CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The Red Moon!

XXX

111 Days Since Sasuke

Hanabi's eyes slowly crept open for the first time in what felt like years. She couldn't feel anything. Her, usually perfect, vision was now nothing but a mixture of blurs and spots, and she couldn't hear anything over the sound of ringing.

Hanabi tried to turn her head, but couldn't muster up the strength to move a muscle. She couldn't even activate her Byakugan. It felt like all the chakra had been drained out of her body.

What had happened to her?

"Fuck," she cursed as the memories began to bombard her. Her battle with Tayuya. Being blindsided in said battle. She clutched her head for a brief moment. After a few minutes of battle, she'd finally found out how to overcome the Oto kunoichi's genjutsu with her Byakugan, but before she could take advantage of that, she was bulldozed from behind by Sakon and Juugo.

Lying there, defenceless, staring up at Tayuya, Sakon, and Juugo, knowing full well that she didn't have the energy and ability to take all three of them on. Hanabi thought it was all over. And it would have been, had they not received some sort of message that drew them away and in the direction of the southern wall.

"I wonder why they let me live?" Hanabi's train of thought was derailed by an ear-splitting roar. Suddenly, her vision returned to her. She turned to her left to see a massive dome of energy moving towards her, levelling buildings as it did. "Move," she warned herself, but her body didn't respond. She collapsed onto her side.

"I've got you!" moments before the explosion could consume her, a pair of arms wrapped around the Hyuuga heiress and dashed away from the blast. Even at full speed, they barely managed to escape its radius. And even when they did, the water followed.

A huge tsunami rose over them as the energy dissipated. The waters were violent. So violent that whatever wasn't destroyed by the energy wave was instantly swept away by the torrents of rapid water. It kept coming and coming until no matter how much you nailed yourself to the ground, it swept you away. Everything that fell victim to the enormous wave disappeared behind its churning mass.

If they'd gotten caught in that, they probably wouldn't have survived. Once more, the arms wrapped around Hanabi's body to run up the side of a building and drop her on one of the Kumo Homebase's many flat roofs. They were just high enough to escape the brunt of the water's force. Droplets splashed onto them, but being a bit wet was better than whatever would have happened had they been seconds slower.

Only once they were relatively safe did Hanabi extend her neck a bit to look up at the person who'd saved her. "Konohamaru?"

"At your service," the youthful Sarutobi smirked before standing up and turning to the source of the explosion. "Whoa…" was the only word that escaped the kid's lips.

Hanabi finally regained enough feeling to prop herself up and look around herself. Her eyes widened. "Is that…"

XXX

"Hinata! Hinata! Hinata, come back!"

Hinata slowly regained consciousness. The black tendrils of death drew away as reality returned to her. Everything felt so fuzzy and all she could hear over the ever-present ringing sound was Naruto's loud voice. Somehow, even though the ringing felt like it was coming from inside her brain, his voice cut through, it cut deep.

"Hinata!"

It was raining.

Hinata's head fell to the side. She opened her eyes slightly to look at her hand.

It was covered in blood.

Was she dying?

She looked over to her other hand.

It was covered in just as much blood.

She felt Naruto's hand steady her head. It felt too heavy for her neck.

"Hinata… Hinata, come back to me."

"Naruto?" the Hyuuga's lavender eyes finally focused in on the love of her life. Naruto was covered in blood too. Actually, everything was covered in blood.

It was raining the stuff.

Blood?

It was raining blood.

Naruto pulled Hinata in for the tightest hug that she'd ever felt. Hinata looked over his shoulder at the wasteland that she awoke to. Everything was destroyed. There weren't even any mountains of rubble remaining. It resembled the morning after an F5 tornado tears through a small wooden town. Bodies littered the barren wasteland. All of them covered in blood. The only people still standing in front of her were Orochimaru, Deva Pain, Konan, and Itachi. All of them drenched in blood, with their attires in tatters, their faces bruised.

Was she in hell?

"Na-Naruto? How…"

"I thought I'd lost you," Naruto wasn't his usual jovial self. He stared into Hinata's eyes with tears streaming from his own.

"How did you get back? I thought you… I thought you were at Mount Myoboku."

"I placed a tag on you when we were… together," he said. Naruto lifted one of his hands to reveal Hinata's bare hip.

'I'm With You' written across her back and hip in kanji.

"A tag?"

