Part Five: Akatsuki/Orochimaru

Fu was not surprised to find Naruto the way she did.

Since he'd returned from the Leaf Village two months ago with a handful of stolen Hyuga scrolls, he'd been holed up in his part of the Tailed Beast Temple nigh-constantly. Occasionally, he would emerge for meals or to retrieve more ink and paper from Roshi.

His Jinchuriki family checked in on him a few times each day, but they'd seen him get like this before. There was no stopping the stubborn boy once he fixated on a problem.

So there Fu was, knocking on the door and receiving a half-aware grunt in response to come in.

Part of Kurama's Temple had been set up as a study for Naruto to work on seals and such (they all had one), which was exactly where she found him sitting. He was buried in paperwork and scrapped seals that were haphazardly thrown onto the floor. Failures, she assumed. There were many.

"When was the last time you ate?"

"A few hours ago."

"Trick question. You haven't eaten since last night," she corrected dryly.

Naruto looked at her over his shoulder. Fu winced at the dark bruises under his eyes. "Was busy."

"I noticed, funnily enough. Which is why I'm here to intervene."

"I promise I'll eat–"

"Now. Excellent, I'm glad we agree!"

He frowned at her. "Fu, come on. Just a little longer."

She sighed and strode up to him, setting her hands on his shoulders. "I admire you for working so hard, but I think you know at this point you aren't going to make any progress until you get some food. And sleep."

"I sleep."

"You haven't slept in two days."

"You don't know that."

"I do," Kurama rumbled between them. The fox sounded exasperated. "My chakra might keep you going, but it cannot substitute for actual sleep."

Naruto huffed. Fu couldn't help but grin at his annoyance. "You missed Gaara and Han this morning."

"Where'd they go?"

"The Land of Lightning? Like we've been planning this past week?"

He jolted into a moment of wide-eyed awareness. "Wait, what? That was–was that today? Oh shit, um–"

Fu snorted into a fit of giggles. "You were really focused! They didn't want to distract you, but Han asked me to make sure you got some proper rest."

"I'm sorry," he groaned.

"Don't be. We know why you're working so hard. None of us blame you."

He sighed, finally sounding as tired as he looked. Fu knew him well enough to realize he was going to crash any minute now that his fatigue was catching up with him. "Alright mister, let's get some actual food in your stomach before you pass out on me."

"Uh-huh," Naruto rubbed at his eyes and Fu took that as her cue to haul him to his feet, guiding him to the temple kitchen where they could eat.

Roshi was already there, polishing off a bowl of stew, when they walked in. He looked up at the pair and nodded to them. "I see you pulled him out of his cave."

"That's rich, coming from you," Naruto grumbled.

"Eat, boy. You won't make any progress if you don't give your body a chance to recover."

Naruto growled half-heartedly at him, but stumbled away to find food with Fu not far behind. They were just sitting down when more company arrived.

"Ah! Naruto's here!"

That was Hotaru, one of the more recent additions to the temple, followed closely by her Master Utakata–the Six-Tails Jinchuriki. The pair of them had joined roughly a year ago, when the Tailed Beasts made contact with Saiken. There had been a brief crisis concerning Hotaru and her clan, but it had been resolved quickly enough.

They had chosen to come along when the Jinchuriki invited them. Hotaru wasn't a Jinchuriki, but none of them were about to separate her from Utakata. Besides, it wasn't like she was the only normal human to take up residence on the islands around the Tailed Beast Temple in recent years, though she was the only one actually living there.

"Mornin' Hotaru. Mornin' Utakata," Naruto mumbled.

"It is past noon," Utakata told him, raising an elegant eyebrow.

"Uh-huh."

"Sheesh, kid! You sound drunk!" Saiken, the Six-Tails, spoke into their minds.

"He might as well be," Kurama admitted.

"Shaddup," Naruto shoved his spoon into some of the stew Roshi had prepared and began to eat, eyes drooping.

Fu jabbed her fork in Hotaru's direction. "Hey, I forgot to ask yesterday! Did you pull off that Water-Style Jutsu I showed you? I know it uses up a lot of chakra."

"I almost have it," Hotaru replied as she and Utakata began to gather some food for themselves. "I don't quite have the control right, though. Do you think you could show it to me again later?"

