AN: This is the darkest chapter I've written..for this fic...so far.

The Nara Complex was almost always a quiet and dour place. It was a common trait for them to be lazy or absent-minded since even before they joined The Leaf Village. On that night, a room was especially gloomy. A father and son sat on opposite sides of a shogi board, moving pieces one after the other. None were interested in the game though.

"Neither of us has made a single good move," Shikaku said, smacking one piece over his son's. "Now, you can take my piece and bait me into breaking my defense."

Shikamaru chose to reinforce his own position. "Do you want to play for me?"

He moved up one of his other pieces over advancing into a safe, offensive spot. "Naruto...really is something else, huh?" He nearly shook is head at another misplay. "Jonin a year later than Kakashi but already powerful enough to make Kage think twice and setup the village's destruction."

"...Yeah." His father taking one of his pieces didn't faze him.

"You made chunin without even trying; I'm sure you'll become an even greater shinobi than you are now."He watched him finally take a piece. "What are you going to do?" Silence was an adequate answer. "I wouldn't know what to either if I were in your place." Shikaku frowned when his hung his head. "...Choji is dead."

Shikamaru flung the board aside and stood up. "Just what the hell do you want?!" He glared at him, doing nothing to provoke so much as a twitch.

"Can't I have a conversation with my son?"

"Bullshit! I know something is off, and you know I know something is off! Just say it! What the hell do you want from me?!"

Shikaku, remaining unfazed, stood up. He looked his son straight in the eye and waited. The second he saw tears, he embraced him, even though he was unsure he'd react the way he wanted. He stiffened for a moment before hugging him back. A long muffled wail into his chest confirmed his attempt was a success.

Everything Shikamaru was holding back came out. His grief, anger, and guilt poured out of his heart. It was one thing to have lost his best friend and another when it happened under his own command to save someone who didn't want to be saved. The senselessness of it all and what awaited them was anything but fair or tolerable. No perfect solution to their problems existed. All would have to suffer for none knew how long until some normalcy returned, if what they considered normal would even exist after.

It marked the end of their collective grieving and recovery period. What laid next for them, as Tsunade said, wouldn't allow either anytime soon. They needed to become far stronger to see it. Kimimaro was far from the only ninja of his caliber in the world, and the young man he was defending wouldn't be the same the next time they met. Fact they hardly recognized him before made it worse.

Anko was excited and terrified when she came to the Hyuga Complex two days after to find Hinata packed for a trip brimming with determination. They made a few stops around the village before leaving. While not necessary, Hinata's favorite foods would add to the experience. It was something Anko considered necessary though. Little touches added to the overall finished product.

"How did you get Hiashi of all people to agree to this?" Anko, examining her map scroll, asked as they traveled through some distant woods along a lake.

"I said I would not fight the elders if they wished to place the branch family's cursed seal on me." Hinata's eyes didn't once depart the direction they were headed. "Should I not return, what need to worry about the Byakugan falling into the wrong hands? I would sooner kill myself than allow a man to despoil me, and I would destroy them with my own hands before taking my life." Anko's surprised look did nothing to her focus. "Father knows I meant every word."

"...No suspicions about me at all?"

"If there is something I needed to know, you would have told me already, and we all have known what you did for some time."

They kept quiet for the rest of the trip. Neither quite recognized each other. Anko was acting a little more demure while Hinata was far more overt even without the subject of Naruto to raise her ire. His actions had an effect on both. Neither quite knew the extent of them on everything else.

When a building in a clearing came into sight, Anko put away the scroll. "We're here." She turned to her follower. "I need you to use up all your chakra: not enough to be exhausted but enough that you won't be able to use a jutsu."

Hinata squinted for a moment before setting her pack down. "If that is what I have to do." She leapt on to the water's surface and began performing her blend of the main branch's two best techniques.

Anko did not believe her eyes when she first saw it. During the fourth, she whistled at the beautiful ball of whirling chakra blades emitting from her. Naruto falling to her was far more believable to her then. It was the equivalent of a far more precise Rasengan favoring shredding over warping. She didn't know what would happen if both met the other though.

