shino was next; one moment he was a corpse, and the next he was tapping his father's arm.
"Where are we?" the Aburame croaked. Shibi looked at him expressionlessly, and then set him down without a word. The teen stumbled for a moment, and then regained his footing, staring around with his usual deadpan expression. Kiba watched him with an incredulous look, staggering forward.
"Shino?" he clapped his hand down on his teammate's shoulder. "Shino, what the fuck?"
Shino stared back through his opaque glasses, his brow wrinkled. "Kiba? I don't understand. How are we here? I was sure Pain had…" He paused, his hand wandering towards his gut. "Wasn't I injured?" The Aburame's hand dropped. "Ah. I must be dead."
Kiba laughed harshly. It sounded like a bark. He shook Shino by the shoulder. "You were."
"Hmm."
Hiashi didn't pay any attention to whatever else passed between the undead Rookies and the rest of his Retrieval Team. He was entirely focused on his daughter's body.
Hinata took a sudden, sharp breath, her eyes snapping open. She stared up at him, impossibly healthy, inexplicably alive. She blinked, and it was the most beautiful thing Hiashi had ever seen.
"Father?"
Hiashi opened his mouth. He had no idea what he was going to say.
Choji Akimichi, who had made an abrupt about face as soon as Shino had regained consciousness, interrupted him. The teen was sprinting back across the bridge into the rain, tears streaming down his cheeks. He opened his mouth, screaming at the top of his lungs as he pounded back towards the village, Ino and her father desperately sprinting after him.
"Shikamaru!"
Shikamaru Nara woke from the deepest sleep he'd ever had. He sat up, his eyes only half-open, and blearily looked around. The last thing he remembered was a blinding white light, and an unbearable heat.
Hmm. Had he fallen asleep in the sun again? He could have sworn-
A drop of rain hit him in the eye, and Shikamaru blinked. It was only then that he realized he was sitting in the middle of a downpour. He frowned, looking around.
He was in the center of an absolutely enormous crater. There wasn't a standing building around for kilometers: all that was left was dust and rubble. What hadn't been torn to bits was melted and burned. What hadn't been melted and burned had been reduced to dark spots on the ground, steadily being washed away by the rain. Some sort of unthinkable explosion of energy had occurred here.
Shikamaru blinked again, and suddenly the vivid sensation of his arms and legs bidding his body farewell leapt from his memory. He clutched his head, curling over in the rain, and bared his teeth.
"Hmm," he finally said, looking around once more and trying to comprehend what could have caused such destruction. There was only one word he could have used to describe it. That word was, of course, "troublesome."
What came instead was rather different.
"What the fu-"
"It's done."
Konan sagged, and Pain's hands bonelessly fell to his sides. He rattled out a single, long breath, his whole body leaning forward. His hair draped itself over his pale face, hiding his eye socket.
"What's done?" Naruto rasped. He looked back and forth between the two, the last remnants of the original Akatsuki. "What's done?"
"Your comrades." Konan didn't look at him as she spoke. She continued to stare at Nagato, taking in each of his gasping, fading breaths. "Nagato brought them back."
Naruto blinked, whipping his head towards Nagato. Neither of them said anything. Jiraiya's two students stared at each other, Nagato's Rinnegan gleaming in the dark. Slowly, the purple eye began to dim.
Jiraiya stepped forward. "Impossible." He shook his head. "Impossible. If he could do that…"
"I didn't know how, Sensei," Nagato whispered, his voice little more than the hiss of escaping air. "And by the time I divined the method… Yahiko had moved on. And..." He shared a dark glance with Konan, who gazed back mournfully. "We judged the cost to high."
Jiraiya stopped, staring down his student. Nagato sighed, barely heard over the pounding rain. Naruto was still staring at him, unblinking. The whisper in the Jinchūriki's mind had vanished. Instead, all he could hear was his own heart pounding, louder and louder with each beat.