"Yeah! I just gotta make sure Naruto eats. It's only a matter of time before he–"

Naruto's head fell to the table with a soft thump, barely missing his stew, and within moments he was snoring.

"Yep, there it is," Fu gave the now-unconscious teenager a sympathetic pat on the back. Hotaru hid a small smile behind her hand. Roshi muttered something about stubborn children.

"Good grief," Kurama sighed.

In hindsight, Gaara had known his and Han's mission to the Land of Lightning was likely to not go as quietly as they'd planned. It came with the territory of being missing-nin and Jinchuriki to boot.

It had been decided the pair of them would try to reach out and make contact with the two Hidden Cloud Jinchuriki. Han was the best of the bunch at diplomacy and Gaara had picked up a thing or two from him over the years.

Fu was a bit too energetic and eager for such missions. Naruto had gotten pretty good, but he was currently fixated on tearing apart every facet of the Caged Bird Seal. Utakata wished to focus on Hotaru's training for the time being.

Roshi was Roshi.

At least the Land of Lightning wasn't as far from their home as the Land of Earth. It was hardly the lengthy trip Gaara, Naruto, and Fu had taken nearly three years ago.

Even so, he really would have preferred to not encounter the Akatsuki.

They'd sensed the fight from some distance; Shukaku and Kokuo had picked up on the Two-Tails' chakra running rampant, but it had grown alarmingly weak the closer they got. Han and Gaara had only needed to glimpse the destroyed town before they moved in.

They would have normally been more cautious, but Matatabi's Jinchuriki appeared to be on the brink of death. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Two men with the trademark Akatsuki cloaks were at the center of the devastation, with the Jinchuriki barely alive. Gaara noted that one of them stood in the center of a bizarre diagram formed from blood. His skin had turned black and a skeleton pattern had formed over his body–a jutsu, perhaps?

Whatever the case, their arrival caught the weary Akatsuki off-guard. Han and Gaara immediately went on the assault.

"The fuck is–!" Gaara silenced the one standing in the diagram, snatching him with sand and dragging him out. Immediately, his skin changed to a more natural, paler tone. So it was probably a jutsu, after all. He made a note of it.

The other Akatsuki barely leapt out of the way as Han's steam armor propelled him forward, delivering a savage blow that destroyed even more of the already ruined town. He spat elemental blasts at Han, though it was clear his chakra had been drained by his fight with Matatabi's Jinchuriki.

A single steam blast with nothing held back blew apart the wind and fire combination as though it weren't even there. Han engaged the Akatsuki in hand-to-hand combat while Gaara dealt with his partner.

A triple-bladed scythe was hurled at him and contemptuously blocked by his sand. Gaara seized the weapon and hurled it away from its master, who shouted angrily. He did not care.

The Jinchuriki had discussed the Akatsuki over the years. Each and every one of them was to be killed on-sight.

Gaara wrapped the man in his sand and crushed, ruthless in his application of force. He waited for a few moments for the screams to subside, but they never did. He frowned and applied more pressure.

Still the screams persisted.

"Shut him up already!" Shukaku growled.

Gaara wasn't sure why the Akatsuki wasn't dead, so he went the extra mile. Sand forced its way down the man's throat, into his nostrils, his eyes–wherever he could find a way inside the Akatsuki's body. Pretty soon, he was choking on the sand, still trapped in the tomb and utterly helpless.

His chakra was muted, but he still wasn't dead.

"Is he immortal?" Gaara wondered aloud.

Even Shukaku seemed a little disturbed. "Dunno. You crushed him up good. It's not like he can move, though. Trap his ass and get to Matatabi's Jinchuriki before she taps out."

He didn't have any better ideas, so Gaara buried the Akatsuki in a few tons of rubble (shifted with his sand and piled on for good measure) and hurried over to the dying Jinchuriki. He remained aware of the man's chakra still persisting. Maybe he really couldn't die.

Matatabi's Jinchuriki, however, was in dire straits. He was quick to press his hands to the woman's torso and funneled as much of Shukaku's chakra into her body as he could. Slowly, the Tailed Beast within her stirred from its weakened state and made groggy contact with them.

"Shukaku?"

"You ain't looking so good there, kitty," Shukaku snarked.

"The Akatsuki…they caught us by surprise. We thought they were dead. But they can't die. I killed the one with the mask twice over. I burned the one with the scythe."