It took a few dozen performances before Hinata's chakra network was depleted. "I…" Her breath was shaking. "I did it." She stumbled back on to land, nearly falling into the water on her way back. "Now what?"

A smile spread across Anko's face as her heart raced. "What do you think?" She flickered behind her and snaked an arm beneath her chin, locking her in a rear-naked choke.

"Y-You!" Hinata tried to emit chakra from her tenketsu but her depleted and surprised state kept her from performing a Body Blow. "N–" She fell limp.

Giving her lips a moist lick, Anko shuddered. "This is going to…" She tossed the girl over her shoulder, picked up her pack, entered the decrepit building, and found a dark murky room with the large drain she requested. After setting her down, she formed the Shadow Clone Jutsu sign and created several clones to get everything in order.

The first thing Hinata noticed when she came to was her lack of clothes. Scaled, rope-like things binding her limbs were the second. One slithering across her body, occasionally licking her skin, was the third. Blindness was the fourth. Cold iron bars against her back was the fifth. What made her struggle in panic was none of them.

"Where?! Where is it?!"

"It's your blindfold," Anko said, watching her from a chair. "Has anyone ever told you how big your ti–" She shook her head as the girl relaxed. "Never mind."

"I… I understand why you were hesitant now." Hinata swallowed and shook while the snake coiled around her body performed its task of making her uncomfortable. "You can begin; I can handle it."

Anko burst into laughter before she stood up and walked over. "That is the exact same thing I said to Orochimaru before he started."

"Wha–" Thousands of fiery needles jabbing into two sides of her neck sent her into convulsions.

Grinning, Anko kept her left pointer finger on the side of her throat and her right pointer finger on the side of her neck. "Come on!" They were filled with concentrated chakra of opposing force, which created a jolt traveling through her that didn't affect the snakes nor leave a mark. "You wanted this, right?!" Her eyes, voice, and heart burned with malice.

Hinata was given barely enough time to breath before receiving another shock. Her binding snakes held her mostly in place so she wouldn't move out of the jolt. The one wrapping around her kept her from losing focus beyond its other role. If she weren't in agony, she would've put it all together herself. Whether or not she would understand the overall purpose by the end remained to be seen.

The pain continued.

Sasuke and Sakura were surprised to find notes signed by Kakashi on their front doors that morning. It was a call to meet where they became a team for training with potentially false promises of new jutsu. Both were sparring with each other with one-sided results due to Sasuke's mature Sharingan, and they didn't want to talk to Anko, so they decided to give their regular unbelievable sensei a chance. As usual, he wasn't there at the posted time.

"We should get started," Sakura said. "You know he'd want us to refine what we already have."

Humming, Sasuke examined their surroundings. "Do you really think Kakashi would pull the exact same thing he always does after everything that's happened?"

"Do you not?"

"Good poi–" Sasuke threw her aside, drew a kunai, and blocked the blade of a sword.

A familiar purple-haired woman wearing a cat mask turned the hilt and slid the blade across the kunai, using its longer edge to draw a cut across his cheek. "You're faster."

Sakura squinted at the woman as she got up. "What are you doing?!" Her eyes widened when the ground behind Sasuke burst.

"The Sharingan can't help you if you can't see your enemies." Another familiar anbu had his kunai arm locked behind his back. "If we were the real deal, she would've just split them."

"This is training then." Sasuke stepped out of his failing grasp, activated his Sharingan, and streamed lightning chakra through his kunai.

Tenzo, ironically bound in an illusionary tree, would've nodded if his mind didn't think his body was restrained. "Hands-on is some of the best."

"You're at that level of chakra control already." Yugao added lightning chakra to her sword, drew shuriken with one hand, and threw them at his teammate with the other.

Biting his lip hard enough to bleed, Tenzo broke out of the illusion and made the snake sign, capturing a distracted Sakura in a claustrophobic tree house. "But still not good enough in general."

Sasuke glanced at his sword-wielding enemy and back at his Wood Style one. "...Dammit." He already lost, but it wasn't like he was the type to give up so easily.

"That's enough." Kakashi lazily stepped out of the nearby foliage without his nose in smut. "You both did better than I expected."

