A Bewitching Dance

by Haerrlekin

When Naruto opened his eyes, he saw a beautiful, red-haired woman with violet eyes and a warm smile. Oh, and a white void, but that was besides the point! In which Naruto fails to summon Gamabunta and goes splat in the chasm; Jiraiya did a whoopsie, Kurama is a jerk, and Hinata brings good vibes. Who knew that crippling, life-threatening injuries could feel so good?

32. Heartbreak

Heya,

Happy holidays to you all. For those of you who wished me the same, either in personal messages or in the discord server: I really appreciate the thought! Seeing those really had me smiling ear-to-ear.

I've got some announcements for you all, but I'll save them for the end of the chapter to avoid yapping too much just yet. Some good news; some- well, not great news.

More good than bad though, I hope.

For now though, let's get back on that horse!

---

"Stand, Hanabi!" Their father's demand brooked no room for reprieve, and the youngest of two followed suit; she elevated on shaky foundations, posture bent awkwardly under the protruding, stone-cold judgment of their father. Hiashi hardly seemed to even pay attention to Kurenai-sensei, who loitered halfheartedly as if waiting for a moment to interject.

A sigh, loud and scornful escaped his lips. "Yes?" Hiashi invited the woman. In the same motion, his fingers darted out, intercepting her baby sister's sluggish strike and sending the girl tumbling in a painful-looking roll. "If you have something to say, then speak."

"Ah," Kurenai nodded, unwilling to take her eyes off the hacking and spitting young girl as she tried to rise again; but her station demanded that she eye the Hyuga's patriarch directly. "From now on, I will be watching over Hinata as her jonin instructor."

"Naturally." Hiashi seemed ready to discard her again. "Was that it?"

"N-no… It's just- are you sure you're fine with that?" Kurenai shrugged, lamely. "Hinata is a member of the Hyuga's main family; more than that, she is the heiress." Hiashi was quiet for a long moment, so Kurenai pushed on. "As an official Genin in our corps, she will surely be surrounded by death. She may even perish, herself-"

"Do as you wish," Hiashi cut in, just a bit quickly. "Hinata is… Incapable… A loser, unable to match up to even a girl five years her junior." He gestured meaningfully to Hanabi, who herself had aborted her efforts, now staring up at their father in shock. Disgust crept into her youthful face, but Hiashi did not spare the girl a glance, now fixated, not at Kurenai, but through her- as if staring into the wall beyond her. "The Hyuga has no place for her; at the rate she is going, she will not become head." A pause- this one, long and heavy unlike anything before. "For someone like her, an honorable death in the field is better than whatever fate would befall her, in this house."

"You-!" Hanabi rushed forward, a snarl on her tongue. She crashed directly into her father's open palm, flooring herself and clutching her face in tears.

"Focus!" He snapped down at her. "Up. Now!" Then, in that same breath, he sighed, once-again regarding the stunned-silent Kurenai. "Is that it? You're in the way."

"... Yes…" Kurenai simply shook her head, turning for the door without another word. As she crossed the threshold, she turned left, swallowing the sight of the female Genin of Team Eight. Hinata's byakugan had not yet even receded, the spill of tears flowing over without regard for appearances; they soaked into the floor and her bare feet, her small form wobbling atop them as the strength left her. Her knees hit the wooden floor, and Hinata tipped over into Kurenai's waiting arms, a silent sob shaking her as her tears found a new home in her mentor's vest.

"Come… Let's go," She whispered into Hinata's ear.

She nodded, letting her newly-minted sensei lift her back to her feet and lead her away.

She was nothing; an outcast within her own family. They didn't need her- didn't want her.

…

Well these days, she wasn't so sure if she wanted them either.

The switch of awareness flicked on. She rose from the bed, snapping upright in a fast-clearing daze. Pristine white walls; a cramped bed; the smell of chemicals- bah, none of that mattered! Her eyes locked with those of Hiashi Hyuga, and she didn't care about anything else.

She just really wanted to hit him.

"Hinata-" Hiashi's expression flew through a roulette, stalling on shock as she lunged. The railing of her bed warped apart at her touch, snapping apart to make way as she took aim for his head. His reflexes were as quick as ever, the man bobbing just out of the path of her initial strike. Her fingers closed around the broken railing, and she hurled the thing with her whole body; it impaled itself deep into the wall just behind where the still-moving Hiashi had stood, the point that she had gripped crumbling apart.

"Hinata!" Hiashi gasped, weaving once again to avoid her following lunge. She flipped, bracing her footing atop the implanted railing.