"I'll explain later," Naruto replied before turning to look over his shoulder at the remaining Akatsuki members.

"What happened?" Hinata was still a little confused. She tried to get up, but she simply did not have enough chakra to stand on her own two feet. She collapsed.

"What happened?" Tsunade flickered onto the scene. Just as beat up as the Akatsuki members. She was covered in blood, her clothes turned to rags, clutching her stomach, "The Three-Tails is what happened. I almost drowned… in fact, if it wasn't for Naruto…" her voice trailed off.

"The Three-Tails?" Hinata looked around. Half the village was gone. Levelled. There was no way she did all of this. "I can't even control the Three-Tails, how could I…?"

"Don't stress yourself too much," Naruto warned. "Granny Tsunade… can you take care of Hinata, while I deal with these guys?"

"You want to deal with the Akatsuki on your own?" Tsunade asked. Naruto nodded. He locked eyes with Pain, who seemed to be the only one unbothered by Naruto's presence on the battlefield. Until…

"Scatter," Pain commanded before flickering away. Orochimaru, Konan and Itachi did the same.

Naruto gave chase.

XXX

Naruto continued hopping from tree branch to tree branch until he caught a glimpse of the tattered remains of a black and red trench coat covered in drops of blood. The scent of crimson gave the Uzumaki life. He needed his lust for blood satiated.

A shadow loomed over him.

Naruto ducked around a tree and slid down to its base.

The canopy overhead erupted in a series of explosions.

Naruto fell to earth. He turned to look over his shoulder. A slightly taller man with raven black hair and bright red eyes fell after him, kunai knife in hand. Naruto flipped in mid-air to clash metal. The man forced him away. Naruto crashed into the earth, then darted away before the Akatsuki member could deliver a potentially fatal blow.

"You must be Itachi Uchiha. Sasuke's brother," Naruto noted, removing another kunai from his weapons pouch.

"You must be Naruto Uzumaki, the one who's been pursuing my brother all this time," Itachi replied. The upper part of his robe had been destroyed, revealing a torn mesh shirt. His torso was covered in blood and gashes. "Based on the fact you were able to trace me down specifically, I'd say you must have a thing for hunting Uchiha."

"I'm here to kill you for attacking the people of my village and my Hinata."

"The people of your village? Last I heard, you were a resident of Uzushio," Itachi said. He looked up to the skies. The plumes of smoke rising from the Kumo Homebase had turned the skies black. "You and I seem to have so much in common, Naruto."

"Don't lie to my face! There's absolutely nothing that you and I, of all people, have in common!" Naruto charged the Uchiha. Itachi's eyes widened as Naruto rammed the kunai through his chest and pinned him to the wall.

Itachi's mouth dropped open. Naruto dashed away as Itachi exploded into a murder of crows. The birds pinned him against a boulder with their beaks, before taking turns picking away at his chest.

Itachi formed above the Uzumaki.

"Is that so? We are both from the Hidden Leaf. We are both from clans that used to rule the world, but are now so far and few between that we may as well classify ourselves as extinct species. We are missing-nin… and yet, we strive to protect the Hidden Leaf Village regardless of what they call us. And we both claim to want to kill Sasuke, but we both know we could never bring ourselves to do such a thing."

Naruto broke away from the crows to grab Itachi by the neck. He paused for a moment to process what Itachi had just told him, "What?" Itachi exploded into another flurry of crows. He took the statements one by one. "What do you mean we strive to protect the Hidden Leaf Village? You're fighting for the Akatsuki! They've murdered thousands of shinobi from the village you claim to protect."

"And if it weren't for me… they would have murdered tens of thousands… or hundreds of thousands," Itachi's voice came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. He looked up at the sky. The moon was blood red. He was in a genjutsu… "The battle for Konoha. I heard you got there just in time…"

"… I did."

"Pain had already devised a plan to attack Konoha weeks before the war began. It was meant to be Konoha, Taki, Iwa, then Suna, but my filibustering bought Konoha an extra week… and thanks to me the Akatsuki weren't able to take Taki after losing too many White Zetsu in the battle for Konoha."

"Fili… what?" Naruto's head was still spinning from the whirlpool of black birds surrounding him. They began to blend into a black wall. The red moon shone a spotlight on Naruto. He looked up and saw Itachi's Mangekyou Sharingan carved into the moon's crimson appearance.