The tree house shifted form until it was a spacious prison cell housing a pouting Sakura. "What were we supposed to do against this?" She tried to shake the wooden bars for emphasis.

He looked to his old comrade. "It is a bit much."

"You said not to take it easy on them."

"Because no one is going to from here on out," Sasuke said.

Kakashi nodded. "We're going to war. Maybe not now, but it's inevitable at this point." He frowned beneath his mask. "And Naruto is going to be training with Orochimaru to destroy all of us: Naruto who defeated a Tailed Beast, beat someone who defeated a member of the Sannin, and outdid almost every single one of you while holding back...at the same time."

Sakura rolled her eyes as the wooden cell gradually sunk back into the earth. "We get it; we suck!"

"Your words." He lifted his forehead protector to unveil his Sharingan. "Now, let's get serious."

They were hardly the only ones who realized the magnitude of their situation. While they remained the strongest among their classmates, Naruto still surpassed them. He couldn't fight against both at the same time, but that was hardly the point nor one he would take unless his back were against a wall. None knew who would replace him on their team if such a replacement even existed. The other survivors were the same.

For three straight days, Hinata anguished in that room. She wasn't allowed sleep, food in meaningful quantities, much water, nor any breaks. Anko cheated exhaustion through tagging out with her clones. The snakes she summoned were far from the number her charge was aware of. Each time one needed rest or food, they'd replace the other like their summoner's copies. Shocks would go from her neck, to the underside of her ribs, and her navel just to add variety, taking away what little comfort their was in familiar pain. It was a perfect, endless hell.

"Feeding time!" The present Anko shoved a handful of trail-mix into Hinata's mouth and followed up with a near empty bottle of water. "You suck on that like you know what you're doing."

Hinata gasped when she threw it away. "F-Fuck you!" She convulsed at another jolt. "Th-This is all your fault!"

Anko raised an eyebrow. "How?" She punctuated her question with a shock to her navel.

"You… You taught him what Orochimaru taught you!" She snarled. "You let him touch you!" A shock to her neck only added to her surging anger. "I-I was supposed to be his first in everything!"

"He barely even knew you existed!"

"I was there for him before anyone else!" Hinata braced herself for a shock that didn't come. "I…" It came in her neck again.

"You sat back and watched, like everyone else. He only really noticed you when your cousin beat the shit out of you. Guess you got him back for that, huh?"

She convulsed from another shock and groaned. "Neji.. Why do I have to feel guilty over that whiny, loser hypocrite?!" The snakes made her struggling ineffective. "Always crying about his seal and destiny! Even during our fight! I could have just activated it if he wanted something to cry about!"

Anko gave her something to in the form of a jolt. "In the end, he died for the main branch, just like his father, like he was supposed to." She grinned. "But it wasn't for the head."

"...Father gave me away like I was a pet he did not want anymore." She grit her teeth. "For Hanabi."

"Jealous of your little sister?" She shocked the underside of her left rib.

"I-I was father's favorite! Me! Not Hanabi! Not the one who took mother away!"

"Whoa..." She jabbed her lightning fingers into her neck. "What about Kurenai?"

Hinata almost raised a twitching eyebrow at the familiarity in her tone. "Kurenai-sensei?" She hung her head. "Like mother but not mother… Sweet but cold, like father." The surge of pain to her navel almost blotted out the one in her heart. "P-Probably hates me."

"Shino's one with the Aburame hive now or whatever the hell they do when their own die."

"He was reliable...unlike Kiba." The coiling snake licking at the small of her back reminded her of Akamaru's tongue if it were softer yet far more unpleasant.

Anko laughed as she jabbed into her tummy once more. "I get it: Aburame don't give much to complain or talk about and Inuzuka are hit or miss. Teammates are either irreplaceable or pretty lukewarm. We both got the short end of the stick there."

"...Tetsu Hyuga."

She switched her focus to her neck. "He begged us to let him die and for Hiraku to save him." Their current predicament brought back pleasant memories that were increasingly less shameful.

They were far from done.

Naruto and Kabuto were surprised to find Orochimaru, back to his regular self, looking rather sullen too. Kabuto departed right after to maintain his cover in the Leaf Village. The remaining two headed off from the wetlands to the mountainous Land of Lightning. While Naruto was curious as to why, he found it hard to care, like he did almost everything as of late. He practiced molding his fire into chakra for all those days.