"What in blazes are you doing- urk!" This time, he was unable to dodge in the cramped space; his guard had to make do, taking the lion's share of a volleying kick that smashed him back-first into the door. Her feet touched the ground, and then her shoulder slammed directly into his sternum, driving Hiashi through the scattering door in a breathless pile.

"Hinata!?" Hanabi's familiar call startled her for a moment. She glanced after that sound, eyes coming to and warming to the youthful, panicked stare of her baby sister.

"It's okay, Hanabi-chan," She whispered softly. "I'll take care of it."

"Take care of what?" Hanabi glanced between Hinata and the rising Hiashi, who rose with a huff, his byakugan tracing hills on the map of his scowling face. "Take care of what!?"

What, huh?

Hinata grinned, this wide and toothy thing- just like Naruto-kun had always done.

Never before had she felt quite so invigorated; a thousand pound boulder, bending her spine- with one, liberating breath, its straps crumbled apart. She snapped upright, inhaling so deeply that her chest filled and ached under that one phenomenal breath. Her own byakugan pulsed to life, her awareness expanding to its peak and spilling over two- three- no… Ten-fold and then some! Then it all twisted, folding inward in countless layers to entrap the wide-eyed Hyuga's patriarch in her all-seeing, absolute focus.

"I'm gonna knock his teeth down his throat!"

---

Sasuke wasn't really sure what he was waiting for, these days.

He should have talked to them, by now; he knew that. In his heart, he knew they deserved that, at least; hell, he wanted to see them again.

He wanted to eat Sakura's lame cooking and let her drag him along on one of her dumb 'dates' that weren't really dates; he wanted to argue with Naruto or spar with him while Kakashi read his dumb porn- or whatever- and heckled them. He wanted to go with them to Ichiraku ramen and listen to those idiots ramble on and on and on about everything and nothing; let Naruto and Sakura, and Kakashi too- build a stack of tomato slices and needle him into finding out how many he could eat before he got sick.

Fuck, he missed them.

But it was hard to settle his gut and make his legs move when the scars on his mind fought so fiercely with the longing in his heart.

"So long as you keep coming at me with that pitiful amount of hate in your heart, you're not worth another moment of my time."

What if Itachi came back and took them too?

"Tsukuyomi."

What if he wasn't strong enough for them?

"I will never leave you alone…"

What if he hurt them?

Sparks of black licked the field all around him, his hazy sights taking them all in with a desperate stance. The ache in his neck burned so hot that it hurt to breathe- each shaky inhale and exhale showering his nerves in needles, like that damn ice-wielding boy-girl from the bridge.

He needed to be enough. Enough to stand back-to-back with Naruto; enough to stand in front of Sakura, and enough to face the one who might take them, if he wasn't.

But…

"Your biggest thing holding you back from getting a lot stronger right now is your mindset…" Naruto's advice lingered in his thoughts. "You spend far too much time brooding over where you feel you should be instead of looking at where you currently are…"

Yeah, he supposed that was a damn fair criticism- especially these days. What had become of him, who had once beheld his goals with a laser focus? The Sasuke, who had been immovable, unfettered by the chains of fear or bonds?

A breath.

But he couldn't throw them away- not anymore.

He'd tried, and every breath he took without them ached so bad he wanted to vomit.

No… He simply needed to be enough- somehow, and some way…

And he wasn't there yet.

Naruto's advice echoed again.

… But perhaps the right thing to do was to focus on where he was, and simply take it one step at a time.

"Naruto-kun loves you very much, Sasuke-san," Hinata Hyuga's chide swept in with the rest of his thoughts. He could hardly forget it- that Hinata Hyuga of all people would chastise him, so. "He talks about you every day- how much he misses you; how much he worries about you…"

God, he missed him too.

He took a breath, long and suffering and stewing in that emotion.

He missed both of them.

And things weren't going to get better unless he let them get better. They had tolerated him this far- had kept reaching for him even though he'd spurned them time and again…

Above all, they had respected him- given him his space, even though he understood now that he was hurting them.

They deserved better than that- had dealt with him at his worst… He owed it to them to reach back, himself, this time around.

The pain in his neck cleared, settling for a long moment with the peace in that resolve, as if reassuring in its own way that he was finally on the right path.

Then it returned, two-fold.

"Shit!" He howled, rocking down to his hand and knees; his free palm slapped over the screaming, uncoiling blemish on his flesh. "Not now! What do you want now!?"

Its spread would not be resisted; the curse-mark seared its brand across him in full, the seal that contained it snapping apart like the twigs under his feet.