"Well, we stuffed him with sand and crushed him into pulp. Even if he's alive, he can't move," the tanuki grunted. "Kokuo's handling the other one. Can't believe you got your ass kicked this badly."

The cat's voice took on an annoyed tone. "Honestly, fuck yourself."

"Enough," Gaara cut their argument off. "Save your strength. Your Jinchuriki is in bad shape. She needs to heal or you'll both die."

Matatabi seemed too tired to acknowledge that with anything more than a tired grunt. As her chakra was replenished, the Jinchuriki began to heal at a better pace. Gaara relaxed a bit as the heavy damage was repaired with that familiar, supernatural speed.

Still, the Jinchuriki remained unconscious. But as she recovered, Matatabi spoke in their minds again. "Gyuki is coming."

"Yeah, I bet the Raikage's pissed if he's heard about the Akatasuki pulling this off," Shukaku snickered.

"No. Now. I can sense him."

Gaara froze as a mass of chakra closed the distance and lunged at him. He and Shukaku reacted as one, sand rising with a chakra cloak to block the electrified blades that stabbed at him.

"Stop," Matatabi's voice was strained, but it was enough. The new Jinchuriki paused and Gaara warily did not retaliate. "Not enemies."

The chakra cloak enveloping Gyuki's Jinchuriki–the Eight-Tails, Gaara realized–slowly faded and he matched the man. The blades were sheathed as he knelt and added his own chakra to the surge attempting to heal Matatabi and her host.

"What happened?"

"Akatsuki," Gaara answered, glancing over his shoulder. He could still hear the sounds of fighting. "One is down, the other is still fighting Han and Kokuo."

He didn't have time to think about whether or not it was wise to trust this new Jinchuriki, not with the situation as things stood. He didn't actually know how much damage the Akatsuki Han was fighting had taken.

"Bee, Yugito and I are out of mortal danger now," Matatabi said. "Go."

"Bee" was silent for a moment more before he stood, a new chakra cloak forming, and launched himself towards the sounds of fighting. "Gonna beat yo ass, 'cause you the last, whee!"

Gaara heard more explosions and thunderous impacts a few moments later. He checked on the chakra signature of the Akatsuki he'd buried alive and was satisfied that it hadn't moved.

He continued to heal Yugito and Matatabi.

Gaara kept himself aware of his surroundings, though the fighting had largely faded into the distance. By the time Yugito stirred and woke up, he could sense Han and Bee returning.

He felt the Akatsuki he'd buried alive suddenly vanish and jerked his head sharply in the direction of the body. Sand formed a defense around him and Yugito as he picked the tomb apart.

There was plenty of blood, but the Akatsuki in question was gone. Summoned away, perhaps?

The news wasn't great when the other Jinchuriki returned. They didn't have the second Akatsuki with them.

"He got away?" Gaara guessed.

"Not sure how," Han was frowning. He looked a little banged-up, but he'd already healed anything serious, from what Gaara could see. "I turned his guts into putty and this guy stabbed him clean through the heart. We turned our backs for two seconds and he disappeared."

"He must've summoned his partner away," Shukaku grumbled.

"The other one's gone, too?" Han's frown grew deeper.

"Not sure there's much left of him, but yes," Gaara admitted.

"Without you two, there wouldn't be much left of me," Yugito croaked. Her eyes were still closed; she must've been communicating with Matatabi separately from them.

"The Akatsuki intend to hunt all Jinchuriki for their Tailed Beasts," Han replied.

"We've heard of them. And of you," Matatabi said. "You came for us as well, did you not?"

"It was our intention to ask if you wanted to join the rest of us," Gaara admitted. He glanced from Yugito to Bee. "Though under the circumstances, perhaps that should wait."

"Agreed," a new voice–Gyuki, the Eight-Tails, Gaara assumed–made itself known. "Raikage will be rampaging before long. Bee and I will get Yugito and Matatabi back to the Hidden Cloud Village. You four should retreat before A gets here."

"Be careful," Han tipped his hat to them as Gaara and Bee helped Yugito stand up. Once the Two-Tails Jinchuriki was on her feet, Gaara and Han rushed off back towards their own territory.

The last thing they needed was to encounter the Raikage after fighting two Akatsuki, but if nothing else, the battle had confirmed one thing for certain: the Akatsuki had finally decided to make their move.