"The Akatsuki's next plan of action after losing Konoha was to take out Uzushio, but I managed to convince them to go after Kiri instead. Luckily, that gave Mei enough time to read the army's movements and block them from leaving the first island."

"Wait, they were going after Uzushio?"

"Finally, I tried my best to dissuade them from attacking the Kumo Homebase… but I fear Konan may have been onto my tactics at that point. Plus, I believe Danzo used the Kotoamatsuki on some of the Akatsuki's members, forcing them to attack the village. I did not want to use such a powerful technique myself unless I felt I needed to… but it seems the time has come."

Itachi finally reformed.

Naruto doubled over and threw up his lunch when the spinning came to a halt. Still bent over, in pain, Naruto instinctively gripped his kunai and rushed Itachi. He was intercepted by a crow flying into his mouth, knocking him off his feet. In mid-air, Naruto flung the kunai at Itachi, nailing him in the head.

Itachi froze. Naruto was breathing heavily. The Uchiha pulled the kunai from his skull before collapsing.

Naruto crawled over to him and grabbed the bloody kunai between his shaking hands. Itachi's eyes locked in on Naruto's frame, "I only have one regret in this world and that's that I couldn't bring myself to do what I'm entrusting you to do. When the time comes, I'll need you to give your all against Sasuke. Don't hold back, and when the time is right, I'll try to do the heavy lifting for you."

XXX

When Naruto finally woke up, he was lying on his back, in a clearing.

"Naruto! Naruto!" it was Naruto's turn to be stirred back to life by the distant cries of his lover. Naruto looked around. It was raining. Naturally, this time. Normal water. The thick plumes of black smoke had brought with them the rains.

"Hinata?"

"Naruto!"

"There he is," Tsunade's voice cut through the rain.

She dropped down next to the Uzumaki, followed by Hinata, and then finally, A, the Raikage. Hinata wrapped her arms around the drenched Uzumaki. "We thought you'd died, kid," A said.

"Yeah, we noticed that you'd run into one of the Akatsuki members on the globe," Tsunade explained, "Karin said it was Itachi's signature. When one of the chakra dots disappeared, we feared the worst."

"But it appears you've taken down one of the Akatsuki's greatest assets," A grinned. He walked over to the Uchiha, who was face down a few metres away from Naruto.

"I… took him down…" Naruto sat up. Itachi's exposed skin was covered in blemishes, blood and bruises. "He's… dead?"

"Extremely dead," A pointed out, lifting the Uchiha's body and turning him around. "Damn, it looks like someone got to him before we could."

"What's up?" Tsunade asked.

A opened the deceased's eyes. They were empty. "They took his fucking eyes."

"Well, the Akatsuki does travel in pairs. So, it wouldn't have surprised me if there was a member in the shadows waiting to see how the battle turned out," Tsunade sighed, "If that's the case, then it's a miracle they didn't go after you too."

Naruto was still a bit confused. So much had happened in the last few minutes that he couldn't even hear Tsunade's voice or feel Hinata's touch. His eyes were fixated on Itachi's lifeless body. Lying dead in front of him was someone that he'd been taught to fear for years of his life. Then, in his final moments, it felt like Itachi had revealed the secrets of the universe to him.

Naruto had so many questions.

"What do you mean you'll do the heavy lifting for me?" Naruto muttered.

Itachi's lifeless, eyeless corpse stared back at him.

XXX

112 Days Since Sasuke

Akiko's lungs filled with air as she lifted her body to sit up. She rolled slightly to cough up what felt like litres of water. Her eyes were bloodshot red. Her skin had been stripped of all colour. No one would blame her for thinking she was in the afterlife. But she could still feel. She could feel how painful it was to clear her lungs. She could feel how sore her body was after the abuse it had taken. And she could feel the overwhelming relief of being alive.

How had she survived?

The last thing she remembered was being knocked across the room by a bomb going off nearby. Then she looked up as the southern wall of Kumo Homebase came falling down on her. She was stuck. Unable to move. Unable to yell for help. For the second time in her life, she felt completely helpless. She succumbed to her fate.

And now.

She looked up at the skies. A beautiful night sky greeted her. Not a cloud in the sky. Just a blanket of purple, black and dark blue with dots of light curled up into constellations she'd never even seen before.

Akiko sat on her knees and took another long, deep breath. Her clothes were soaked. Drenched in water. She was outside the village. So far out, in fact, that she looked around and saw nothing but fields and puddles.