"Gah! Stop! Stop!" Sasuke tried to will it down, just like he always had, but its race across his flesh came to a bold finish, decorating him in full with the Snake's influence. "Please, stop!"

Kill Naruto Uzumaki.

He knew the thought was not his own; it could never have been. But the way his legs wobbled upright; the way that his body screamed, wrenched from his control to lurch forward- back in the direction of the village-

"No! No!" Sasuke growled, fingers spasming against his flesh; his nails carved angry red strips into his neck, flecks of blood flying off as if in futile effort to scrape Orochimaru's influence away by hand.

Kill Naruto Uzumaki.

"Don't you dare! I'll kill you! I swear to god! I-" His threats bled into a gasp; Sasuke's eyes rolled, his throat stripping itself raw as yet another spike of suffering surged, starting from his neck and savaging him like a pack of starving animals.

"Please," He whimpered as his body took another step. His eyes welled, scarlet streaks spilling over his left cheek.

He couldn't lose him too. He'd rather die.

The six-pointed star in his eye began to spin, its pace accelerating until its whirl became a blur that was closer to an uninterrupted circle.

Kill Naruto Uzu-

"No!"

That thought died, cut down in his mind's eye; a moment later, the pain in his neck went, too. Sasuke fell back to his knees, sweat pouring over the bridge of his nose into the blades of grass below. He gasped, once, then twice more, choking down breath after breath as if to find solace from that sudden moment.

"No. Nonononono-no! Fuck no!" He wheezed, bloodied fingers taking mud beneath his nails as he fought back to his feet. "Not you; not Itachi… Not me!"

His eyes bled scarlet, wild and unyielding- almost mad. "Nobody!"

He rocked forward, one step after another- faster and faster until his body hit a dead sprint, racing back towards the village like a purpose.

"Not him! Nobody!"

Protect Naruto Uzumaki.

The curse-mark's clothe burned still on his flesh.

---

"She and father are fighting!" Hanabi's wail renewed his awareness in full. A breath, and Naruto rose to his full height, towering over the worried faces of Hanabi and Sakura.

"I'll handle it," Naruto promised, forcing a kindly smile that he hoped would reassure them at least a little bit.

What the hell was going on?

"She suddenly went berserk," Kushina's sudden explanation didn't do much more to clarify the situation, but her memories filled in some blanks where she could.

Hinata's chakra had suddenly spiked as she awoke; she had immediately set upon Hiashi Hyuga, and forced him outside the room. The two were now clashing, moving up through the building; Hiashi was smartly playing defense, but even still, their chaos was threatening to tear down the building's foundations and drag their surroundings into their squabble.

Their surroundings being the hospital; his chakra-sense told him well enough that the commotion's news had already begun to circulate. The mass panic on the lower levels was enough to give him a headache.

Oh dear.

"How will you handle her, I wonder? Show me who you really are!"

So that's what he had meant then, huh? Orochimaru wanted him to fight Hinata?

"Not just Hinata," Kushina's warning came with another realization.

"Oi, where's Tayuya?" Naruto's query was as conversational as ever, but he knew well what he would find as he looked past the two nearest girls, pinning a fallen redhead in his sights. Her chakra was spiking erratically, twisting and screaming with her distress; the mark on her neck fought tooth and nail against the bindings he'd placed against it just weeks ago.

"O-oi," Tayuya's voice cracked under her pain, a vein throbbing in her cheek. It crossed over her nose, which had begun to leak blood and mucus alike. She tried to grin, this scared, quivering thing as the curse-mark fought to creep out from its bindings. "H-hey boss, I ain't feel-ing too good."

The mark was already beginning to creep up the left side of her face, blackening her sclera and filling her iris with a cold, golden tint.

Her seal wouldn't hold; the curse-mark was rapidly adapting to her binds…

"We'll need to build a new one to account for those adaptations; that first one needs to come off."

Kushina's advice was sound, but he really wished it wasn't.

Because that meant that he couldn't stop this. Certainly not without seriously prolonging her suffering.

A sigh.

"It's alright, Tayuya." Naruto smiled, trying to convey all the warmth he wanted her to know, in that moment. "I'll save you."

It was a promise- reassurance, and permission.

Let go.