Orochimaru dropped his inconspicuous traveler transformation. "We're here."

"Do you use Earth Style to build all these places?" Naruto, dropping his own, asked.

"Yes." He led him toward a gap between two massive rocks. "...You know, Anko had the most indecent thoughts about you during your time in The Forest of Death's tower."

"Huh?"

"You were quite eager with your fingers. Had Kakashi not arrived, I'm not sure if she could restrain herself. She'd been lonely for years. All she wanted was for someone to hold her, whether as a woman or a person."

Naruto stared at his back. "How…" His hand grasped the seal on his stomach.

"I don't think anyone besides you or I have ever been as close to Anko. Funny how we didn't need to sleep with her to achieve that. Love...what a torturous thing." Orochimaru pursed his lips at their gray and block-like surroundings.

A posted masked ninja with a forehead protector bearing a sound note kneeled at his presence. "Lord Orochimaru." He raised his head at the young boy. "Is that?"

"No concern of yours." He led him deeper into the bowels of the hideout, passing many of his followers and cells filled with test subjects, to a grand door with many locks. "You may want to brace yourself."

Even if he wasn't thinking of Anko, Naruto wouldn't have the strength to tell him how little he was concerned. He watched the almost comedic drawn-out unlocking of what had to be a specialty vault. Something was either going to attempt to kill him or supposed to surprise him. It wasn't likely to accomplish either. The door unlocking and revealing a young man in a prisoner's garb several years older than him was only confirmation.

"Orochimaru?" He stood up and stepped forward. "Where's Kimimaro?" His focus turned to Naruto. "Who is this?"

"Kimimaro is dead."

"What?!" His eyes widened at Orochimaru. "That's impossible! He told me he was finally better, and no one could've beaten him!"

"Who was it?" Naruto, eyes also widened from broken apathy, asked.

"Choji Akimichi."

A laugh left his lips. "Choji?" He burst into a joyous fit. "Choji did it!?" His surroundings blurred as tears left his eyes. "That's...so good to hear!" Wiping them away with the sleeve of his kimono, he couldn't help but smile. "I'm so proud of him."

"...You're laughing." The young man stare was empty. "Kimimaro is dead...and you're laughing."

"I can't help it: wasn't like I knew him that well." He laughed even harder.

The veins of his eyes bulged as dark splotches spread over his skin. "I…" Gritting his teeth, he stomped forward. "I'm going to…" He growled hard enough to shake the room before finishing his full transformation. "Kill you!"

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Cursed Mark?" He raised his arm, being too slow and off-guard to dodge, just in time to block a literal rocketing club-hammer punch. The bones shattered a fraction of a second apart from his left ribs, having been sent flying into the wall. Agony consumed him.

"Don't compare me to those worthless copies!" The unhinged young man grinned on his way toward him. "I was born with this!"

"J-J-Jugo," Naruto wheezed. Eyes flashing red, he held out his working hand toward his careless enemy and pointed at one of his. "B-Brain damaged still counts, right Kimimaro?" A jet of concentrated wind shot out and skewered his head. "Fuck you!"

Orochimaru, leaning on a nearby wall rather than in it, stroked his chin as Jugo fell back. "You learned the Wind Blade Jutsu." Said blade nearly slitting his throat didn't faze him. "Keep your focus on Jugo."

"H-He's…" Naruto drifted off at the sight of the imperfect sage rising. "Y-You've gotta be f-fucking kidding me!"

The hole in Jugo's head began to gradually close. "I'm going to rip you open!" His back erupted in jets after he noticed Naruto's proper wind blade severing his legs "Please!" Like some flying demon, he propelled himself after him, blood gushing from his stumps.

Naruto got out of the wall and side-stepped in time thanks to the brain damage his opponent was still healing from. Knowing he needed more time to get his own bearings, he rammed a finger into Jugo's ear far and hard enough to rupture his ear drum. It would've been easy to pierce his brain again, but he wasn't sure if he would survive or really wanted to kill him. Cutting off his arms were a possibility yet also rouse the question if he could die from blood loss. He made a promise to Kimimaro, and he didn't feel right breaking it.