She didn't care how she got out there, or how she'd even survived. All that mattered, was that she was alive.

"I'm alive," she muttered to herself before wiping away water that had trickled down from her hair onto her face. Her head dropped into her hands as she began crying her eyes out, "I'm alive."

XXX

The next morning, when the dust had settled and most of the water had dried, Naruto entered the war room to see Tsunade, Jiraiya, A, and Kakashi sitting there. Everything had been destroyed. Pipes and wood jutted out of the walls. The table was no more. There were no lights. The glass had been shattered. It resembled a warzone. Well, it was a warzone.

Naruto turned his attention to his former sensei. Kakashi was covered in bandages. Lady Katsuyu sat on his shoulder to help him heal his wounds. "Kakashi-Sensei, are you okay?"

"About as good as I'll ever be as long as this war rages on."

"Luckily for you, it won't last much longer," A said, standing up. "We're making a play for Ame."

"We are?" Jiraiya turned to face the Raikage. "What about the whole 'it's winter, it's too cold' shtick?"

"That was a precedent set back in the First Shinobi World War by the Daimyo of the Five Great Shinobi Countries, and the Akatsuki have broken it. The Akatsuki came to my country. They stepped foot on my land. They slaughtered my people. I'll head up to Kumo and return with as many supplies and warm clothes as I can find… then, we'll move out. Fuck precedent, we're marching on Ame and taking zero prisoners in the process."

A moment of silence fell over the room. "Is this something that we're all agreeing on?" Jiraiya wondered.

"Well, it's safe to say Hinata took down a large portion, if not all, of their White Zetsu troops, so if we are going to spring an attack for Ame. Now is probably the best time. I'll send word down to the jinchuuriki and the other two Kage to tell them to start moving towards Ame then. We'll need twice the resources though, so maybe we'll swing by Konoha on our path to Ame," Tsunade said, "In the meantime, you should probably go check up on Hinata. She's been through a lot in the last 24 hours."

XXX

Almost nothing remained of the Kumo Homebase, and only whilst walking through the ruins of the village did Naruto start to get a grasp of the damage that had been dealt. What was once a reasonably sized military city filled with hundreds of thousands of shinobi, medics, chefs, messengers, scientists and trainees, was now a concrete wasteland occupied by no more than the tens of thousands of people who had just barely managed to survive both the invasion and the Three-Tails's demonic mass drownings.

Medics were working overtime, to the point where it didn't matter how much medical training you had. Anyone who could walk and use ninjutsu was given a medical bib and told to go out into the field. Dig through rubble for those who were caught in the bombings, scour the fields for those who were injured by the White Zetsu, rummage the forests and rivers and fields for those who were washed away by the Three-Tails, and worst of all, bury the dead where you find them. Medics were sent out in groups of five, one from each village, so to best honour the burial rituals and traditions of the shinobi's village.

It was hell.

All for what?

"How are we supposed to expect these people to get up and counter-attack as if nothing happened?" Naruto sighed as he reached the top of a rubble pile. His exhale took the form of frost. It was getting cold, scarily cold. If they were to move on Ame. They had to be quick. Soon the rain that fell on Ame would turn to snow. Shinobi were only human, none of them would stand a chance against both the Akatsuki and General Winter.

"Naruto! When did you get back?" a voice yelled from the bottom of the mountain.

"Karin?" Naruto's eyes locked onto his distant relative. He leapt up into the air and came down just behind the redheaded woman. "Oh…" was his first reaction. Karin looked beat up. Any inch of her skin that wasn't covered in bandages was covered in gashes and bruises.

"Eh! What do you mean 'oh'!" Karin wanted to smack Naruto upside the head, but just raising her voice sent waves of pain through her body. "Oh fuck, I feel like shit."

"What happened?"

"The Akatsuki happened… and the Three-Tails. I was one of the closest to the transformation," Karin said.

"Sorry about that," Hinata bowed, entering the conversation.

"Don't sweat it. If it wasn't for that transformation, I think I would've been dead."

"Yes, luckily it was only a controlled transformation, otherwise it wouldn't have been water that almost got you," Hinata said.

"A controlled tailed beast transformation? How?" Naruto wondered.

"That's what I've been asking myself all day. One second, I'm at the bottom of a crater, looking up at the Akatsuki members, the next… it's raining and all I can hear is your voice."