There was only the briefest hesitance as she looked into his eyes, her own, fearful and pained, sure- but so rife with this desperate sense of trust and companionship that they'd built together. A nod, shared between the two, then the bindings unraveled; they pulled taut, then snapped apart like glass, and his cousin staggered up with haste, lunging forward with a garbled laugh; she crashed chest-first into his open palm, her body flying back to roll through the rubble of the door Hinata and Hiashi had broken in their wake. It was only a moment's reprieve before she was clamoring back to her feet once again as if he hadn't touched her at all, her visibly deformed ribs popping back into place with a repugnant snap of bone. Her flesh began to darken, hair lightening in twain to a graying pink as if steeped partly in ash. Her eyelashes lightened in sync, stretching and coating her eyes like a set of curled eye masks; she twitched, a moan of pain heralding thick, white horns that ripped from her skull to coil around her face and settle into a forward-facing protrusion, flecks of her darkened blood splattering this way and that.

"Sakura-" Naruto gently took his teammate by the bicep, leading the anxious girl out into the hallway. "Take Hanabi on a merry little adventure- somewhere not here, 'kay? Take anybody you see with you on your way out…

"But-"

"That's an order from your Chunin commander. If you disobey, I'm legally allowed to chuck you out this third-story window."

"Er-" Sakura looked between Naruto and the rising Tayuya, her skin crawling as the girl lifted her head to reveal a pair of sickly, empty yellow eyes, bordered by voids of black. "Are you going to be okay?"

Naruto grinned. "Just who the hell do you think I am?" A thumbs up was her final answer. "Get to it. I've got this- oh, and could you buy me a buttered roll from the ninja deli while you're out? I could really go for a post-kick-ass ninja snack."

"Uh…" Sakura looked at him queerly, as if trying to determine if he was serious or not. Finally giving up, she simply nodded, reaching for Hanabi's hand. The little girl seemed ready to argue, but it was only one look from the present Chunin that quelled her instantly. Begrudgingly, she let Sakura take her, the two making their escape; Tayuya did not so much as glance their way.

"So you sicked Hinata on Hiashi, but she's all about me, huh? Which means he doesn't want me interfering until it's too late."

Was he hoping to have Hinata assassinate the head of the Hyuga clan for him? Or was Hinata simply acting without strict direction, while under his influence?

"Either way, it seems that Hinata's mark is expanding its broadcasting range drastically, starting with Tayuya." Kushina spanned their senses far beyond the space, a grimace filling both of their faces at her findings. "He's forcing their marks to activate, then resonating them with each other, leapfrogging to the next-furthest to continually magnify their effective range. It's spanning the entire village and then some!"

Quite a gamble; if Tayuya hadn't been on-site, it was unlikely that he could have achieved such a thing.

"Or he simply anticipated that she'd be stuck to you like glue."

Either way, that meant it wouldn't be long before the other marked victims were on their way to him.

What was his game? Sasuke, Sakon, Ukon, Kidomaru, Anko- each of them surely ranked head and shoulders above the common ninja- especially with the mark enhancing their abilities. But Naruto had more than enough support here in the heart of the village; already, he could feel the presence of his comrades around the village responding at record pace. Kakashi was en-route; he would surely intercept Anko, long before she became a problem. Kidomaru, Sakon, and Ukon were gunning straight for him; Sasuke's presence was fast-approaching the village…

The likelihood that any of them even reached him in those berserk states was honestly pretty minimal.

"Sure, but think about what comes after." Kushina's warning brought a sobering thought. "Think about the damage they'll cause on their way to you, and what that will do to their reputation."

… Shit… Yeah, no way this would go over well. He'd gotten to know Anko well enough to know what Orochimaru's brand had done to her reputation; that woman was only slightly less reviled than he was. No matter what, this was already a pretty big hit…

"He wants to see first-hand how you respond to the chaos. How will you handle having to take down your friends and comrades?"

Oh he'd give him a response, alright.

"Come get it then," Naruto chuckled, flicking his fingers in invitation. "I'm ready for ya, believe it!"

His possessed cousin wasted no time. She lurched forward with a beast-like snarl, clawed fingers carving a path after his face.

She was damn quick- quicker than Jirobo had been by far; narrow as the hall was, she was on him immediately.

But still not even close to catching him.

He met her rush half-way, fingers closing around her leading forearm; he tilted his head then, weaving a blind flail as her form was thrown off by his grapple. A slight wrench, and the limb snapped like a twig, wrenched behind her back.

She barely even flinched, but Naruto winced at the sound all the same.

"Whoopsies."

Nevertheless-

He followed through, adjusting his grip to her bicep and flinging her with a flick of his wrist; Tayuya's body tumbled through the air and crashed into the wall, collapsing her under its rubble.

"M-maybe lighten up on the force, darling!" Kushina's nervous critique was well-received; Naruto eyed his hand with a grimace.

Okay, so she wasn't nearly as resilient as Jirobo had been. That, or he'd gotten a lot stronger since then.