Their hunt for the Jinchuriki had resumed.

Naturally, the rest of their brethren took to the news of the Akatsuki's movements about as well as was expected. Each of them dispatched extra clones to search for the wounded pair.

The Jinchuriki had a number of clones active across the country at all times, each of them transformed and hidden to get whatever information they could. It helped keep them in the loop to a degree, though naturally they couldn't get a clone deep into a village or the like.

The half-dead Akatsuki duo Gaara and Han had encountered were almost certainly outside the Land of Lightning by now, which left their escape routes limited. All of the Jinchuriki's new clones were armed with teleportation seals and sent to cover the terrain beyond the Hidden Cloud's borders.

They expected the pair (if they actually were alive) to retreat westward towards their home range close to the Land of Earth. But if the Jinchuriki could track them down before they got too far away and kill them…

Well, given how badly they'd been wounded by Gaara, Han, and the Cloud Jinchuriki, the entire group had agreed to be prepared in the instance one of their clones discovered the duo. Naruto even agreed to take a break from his maddened pursuit of deconstructing the Caged Bird Seal to be better prepared for a fight. At least it gave him a chance to get some proper rest.

Things were tense for the following week. All they could do was wait.

Then one of Roshi's clones popped out of existence and the information it had recovered flew back to him. The Akatsuki were in the Land of Fire, alive and well enough that they'd managed to assault a Fire Temple. They'd killed a monk and had just cashed in his bounty at a covert black market.

The clone had prepped its teleportation marker and then vanished itself. The six Jinchuriki gathered together within moments and pooled their chakra together for a long-range jump.

There would be no mistakes this time.

They emerged in a forest and were quick to get their bearings. The sounds of a fight filled the air and chakra signatures were close by.

It seemed someone else had beaten them to the party.

They slipped through the greenery and checked things out from the shadows. Leaf ninja had engaged the Akatsuki duo, headed by Asuma and Shikamaru. They stalked on the outskirts of the fight, observing the combatants.

The Akatsuki that Han had apparently killed was standing on the sidelines with a case in-hand, content to watch for the time being. The other was–well, a mess. He was covered in stitches and what little they could see that wasn't covered by the black cloak was malformed. Even his skull had noticeable depressions, and yet he fought as if he were just fine.

So crushing him to death hadn't worked. Naruto had an idea and communed via the Tailed Beasts' telepathy with the others.

"Cut his head off, but leave it as intact as you can," he told them. "I have an idea."

It was a selfish idea, but he didn't give a damn considering who their enemy was.

His suggestion was acknowledged. Cut the head off the scythe-wielder and gang up on the last one until he was dead beyond a shadow of doubt.

It was just as well they settled on their plan, because things were getting ugly for the Leaf Ninja. The scythe-wielder was the picture of a lunatic villain, grinning madly as he explained for the whole world to hear how his jutsu worked. It was a terrifying jutsu for someone who was essentially immortal, Naruto would admit, but that didn't change how stupid it was to tell someone how your ability worked.

Shikamaru had probably already worked it out, to be fair, but Asuma had just taken some nasty hits. The other Akatsuki had decided to start moving, apparently deciding to claim another bounty on the Jounin's head.

"Now," Kurama growled. "While they are distracted."

The Jinchuriki moved in with blurs of supernatural speed, enhanced by their Tailed Beasts. Fu immediately launched a silken rope and yanked the scythe-wielder from his little ritual circle, thereby deactivating his jutsu. She pulled the startled man right into Naruto's kunai, which promptly removed his head.

That he kept screaming in fury even after being decapitated was disturbing, but at the moment it was annoying more so than anything.

As his body crumpled uselessly to the ground, the other Jinchuriki immediately lunged for the other Akatsuki. He had caught sight of them and attempted to flee, but it was useless. Roshi and Han lashed out at close range while Utakata and Gaara harassed him with chakra bubbles and sand.

Naruto whipped out a scroll as Fu took to the air, flying past the shell-shocked Leaf Ninja to assist in the killing. He grabbed the Akatsuki's decapitated head and placed the bloody mess on the parchment.

"Hey! You fucking asshole! What do you think you're–!"