Jugo's flesh formed sucker-like protrusions while Naruto moved behind him. "This wi–" He fell like a puppet with its strings cut. Only wet choking left his lips, courtesy of a punctured esophagus and trachea.

Having severed Jugo's spinal cord from the neck down, Naruto ran as best he could past Orochimaru back to where they came from. The tight corridors were a horrible environment to face such a strange opponent in. Space for him to jump around and bodies to hide behind, on the other hand, were perfect. His wind blade's range was more than extensive enough.

The second Jugo could move was the one he rocketed himself, bouncing from wall to wall due to his imbalance, toward the main hall of the prison. He took a moment to bask in the looks of fear in the guards' eyes when he arrived. For the next, he propelled himself to the nearest one. The Sound ninja broke like a toothpick in his arms before melting into his flesh. His stumps stopped bleeding and sprouted new legs thanks to the added biomass.

Naruto dropped his guard transformation to reveal a fascinated and disgusted smile on his face. "You just gave me the absolute worst idea!" He smirked as his golden eyes focused on him. "For you and everyone else in here!"

All but them and Orochimaru were terrified at that statement, and it would be exactly as they thought.

It was more than half a decade ago in a hideout long abandoned when he had two of his usual visitors. As always, the woman carried his best friend in like he were her son. They both knew it was a lie and he was anything but that to her. He, like so many other times, was left impaled on several spikes. She could hardly contain herself.

"Aww!" Anko, in her late teens and a fishnet top with nothing under complimenting a black skirt, nuzzled a young Kimimaro's cheek. "You're such a good boy!"

"Lord Orochimaru sent us here for samples." He didn't react to her slap.

She held out her offending hand. "Don't be so impatient. You're never going to become a man if you're always in a rush to get to the end."

A scalpel of bone pushed itself out of his pointer finger. "Here." He stood still for half a minute before she just took it

"You are definitely dying a virgin." She slashed one of Jugo's eyes, drawing a cry, before stabbing him in the midsection. "Do the honors." Her eyes narrowed at his stoic face. "Orochimaru-sensei told me it'd be good for you to get used to this."

"I have not heard it from Lord Orochimaru's lips, so I will not assist to achieve familiarity in 'this.'"

She pouted. "You're no fun." Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she accentuated them with a nudge. "I'll...help you with all your worries and frustrations."

Kimimaro blinked. "...I have no worries nor frustrations." It was the honest truth.

"Give it a few years, and you'll be begging me and stabbing yourself for being a dense little shit." She grabbed the handle of the scalpel and ran Jugo open. "Hurry up before it closes." Thrusting her hand inside, she made sure to wriggle it, making him shriek, before tearing out a kidney.

With no hesitation, Kimimaro did the same to Jugo's other. "Are you sure they will not rot?!" He spoke through his screams.

"I triple fucking checked!" She shook her head as she set the organ over an unrolled sealing scroll. "Hate this stupid Uzumaki crap!"

Jugo could not see the series of hand signs. Really, he didn't care. The pain was too much for him to, but he endured it as always. It was what he had to if he was going to stay near Kimimaro. Nothing else but purposelessness existed for him.

Anko licked her hands clean after the job was done, careful to do it in front of him and as cat-like as possible. "You've got some pretty good blood, Jugo." She mock-purred. "I'll let you absorb the bones now." Looking to Kimimaro, she tilted her head. "I guess you can hang out with him."

"Does Lord Orochimaru approve?"

Her face twisted in disgust. "Oh for fuck's sake." She glanced at Jugo landing on his back, his impalement spikes fully absorbed into his biomass. "You two are the most pathetic excuses for human beings I have ever come across, and I'm a rogue ninja: that's all I work with!" Stomping towards the grand cage gate, she shook her head. "Just take all the freaking fun out of this stuff!" She slammed it shut. "It'd be a miracle if either of you even came out gay at this point!"

Kimimaro and Jugo shared a confused look before noticing the scrolls. "They must be returned to Lord Orochimaru."

"...Right." Jugo sat down as Kimimaro collected them. "I'll stay." He watched him pick the lock with a makeshift pick bone, close the cell door, and follow after Anko.