"Probably a bit of both. Just be careful."

Yeah. He'd keep that in mind.

"Er- it was just a prank?" Naruto grinned, sheepishly. Just then, the rubble blew apart; Tayuya surged forth from it with a roar, her chakra spiking and tearing from her in waves. Her broken limb snapped back into place almost immediately as her output soared.

Okay, and her healing was faster as well. He knew from study that the curse-mark's effects were cultivated specifically for their specific hosts, but seeing those differences in practice was something else entirely.

Tayuya's newly-healed limb snapped for the shattered remains of the wall behind her, her palm clapping against it; licks of blood flew, and he knew what was coming.

A massive summoning circle wove itself across the wall; then a puff of smoke, and Naruto ducked far out of the way as a massive body consumed the meager space between them; it flew through the smoke, its large fist boring into where his head had been and crumbling the wall.

"Two on one then, huh?" Naruto grinned, kipping away from his new assailant and rising to his full height.

The smoke cleared, revealing a tall, pot bellied creature with long, cord-like limbs. Its clawed fingers unwound from each other, flexing with threat. A long, swollen neck hunched forward; shaggy, shoulder-length black locks covered much of her appearance, but two distinctive traits came to mind.

A large, twisted horn that erected from its forehead and somewhat matched its master, and a too-pretty, porcelain face that stood at odds with the rest of its grotesque figure.

"Not quite," Tayuya's voice was this distorted rasp, missing all of her typical charm and sass; in its place, Naruto could clearly hear Orochimaru's familiar inflection. "You see, my dear Tayuya has quite the curious set of specialties."

Naruto groaned. "Of course you'd go ahead and plug the controller up her ass. You're vile, man."

The summoned creature came with a wobbling rush, its massive size filling the whole width of the corridor as it came.

So a physical fighter then, huh?

It stopped short, bracing its limbs on either side to fill the entire width of the hallway; its throat swelled and colored a vibrant pink color, massive yields of chakra building at an alarming pace.

Then its face split down the middle, its porcelain mask ripping apart to reveal a horrific visage of dark, scabbed flesh and a red-painted, glasgow grin that nearly split her maw entirely.

Or not.

"Every musician needs a rad vocalist!"

"Who the hell uses rad, unironically!"

Naruto was already on the move, making his escape as the creature's mangled maw unhinged and a horrific wail chased after him; Naruto reached the other side of the corridor immediately, rounding it and taking a leap. Twisting to face the curving wave of sound, he twisted his fingers and spools of chain unraveled from his body at record speed; they assembled before him, walling off that area with an air-tight seal. His chains vibrated furiously under the attack, their links rattling apart under the barrage on the other side.

So a sound-based attack. Simply weathering it would be a no-go, unless he wanted to chance his odds, having his body vibrated apart from the inside. He was more than fast enough to outrun it, but the Hospital's cramped walls and populated spaces ensured that he wouldn't be able to dodge it forever.

Then, Naruto was given no reprieve at all before they were smashed right through by Tayuya's monstrosity, the aforementioned girl riding atop its shoulder.

Sooner or later, they'd either tear down the foundations, themselves, or run into innocents; both, if he were really unlucky!

"Of all of my pets, she was the only one capable of showing compatibility with these entities. The Doki- Rage Demons, I named them."

And he would bet his life that if he tried to flee to a more advantageous space, Orochimaru would simply have Tayuya start killing patients to bait him back in. Disregarding the actual ethics there, Tayuya's position in Konoha was still tentative, at best; she was still requiring an escort to go anywhere.

If his cousin took even a single life, accidental or otherwise, that would be the end for her.

A clawed hand slammed down at his position, red-tinted nails carving jagged trenches through the ground.

Luckily, it was damned slow, compared to him.

Naruto wove just out of its path, his sixth sense reading its twisted, furious chakra and measuring his counter attack; he kicked off in an instant, crossing the distance to rocket a kick into the beast's protruding gut. It lurched forward, a wet screech spilling over and joined by blackened, bile-tinged blood as its stomach ruptured.

Which meant there was absolutely no room for playing around.

He wasted no time, vaulting up with a clenched palm.

"Tiger's paw," He muttered, morbidly.

Its head went next, splitting apart like a balloon filled with flesh and gore; it splattered the ceiling, and Tayuya was hurled from the felling summon in a topple.

"Darling!" Kushina whined, half-aghast. "You break everything you touch!"

Yeah… He was really hoping she wasn't attached to any of these things.

"The Doki are quite a quirky set of creatures." Orochimaru's monologue continued unabated through Tayuya's lips as she caught herself, a too-wide grin seeming at home now on her twisted features. "They are both alive and dead- sustained only by their boundless fury and vengeful spirits."