"To be fair, that's what it felt like to me too. That was one of the first times I came face-to-face with a tailed beast," Karin admitted.

"That's not true. You've seen the other jinchuuriki transform plenty of times," Hinata replied.

"Yeah, but that's different. That's like… the jinchuuriki taking the form of their tailed beast. What happened to you was… you just… I thought you were gone. It felt like not a shred of you remained," Karin zoned out, "That was the first time I stared into the eyes of a tailed beast, and all I saw was death."

Hinata caught a glimpse of Naruto in the corner of her eye. "Naruto? Are you okay?"

He snapped back to reality. He felt his own face. He was crying. "Uh yeah. It's just that… the last time I saw the Three-Tails, I lost someone precious to me. When I flashed back to you, and you weren't there… I thought I'd lost you too."

Hinata's eyes started to water too. She grabbed both Karin and Naruto, and pulled them in for a hug. She was shaking. "I… I can't even lie. I thought I'd lost myself too. I was just… I was just filled with so much hate, and… I thought the worst of everyone I knew. Guys, I want to go back to Uzushio…"

A fourth pair of arms wrapped around Hinata from behind to join in on the hug. A tiny pair of hands gripped the Hyuuga jinchuuriki's side and held on for dear life. She looked down under her arm. "Akiko?" the little girl, still drenched from head to toe, covered in a mix of dirt, dust, blood and debris, looked up at her with her eyes bloodshot red. "You're alive?"

Hinata knelt down to embrace the woman. She couldn't speak. Her skin was pale with a hint of blue. All she could do was cough, gesture to her chest and hold onto the Hyuuga with a grip that didn't dare to let go.

"I'll get her to a hospital," Karin said. She took the teenager in her arms and tried to flicker away but she had a vice-grip on Hinata's shirt.

"I'll do it," Hinata took over. Karin passed her onto the Hyuuga, who flickered away, leaving Naruto alone with a beat-up Karin.

"What happened to Akiko?" Naruto had gotten lost in the confusion. There was a theme emerging here. It felt like so much had happened in the last week. The moment he left the Homebase all hell broke loose, and it felt like it was his fault.

"Last I saw of her she'd gotten caught in an explosion. In my mind, I… I had accepted that she was dead, but… but apparently not," Karin tried to shake herself back to reality. She hadn't fully recovered from the effects of the Tsukuyomi yet. Everything felt slow and confusing, sometimes she saw things that weren't there or heard voices that didn't exist, as if she was reeling from a dangerous concussion. In fact, the only reason she was standing and speaking, to begin with, was because she had Uzumaki blood coursing through her veins. "That's what I get for staring into the eyes of an Uchiha."

"You mean Itachi?" Naruto asked, to which Karin nodded, "… I'm not sure if you heard, but… Itachi's dead."

Karin nodded once more, "I figured, Hinata berated me to track your chakra, regardless of how fucked my head was at the time. One moment I could sense both your chakra signatures, you and Itachi, then one of your flames was snuffed out. Considering the fact that you're standing right in front of me, I figured that meant Itachi had lost. Forgive me for not congratulating you, Oh Great Uchiha Slayer," even in her mental anguish, Karin couldn't pass up the opportunity to mock Naruto. "I also heard someone got to his eyes before you could."

"Yeah… I wonder what they're going to do with them," Naruto thought aloud.

"I know for a fact that they're going to give them to Sasuke."

"Sasuke? But I thought he already had the Sharingan."

"Yeah, but when he invaded the Homebase, he'd lost both of them-."

"Sasuke was here? I missed him?"

"Didn't they tell you?"

"Of course not. No one tells me these things. Everything I've learnt about this invasion, I learn through asking myself! Why didn't anyone tell me Sasuke was here, I would've gone after him instead of Itachi! I wasted so much time going after the wrong Uchiha!"

"I'm sorry we were too busy recovering from having our butts handed to us by the Akatsuki and the Three-Tails to cater for your homoerotic obsessions, Naruto. I'll have a 12-page minute-by-minute coverage of the invasion from a bird's eye view sent to your office by this afternoon, is that alright with you?" Karin snapped back.

.

.

.

Naruto took a deep breath. He ran his hands through his spiky locks, "No, no, I'm sorry… that was stupid of me to ask. I'm just…"

"It's okay, I understand. Emotions are high at the moment. I just wish we could put this stupid war behind us and head back to Uzushio."

"Yeah, me too."