With a hand sign, Naruto sealed the head away, rolled up the scroll, and pocketed it. He glanced at Shikamaru and the other wounded Leaf Ninja. All were wary and possibly horrified by the sudden emergence of six Jinchuriki.

He fixed his eyes on Asuma, who was hurt badly enough that he definitely needed treatment sooner than later. "Do Kurenai and your kid a favor; stay down."

That was all he said. Naruto cast a quick flame jutsu upon the Akatsuki's decapitated body. He wasn't sure if that would do the job, but he had other priorities at the moment.

He leapt after the other Jinchuriki, who were doing their best to pin down the survivor and crush him. Fu was spitting silk nets while Gaara and Utakata tried to force the Akatsuki into her traps. If he managed to avoid them, Roshi and Han bashed him straight back into the line of fire.

Honestly, it was a little impressive he'd lasted this long, even if it was only a handful of seconds. Naruto brought that to an end.

He waited until the Akatsuki had slipped from Fu, Gaara, and Utakata for a third time. In the moment before Roshi and Han circled in to force him into the killzone, Naruto smashed into his back with a Teleportation jutsu. The impact slammed the Akatsuki into the dirt with enough force to leave him utterly stunned.

And that was enough.

The Jinchuriki coalesced as one and absolutely destroyed the Akatsuki. Gaara had him pinned with sand before he could blink. Naruto drilled a Rasengan into his spinal cord and Han matched him with a brutal, steam-enhanced punch that snapped the neck.

The fact that he was possibly immortal was not lost on them. They didn't stop there.

Fu's chakra silk formed a hardened blade that pierced where his heart should be. Gaara took the Akatsuki's limbs in his sand and crushed them into powder. For good measure, Roshi called a warning for them to all back off, then spat a glob of lava onto the ruined body.

They stood around the sizzling, popping mass of molten rock and flesh, waiting just in case. But within seconds of the assault, they all felt his chakra signature wink out of existence. Slowly, still sensing everything around them as carefully as they could for some trick, they relaxed.

Roshi cooled the lava with a thought and the warily approached the melted, shattered corpse. Naruto knelt and took the Akatsuki's head in his hand. With scarcely any effort, he yanked it off the rest of the body and held it up, studying it curiously.

"What do you think? Dead?"

"Dead," Kurama agreed, sounding satisfied. "Even if he is somehow still alive, his body is ruined. There is no coming back from this."

"I suppose he wasn't immortal after all," Han prodded the ashen remains with his foot and grimaced as an arm turned into powder. "He must have had some way to avoid fatal damage, but clearly there was a limit."

Naruto dropped the head and set it aflame for good measure. As he did, he felt more chakra signatures coming in. He recognized at least two of them; Choji and Ino. "More Leaf Ninja incoming."

"You have the head you wanted?" Roshi asked.

"Yeah."

"Then let's leave. We're done here."

Their objective complete, the Jinchuriki once more gathered together, funneled their chakra, and warped back hundreds of miles to their home island.

The head–he came to learn the head's name was Hidan–was only intact (well, mostly) for one purpose, and one purpose only: for Naruto to experiment with in his attempts to crack the Caged Bird Seal.

He got tired of the screaming within moments from the animated skull, so he slapped a silencing seal on its mouth. It clearly couldn't asphyxiate, so all it did was piss Hidan off.

But it brought Naruto much-needed quiet as he continued his work.

It was an aggravating process, though. The Caged Bird Seal hadn't seen much change since its creation, but reversing the damned thing was a headache, even with the Hyuga scrolls he'd stolen. They detailed plenty about the seal itself, to be sure. He was able to replicate the Caged Bird and place it onto Hidan's skull with relative ease.

But apparently none of them had worked out how to remove the seal. At least, not without killing whoever bore it. From what he could tell, the seal had only been removed in the past as a "mercy" for an honorable death. The process invariably killed the Hyuga in question, searing their brains such that the resulting seizures killed them.

That was, naturally, unacceptable for him.

Which was why he'd taken a break for the time being, having failed to remove the Caged Bird Seal from Hidan without causing fatal damage. He'd tried half a dozen times since getting his hands on the head and had met no success.

His day decided to get worse.

He became aware of one of his clones vanishing somewhere in the Land of Fire and froze as the information flooded back to him. Naruto had left some hidden clones near the Leaf Village outskirts to keep an eye on Hinata and anyone she cared about, just in case of emergencies.