Her clawed hand dug into the girl's pocket, her prized flute coming free from it; her grinning lips disappeared behind the instrument, and a haunting melody began to play.

Right, he hadn't forgotten that Tayuya was a genjutsu specialist; the two of them had practiced extensively in the last few days, both in yin-release and wind.

Her chakra surged and he prepared for a genjutsu attack, but her knowing grin told him he had misjudged.

"She called this one the 'melody of pity'. Care to guess as to why that is?"

Immediately, the fallen Doki began to move, its perforated gut and splattered head seeming to do little to abort that process; rapidly, its body reconstituted, the shattered skull pulling itself back together around reassembling brains. Its gut swelled right back up, as if filled to the brim with hot air.

"For the love of god, why does all of your shit regenerate!" Naruto whined.

"And this one is the song of Frenzy. Any guesses?"

A new song, this one fast and vicious. The restored Doki came again, but this time with far greater speed.

"Where do you even find these things!?" Naruto ducked under a straight lunge, righting himself immediately to respond as the massive body of the potbellied Doki stopped on a dime; her hands punched into the ground, twisting around on those cord-like limbs to face him anew. In the same motion, they heaved, and the ground yielded in turn, a wave of debris chasing after him.

Naruto was quick to evade even at that range; his fingers twisted again and his shape changed, shrinking down to diminutive size and ricocheting off the coming rubble. Finding an opening, he leapt up through the mass, re-sizing and twisting with momentum on a rapid streak towards his attacker.

"Whirlpool." Refining that momentum, he let it surge, finding its endpoint at his leading leg for- "Thunderclap!"

Its feminine head blew apart again, showers of gore marring his clothing and falling around him.

Gross.

"Behind!" Kushina's warning came just in time; Naruto turned, his senses sussing out Tayuya's flank enough to bat aside a kunai aimed for his spine. A tiny shard of chain stuck to the business end of the blade for later, as it was planted firmly into the neighboring wall.

"Where?" Tayuya's voice laughed. She backpedaled from his responding strike, a horizontal chop catching air; she threw up a guard over her face to intercept his following reversal, her body quaking under the strike. "Well, I made them, of course. Nothing but the best for my children."

Made them? So what did that make them, truly? Lab experiments? Puppets? Ninja build-a-bear?

Naruto reared back to hold his footing as she pushed him, reversing her hold and sweeping her leg wide. His grip closed around her collar, hurling her sideways to impact the wall; a clenched fist was already ready to follow through, but another warning from Kushina forced him to abort that route. He shunted upward, clutching the ceiling with a groan just as the Doki's claws swiped at where he'd been, then scooped Tayuya up to deposit her atop its shoulder.

"Hoho! Close!"

The damned thing could operate with only half a head?

"Alive and dead," Kushina muttered in thought. "So they can function so long as they have any faculties at all. What's more, that Frenzy song seems to be boosting its physical stats; speed, strength, resilience too- your kick should have turned its head to paste, based on that first exchange."

"This thing is a real pain in the ass."

"Oh, but that's not all!"

Their mind's eye saw the blur coming, even from deep in thought. Naruto cartwheeled out of the path just as another streak came for him, separate from his two assailants. He caught himself in a slide down the side of the wall, then ricocheted off it to evade the follow-up and the next after that, his path taking him a good few meters off from his opponent. He followed the crumbling rubble with his eyes, groaning as another monstrous shape joined the fray.

It was much smaller than the first, only slightly bigger than he was. Its body was bone-white and insectoid- something close to a heavily-scarred cricket-man. One of its segmented arms was far longer than the other and finished like the length of a violin's bow. Its other arm was far shorter, curled to its hunched torso and sporting an unnaturally wide forearm with dozens of holes littering its frame; thin, tendon-like strings protruded from the structure's front, rife with wind-natured chakra that flowed with a certain complexity. Its head seemed mostly skull-like, including the eyeless stare and its hanging jaw, lined uniformly by thick, human teeth

"Below!"

Sure enough, another summoning circle was manifesting directly beneath him. He was already on it though, vaulting backward as the ground split apart; a large, bulky creature pulled itself from the rubble, this one heavily armored with thick, cymbal-like plates that donned much of its upper torso. It stood tall on thick, vascular legs and large, swollen fists that it held in a boxer's stance. Atop its burly torso was a narrow skull that seemed too small for its lone, bulging eye; its lipless, brick-toothed maw gnashed with agitation. Atop its odd head was a large, make-shift kasa hat, made from two intersecting cymbals.