His new loneliness wasn't that bad to him. It wasn't like he was nearly as lonely as he used to be. Mindless mood swings and violence were hardly better. Other people's blood spared in return for his wasn't so bad. Both used to be spilled before he met Kimimaro. All he really wanted was peace.

Neither Naruto nor Jugo could tell how much time passed since it all started. Their surroundings were unrecognizable. Artificial lights damaged from the fight flickered on and off, periodically illuminating a sea of carnage. If a civilian somehow stumbled upon it, they would think they died and gone to hell. The irony was it being a respite for both.

"You're pretty good," Jugo, reduced to an inhuman torso and a head, admitted. "Who knew getting chopped up along with everyone else could be fun?!" He burst into mad laughter.

Naruto scoffed from his resting place against a wall. "Do you have any idea how many times I could've actually killed you?" He spared the pile of mutilated bodies by him a glance.

They realized immediately after he threw the first one to a mutilated Jugo neither was their ally. To counter their joined forces, they did the same. Only a small part of the prison's destruction was caused by it. Everything else came from them fighting. He released the other prisoners and killed them too when he was beginning to run out of material.

While his physical ability wasn't anything to laugh at, Jugo's lack of finesse made it negligible. His opening blow was the only good one. The literal chakra cannons he could make were a problem though. They were responsible for most of the destruction and difficult to evade effectively. It depended heavily on his biomass, which he made sure to always be in control of.

"Why am I breathing then, blond meat?"

"Kimimaro…" He groaned. "I made a promise to Kimimaro I'd take care of you if he died. He asked me to."

The murderous rage in Jugo's eyes dimmed. "Kimi...maro."

"You and him make a weirdly cute couple… Made, I mean." Naruto stood himself up with his working arm and wiped what he assumed to be a portion of someone's lung off his almost naked, red-covered body.

Jugo's flesh shifted back into its normal olive. To compensate for the lost body mass, it moved cells from his developed head and torso to replace his limbs. He was even younger than Naruto when it was done. Everything around him blurred as a sea of despair enveloped him. Kimimaro was dead.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at a young boy's cry. "What the?" He walked over and squinted at a bawling orange-haired tyke also covered in blood. "Jugo?" Laughing, he shook his head.

"Kimimarooooo!" Little Jugo wailed.

"Hey." He felt guilt weighing on his heart. "Crying isn't going to bring him back." A pained shriek made him flinch. "Oh come on." The image of Konohamaru doing the same, as he likely was when he'd hear the news, made his lips quiver. "H-Hey…" Wrapping him arm around him, he pulled him in for a hug. "It's alright." Tears streamed down his own cheeks, mingling with blood. "I'm sorry; I'm so so sorry."

Jugo buried his face in his chest, held him in return, and wept. He was the only thing of Kimimaro left. Whoever killed him likely took his body for study, and there wasn't a chance it'd ever be returned willingly. If he'd accepted his death as a possibility long before, he would've asked him to leave behind animal bone sculptures. Nothing could ever really replace him though.

Orochimaru watched them from the opening of the hall they began at. It reminded of him of far too many things. Her begging, her cruelty, her love, and her loneliness. The prison setting was all too much like the one she, alone and abandoned, was in. While not a surprise and something he was awaiting for the longest time, he couldn't help how he felt. She was his only companion for years and he hers. A fragment of his very soul dwelled in her until that moment.

"Humans...are such fragile beings."

The three present were some of the toughest, and they were all broken on the inside in one way or another. Kimimaro was much the same, if not worse. Either they couldn't save themselves or didn't want to be. It may have just been who they were. Human beings, as much as some wished they were all the same, still shared fundamental differences.

AN: I'm getting back into groove of things if this update rate keeps up.

So, uh, you can probably guess the next chapter to some extent. I am actually surprised I decided to pull through with this, but I couldn't justify alternatives in my head. The groundwork was laid far before I even had this idea.

I was tempted to write out a whole sequence of Naruto doing all of that with Jugo, but it just seemed to drag on. The scenes I intended for this chapter already grew beyond their scope.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the form of a review or PM.