One of them had been tracking Hanabi's group and just saw her team unknowingly wander into a hideout the Jinchuriki knew belonged to Orochimaru.

"Shit," Naruto snarled. His clone had at least set up a Flying Thunder God seal, but he didn't have a lot of time to get those stupid kids out of there. Of all the places to–what was Sasuke doing?!

He created a clone to alert the other Jinchuriki and warped away with a surge of Kurama's chakra.

Hanabi's heart was in her throat. Her breaths came fast and panicked as she slammed a door behind her and slid to the ground.

She had no idea where they'd wandered, but it was clearly not the safehouse her sensei had told them to find. He'd hurried off, sensing something even Hanabi knew they weren't ready for.

Her hands were wet; covered in the blood of her teammates. That–that thing had loomed out of the shadows before they realized they weren't alone, bitten one of them in half. The huge, white tail had squished her other teammate into a wall while she'd been frozen in horror.

She'd run from the hissing, terrible voice that spoke of taking her body, or her sensei's body, for its own.

She'd run. Hanabi had never thought herself a coward, but she felt like one now. The shame wasn't enough to make her come out of hiding.

Where was the path out? She'd lost track of her surroundings in her desperation to flee. How was she supposed to–

The Byakugan. Of course, she was so, so stupid–

She heard the hissing again, closer, and her breath stuttered as her concentration wavered.

"Come, little one. There is nowhere to hide. You prolong your suffering, running like this. It would be easier for you, far less painful, to accept your fate. This I promise you."

Hanabi felt her lower lip tremble. She didn't want to die. Not like this.

Chakra surged through the darkness. The monster hissed, startled, and Hanabi felt her heart stop. She knew this power.

Another beast stalked the hideout now. The fox, the Jinchuriki, she knew it was him–

The sounds of something rampaging echoed through the dark halls. She heard a terrible howl, the hissing from before, then a loud crash. Hanabi yelped as a white tail smashed the door open and sent her sprawling across the floor. Pure adrenaline helped her scramble to her feet.

That huge, white snake with the awful human-like face bit at a monster cloaked in red energy and bones. It swiped with razor-sharp talons and tore the snake's lower jaw open. A shriek of agony chilled Hanabi to the bone.

Glowing white eyes locked onto her for a split-second and then the fight resumed.

It was a bloody frenzy as the Jinchuriki and the white serpent writhed and screamed against each other. They ripped and tore brutal wounds, but the differences were keen: the Jinchuriki healed. The serpent did not.

It quickly realized it could not conquer this foe and attempted to flee, spitting venom absolutely everywhere, but a shockwave deflected the acidic substance with enough force to knock Hanabi on her ass again. The Jinchuriki's claws snatched the snake by the tail, dragged it back into the room, and he leapt for its head.

Savage blows rained down upon the snake as it bit and screamed and thrashed in its desperation to escape.

The sight of its blood and fear stirred something within Hanabi; suddenly, the monster wasn't so indomitable or terrifying. Slowly, her panic turned to fury, fury for her dead team and the hot embarrassment for the shame it had dealt to her. Also present was her rage for the Jinchuriki, for his role in her sister's pain–

She snarled, Byakugan activating and chakra flowing to her hands as she charged towards the fight. She fixated on the snake first, ducked under its swinging tail and drove a Gentle Fist blow into an unnaturally long organ that might've been its equivalent of a stomach.

The monster spat blood and spun towards her, incredulous at her audacity. "Insolent child!"

It snapped at her, only for a crimson tail to lash around its throat and yank it back. The Jinchuriki hurled it back into the wall and leapt onto the snake. His claws clenched around its throat, throttling the creature as it tried to throw its coils around him.

Hanabi began to charge, only to stumble and gasp. Something was in the air, the iron tang of blood and something else that made her fingers tingle, was slowly making her numb–

The tail's point drilled towards her and a blood-red arm burst from the Jinchuriki's back to slap it aside. Before she could blink, the hand had picked her up and unceremoniously tossed her away from the fight.

She breathed, felt the numbing sensation fade a little as the monsters savaged one another.

Bones crunched and the snake screamed. With a terrible, bloodcurdling wrench, the Jinchurki quite simply stripped its head from the remnants of its body. He howled, furious and victorious, as the body flailed with fractured nerves.