"Two-on-one, you said? No, my dear. It's four-on-one."

---

Hinata's onslaught was relentless, pushing Hiashi beyond the initial location and to a rising ascent to the upper levels of the building

Hiashi burst through the emergency door leading to the roof of the hospital, his wayward daughter chasing him down like a bat out of hell.

"Idiot girl, have you lost your mind!" He snapped at her as she cut past him, ducking briefly behind some hanging laundry. His byakugan allowed him to react to a kunai, flung through the cloth; he swatted it away and paced forward to meet his daughter as she rounded the distraction.

"This is a hospital!"

"Why do you think I let you lead me up here?" Hinata deflected his chide with a lackadaisical, uncharacteristic roll of her eyes. "I'm not stupid." Their clash was brief, a swift exchange of cutting palms and stabbing fingertips, before both leapt away as one.

"What's gotten into you?" Hiashi's scowl deepened; he took one step forward, his byakugan trying to pin the girl, as if to compel her to feel shame. "You know better than to-"

"Stop talking," Hinata cut across him with a hiss. Hiashi's jaw snapped shut, stunned dumb by her blatant malice. "I'm so, so sick of hearing you talk like you have a leg to stand on."

"Hinata-"

"Shut up!" Hinata's byakugan intensified further, tints of red beginning to swirl into her lavender glare; the veins around her eyes heated with an irritated, scarlet flush, her own scowl eating up her whole tattooed face; its markings writhed and twisted on her flesh. "It's always been about what you want; you always get the last word. You always get to say what you want; do what you want- and damn anybody that you tear down or bowl over on the way!" Her voice cracked at the tail end of her speech. "Now- right now, it's about me; it's about what I want!" A garbled snarl, then- "And what I want- really, really want, right now, is to hurt you."

"I- I see…"

Hurt him, huh? Somehow, that seemed fitting…

Hiashi only shook his head, this quiet sense of something filling his posture. "If that's how it is-" He took his stance, his leading palm turned inward and gesturing for her approach. "Come hurt me, then."

From their height, the wind cut around them, throwing loose fabric up and about. Hiashi was stone as his daughter reciprocated, now taking that odd, low stance of hers. Now more than ever, it seemed to fit her to a 't', balancing her weight perfectly.

It was like he'd blinked, and that anxious, scared-of-her-own-shadow little girl had died… Now, in her place was someone new entirely; her back was straighter than ever; her eyes were hard and teeming with this absolutism that he'd always demanded, but never quite expected to see.

He should have been pleased- proud. But that darkness in her-

A towel rotated off its hanger, catching with the wind and flying between them. Still, Hiashi's byakugan did not miss his daughter's immaculate approach; she came in low, twin streams of chakra propelling her rush and guiding her path into his space; her glide tapered off as she entered his reach, palm tensed with intent to deal damage.

He took one step back, intercepting her blow at the wrist like he'd done many times before.

But this time was different.

Hinata responded just as quickly, twisting her wrist and reversing the momentum he'd tried to impose on her. His body wrenched, coming just off balance, even as he rushed to right himself. Hinata capitalized, her first blow one of a salvo that shunted for his revealed torso. He slapped the first strike down, a retaliating strike meeting a swift cross-guard from the girl, which wove into a sharp backfist that he tilted back to avoid. Hinata's attack continued; she shoved him with both hands, driving him back two steps, and pushed forward to press him further; her palm careened in, slapping against his readied forearm. The force of her blow was less than he would have expected- little chakra to speak of, and Hiashi had to dip back sharply when her attack transitioned into a regular punch that nearly broke his nose.

Mixing up her gentle-fist attacks with mundane strikes to confuse his byakugan's perception. Clever.

But he was no amateur.

He stepped back, and she stepped forward.

A sweeping kick from his daughter tried to take his footing; Hiashi raised a leg to avoid it, kicking out at the pit of her knee just as she passed. Hinata caught herself quickly, palming the ground and lashing out with a rising back kick, which demanded he give her space.

Immediately, they were back to neutral, Hinata righting herself to once again take her stance. Hiashi frowned, a heavy sigh deflating his body as he took his own.

This time, he made the first move, crossing the distance in a single stride to harass her with a shove of his own. Hinata was unprepared for the maneuver and stumbled, allowing him to take the lead:

He raised his leg sharply, feinting a kick that she rushed to guard; his heel impacted a moment later, driving into her hip and causing her to stumble. That same leg ducked low, sweeping her own weakened side into an awkward position; a second heel-kick struck her inner thigh, spinning Hinata out and dropping her.