It wasn't just his. It was far too loud to be just his. This was six hearts, all beating anew at the same time, so loud he was sure the sound would burst his own. Naruto curled in on himself, recently dried eyes wet with tears again. He clutched his chest, feeling the heartbeats as though they were his own, and gritted his teeth. The blood thrumming through his body, and the rain, hurling down and exploding around him, swallowed the grinding sound.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
"That's it," Nagato said, shifting one last time to glance at Nagato as the blond looked up, barely seeing through clouded eyes. "I'm done." Nagato's head hung low, as if he were in a deep sleep. Naruto took a step forward, and Konan swept in front of the redhead, arms extended defensively. She shook her head.
"I'm sorry, Jiraiya, Naruto. I did my best." Nagato's voice and the rain were nearly interchangeable. "I tried, however much a waste it was."
He heaved one last infinitely heavy breath. Konan closed her eyes.
"Let's hope you both have better luck."
The light faded from Nagato's eye, and like a rusty door, his eye gradually shut. His shoulders glacially, almost gently, slumped forward, his body hanging limply in his armature. Suddenly, he looked more like an old, frayed puppet than a man, left in the village to rot. The blood running from his nose and eye socket seemed to Naruto like discarded red string, abandoned and draped over his body.
Nagato didn't look happy by any metric, but Naruto couldn't shake the feeling he almost looked satisfied. Carefully, Jiraiya moved up, towards Konan. He shared a look with his former student, and then laid his hand down on her shoulder. The woman shuddered, shaking her head again, and then stepped aside. Jiraiya strode to Nagato's body, laying his hand on the man's neck. He remained there for a moment, checking the pulse of Amegakure's god.
When he wordlessly pulled back, Naruto knew that there was no question. Pain was dead.
Naruto stared at the body, rooted where he was. A crimson tidal wave swept through his mind, wiping everything away. The heartbeats, having momentarily retreated, replaced the rain, echoing through his head.
'Are you really that selfish? That you would throw all of them away, just for another?'
Thump.
'Give up.'
Thump.
'Your sacrifice will be the one that matters.'
Thump.
'You didn't really feel pain, Naruto.'
Thump.
'Your friends are dead.'
Thump.
"Your village will think you a disgrace.'
Thump.
'That thing you carry could bring this world peace, but you're too frightened to use it.'
Thump.
'And you have no plan. Submit.'
Thump.
'You, Naruto Uzumaki, will be the change that brings peace to the shinobi world.'
Naruto shook, his hands clenching. Past all that, past all the hatred and threats and rain and blood and fear-
'It seems I have no choice but to be selfish.'
'I'll put my faith in you, Naruto; better that you carry our dream a bit farther, rather than it drown in this ruin I have created.'
Naruto's hand clenched, still over his chest. The heartbeats stopped.
He collapsed to his knees with a ragged gasp. "Haaaa…"
"Naruto?"
Jiraiya was moving towards him down a very narrow tunnel, his face twisting in concern. Naruto sucked in another breath, his grip over his heart tightening. He collapsed on his back, his legs folding under him.
"Naruto!"
That was all there was down here: the rain, and his name.
Sakura's face interspersed itself between him and the sky. Naruto blinked, his vision gradually going white. It looked like the world was being sucked into a brilliant void. A second later, Kakashi's face joined Sakura's, the both of them staring down at him. Sasuke arrived barely a moment afterwards, his slate-black eyes barely familiar.
"Naruto."
The void swallowed the world, and Naruto Uzumaki closed his eyes.
AN: Nearly two years ago, Ekusukallybaa and I had a crazy idea. An arc focused around putting Naruto through hell, so he could and the Elemental Nations could fracture in interesting and dynamic ways in the future. And maybe, just maybe, produce some bitching fights and speeches in the bargain.
Thanks for being a part of that. I hope you enjoyed the Amegakure arc.
Now, the future's wide open.
Serendipity, out.