The Jinchuriki dropped the severed head and turned towards her. Hanabi rose to her feet, Byakugan still ready, and charged him. She took a breath and instantly stumbled, feeling numb again–what was that?

He was at her side in an instant, grabbing the girl and backing away from the ruined body of the serpent. The crimson chakra and bones melted away and the furious gaze of Naruto met her own.

"What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea where you–"

Hanabi threw a blow at him and Naruto caught her arm contemptuously, scowling. She felt like she was moving through molasses for how numb she was.

"Stop it."

"You stop it."

"For fuck's sake–" Naruto made a Shadow Clone before she could react and the copy held her back as he brought out a scroll–

"Thief! You were the one who stole the Hyuga scrolls, weren't you?! Sensei was right, you–"

"Your sensei is going to get a piece of my mind for how stupid he was," Naruto snarled as he wrote something on the scroll. "I don't know if he was just ignorant or that fucking stupid–"

They ranted back and forth for a minute until Naruto finished what he was writing, then with a few hand seals he slapped the scroll. Energy emerged from the writing, grabbing hold of the serpent's body and dragging it into the paper. Probably an Uzumaki Sealing Jutsu, Hanabi realized.

The snake was gone. The strange scent alongside the iron of blood began to fade.

He tied the scroll up and put it away inside his cloak before twisting to face her. With a sign, his clone vanished.

"Where's your team?"

"They're dead," she spat.

Naruto's mouth pressed into a line. "Where are they?"

"I said they're dead," Hanabi felt her stomach heave. Why was she shaking? "They're dead you asshole, are you deaf or–"

The next second, she was throwing up. She was aware of Naruto's hand rising, but he clearly thought better of it because he pulled back before making contact with her shoulder.

He waited until she was done. Hanabi shakily wiped her mouth, the sour taste forcing a grimace onto her face.

"Where's your team?" Naruto asked again, quietly.

"I don't know," she answered hoarsely.

More clones appeared and set off into the dark tunnels. Naruto took Hanabi by the arm and twisted her around, leading her away from the scene of bloody carnage. She stumbled after him, half-tempted to strike him in the back with a Gentle Fist, but she had a sneaking suspicion he'd block her attempt.

"Why did you come here?"

"Sensei said there was a safehouse close by," she mumbled.

"He didn't take you there himself?"

"He said Itachi was nearby."

Naruto stopped and jerked his gaze towards her. "Itachi."

"Yeah."

He scowled, muttering something under his breath before leading her off again. Hanabi could only follow with the grip he had on her arm–not painful, but he wasn't letting her go.

Daylight was a relief.

"What was that thing?" She asked.

"That was Orochimaru," Naruto answered. "Or what was left of him. You were lucky the Third Hokage crippled him a few years ago, or it would have been a much harder fight. You would be dead."

"Oh."

He paused again and glanced down at her–when had she stopped using the Byakugan?–with a frown. "You're in shock."

"Am I?"

Naruto sighed and pulled her over to a nearby tree, which she leaned against before sliding to the ground. More clones appeared. "Find Sasuke and bring his ass here. I don't care if he's fighting Itachi to the death."

The clones rushed off. Naruto crouched in front of her. "Are you hurt?"

"Um. No."

He reached out and she had half a mind to slap his hand away, but he pressed two of his fingers to her forehead and closed his eyes. She felt a wave of chakra flow over her, sensing briefly before he pulled away.

"Why'd you steal our Clan Scrolls?"

"I think you know why."

Hanabi's face screwed up. "Don't pretend you did this for her."

"Why else would I?"

"Because you're a selfish prick, you take what you want and leave nothing but pain–"

"Your sister is the only person in the Leaf Village I'd do any of this for," he cut her off. "She means more to me than you can know."

"Don't even–what, do you love her or something?"

He stiffened with surprise and Hanabi realized, incredulously and with a little horror that–

"Oh gods, you love her."

Naruto opened his mouth, froze again, then stood up in a hurry. Hanabi saw a shape moving through the trees and thought for a second that her sensei had arrived–

The figure was taller than Sasuke, the cloak marked by blood-red clouds, and she felt another jolt of fear course through her.

"Itachi," Naruto shifted to stand between him and Hanabi, who somehow pushed herself to her feet. If he was here, then was her sensei–

Itachi held a scroll up and tossed it towards them. Naruto caught it, never taking his eyes away from the man. "What is this?"

"Information," Itachi replied simply.

"About?"

"I don't have time to answer. Sasuke will be here soon. I still have work to do," the Uchiha replied. He sounded tired despite his attempts to appear otherwise.

Before Naruto or Hanabi could move, the man made a sign and disappeared in a flurry of cawing ravens. The Jinchuriki studied the scroll for a few moments before he put it away, looking a little disturbed.

Sure enough, Sasuke darted onto the scene with one of Naruto's clones in the lead just a few minutes later. The clone vanished as they arrived.

Sasuke opened his mouth only for Naruto to pull out the scroll he'd sealed the snake into, which he threw at the Uchiha. "Next time don't send your student into one of Orochimaru's hideouts, dumbass."

The horror on her sensei's face was all Naruto waited for. He twisted towards Hanabi and seemed to debate something, but ultimately remained silent. He made a hand sign and in an instant, warped away with teleportation.

Naruto and the Jinchuriki all looked at the scroll in the center of the table with equal parts wariness and suspicion. They'd checked it for traps over the course of the last hour and a half, but hadn't detected anything out of the ordinary.

The only reason they didn't immediately destroy it was due to Itachi's interaction years ago with Naruto and Kurama. He was an enigma, not necessarily an enemy despite being part of the Akatsuki, but nor was he trusted.

The consensus to open the scroll was finally reached. Roshi carefully untied the knot around it and slid the parchment out. His brow furrowed deeply the more he read.

"Well?" Fu burst out, impatient and anxious.

"It's the Akatsuki," he told them.

"What about them?"

"A lot about them," Roshi answered, passing the scroll over to Gaara.

By the time it reached Naruto, he was stunned; Itachi had given them a comprehensive analysis of all the current and past Akatsuki members he was aware of, their strengths, weaknesses, and abilities as he knew them. Base locations, safehouses, details about their overarching plans–

The scroll was a goldmine.

"Why would he do this?" Utakata demanded, still distrustful. Naruto didn't blame him in the slightest. He couldn't believe what he was reading.

"Without speaking to him, we can't know," Kurama grumbled. He'd realized first, three years ago, that Itachi was more than what he seemed to be. Of what nature that was, he couldn't say, but it was clear the missing-nin was not so simple a criminal as they'd known him to be.

Something else was going on here.

"Do we trust this?" Saiken asked uncertainly. "Given who it's coming from…"

"We should take it under advisement, but also confirm it as best we can before accepting it as truth," Han suggested, looking around at the other Jinchuriki.

Gaara considered it before nodding. "I agree. If it is true, then it's worth its weight in gold, but even so, I'm not willing to trust Itachi at his word."

"Naruto?" Utakata queried.

"...Something was wrong with him," Naruto said, thinking back to the encounter. "Maybe he'd been fighting Sasuke, but there was something…"

He pursed his lips in thought. "I think Han's right. We should be careful with it. I'll try and track Itachi with clones in the meantime. If this is a trick, we should be prepared to kill him if we get the chance."

"That's fine with me," Shukaku grunted.

"I feel the same," Chomei added.

The other Tailed Beasts murmured their assent in the minds of their hosts.

"Then we're in agreement," Roshi declared. "We'll be prepared, come what may."

Naruto wound up lying awake long into the late hours of the night. He stared up at the ceiling, replaying the day's events in his mind.

You love her.

He hadn't been able to answer Hanabi. He did care about Hinata, deeply, but love? He…wasn't sure. They'd been so young. Were still so young.

Naruto hadn't dared to entertain even the idea of love for a long time. It hadn't been important, shouldn't be given the danger his enemies presented. Sometimes he even considered saying something to Fu and Gaara (they were not as subtle as they thought they were, he thought fondly) about the risks. But really, didn't they all deserve to be happy after the lives they'd led?

"You are as foolish as your mother," Kurama told him, sounding anything but annoyed.

"I was under the impression you didn't really like my mother," Naruto replied.

"I did not. But I still felt her happiness, try though I did to ignore it."

"Is there a reason you're trying to–to pair me off?"

"I am doing no such thing. All I said was that you are a fool."

"Sure," Naruto sighed, finally closing his eyes. "I'm sure that's what you meant."