As she fell, Hinata lashed out, snatching a shirt from a clothesline. She rolled forward onto her back, slinging the thing toward his leg and yanking him forward into a half-split, and Hiashi's guard only made it half-way before she'd reared up and kicked back at him, driving the air out of his lungs and flooring him.

A long, suffering breath, then he pulled himself to his feet, nearly in sync with her.

As Hinata once again took her stance, he could see the logic behind her eyes, calculating his moves.

Analysis.

Adaptation.

Attack.

Hinata came in again, pivoting on her heel to twist around his opening strike. She tore another towel from a line, making to throw the thing before letting it drop.

What?

Hiashi sputtered as her leg shot out, launching the towel into his face.

"Blasted girl-" He snapped, remaining calm. His discipline paid off, his byakugan allowing him to track her all the same as she attacked.

"Two palms," She snarled; two strikes, the first punching straight into his guard and followed swiftly by a chop that he had to raise to meet. "Four palms!" Hiashi was more than ready for her barrage, but then she surprised him again.

His guard went unassailed as her feint adjusted, her beginning onslaught leading instead to a grapple that trapped his guarding arms; hauling herself up, her ploy gave her the leverage to crash her shin into the side of his head.

His daughter had become a damned good liar.

Hiashi saw stars, and his vision blacked for a moment as she adjusted yet again, driving her heel into his chest and knocking the wind out of his lungs. His chakra rose to smother the chakra behind her blows, but it was getting harder; every blow she struck seemed to come heavier and more precise!

He skid back from the force of her kick, and Hinata was already upon him. His hands flashed thrice, the first two deflected almost petulantly by his daughter as she advanced on him; his third strike met air entirely as Hinata pivoted on her heel and slid around him in a sharp arc, her elbow primed for attack. Hiashi slapped the limb away, twin sparks of chakra rising as their energies clashed. Moving to capitalize on her exposed back, he was forced to backpedal as she tipped forward, a sharp back-kick nearly taking his ribs.

He did not suffer the backfoot for long, yanking the towel from his face and pushing forward to press his daughter from her position; Hinata pivoted again, new momentum winding her extended leg to reverse a roundhouse that he leaned back sharply to avoid. She caught herself with elegance, chakra sticking her hold to the ground and righting her to drive her heel into his calf as his own leg extended; Hiashi's kick was knocked wide, and Hinata followed through by sweeping her extended leg to catch her foe's other. With his stance forcibly widened, Hiashi could only throw his arms up again as her first blow rocked him, sparks of pain rising into his shuddering guard. He skidded back on spread legs, and sucked down a breath as she followed up, breaking into a rapid forward-somersault; her leg cleaved down onto his shoulder like the head of an axe, driving him down and exposing his face.

Panic would demand that he rush to protect himself.

But his discipline held once more, and he saw through the incoming feint, righting himself enough to maintain his guard for his torso.

Her next strike was guarded; it bled into a barrage.

Two

Four

Eight

Sparks flew and gathered, a clear warning of what was to come. He needed to stop her momentum before she became too much.

Each blow was guarded or parried with masterful work, six more rapid-fire blows each going wide as Hiashi once again collected himself and now began to take the lead. His arms crossed before him, trapping her elbow and taking her by her inner arm; a twist of his whole body forced her to follow, exposing her own torso to a kick that stabbed into her body. Hinata gasped as her father's chakra exploded, shunting her away from him in a painful heap.

"Are we done?" Hiashi asked her, coolly. He righted himself fully, muffling a grunt of discomfort at the soreness their exchange had left. "You've improved significantly, and I'm pleased with your progress... Surely this is enough-

"Shut the fuck up," Hinata groaned, and Hiashi gaped at his daughter's crass demand. "I'm not doing this for you. I don't need your approval!"

"I- I-" Hiashi sputtered, thoroughly out of his element. "This is a waste of time!" Hiashi snapped back, after a moment. "We're fighting over nothing! That blasted seal is perverting your mind; you're out of your senses!"

Hinata was quiet for a moment, a foul expression that he could never have expected, swathing her features. Sensing the opportunity, Hiashi pushed on.

"I don't wish to hurt you, daughter," Hiashi told her, calmly. "Regardless of what you may think of me, I have never wished you harm."

"... I don't believe you," Hinata gasped, shaking her head and pulling herself back to her feet. Through the torn belly of her top, he could see the red-tinged bruise he'd left in her already beginning to fade. "'Never wished me harm?' You've always hated me… Ever since mom died; now, I'm just meeting you halfway."

What?

Hiashi blanched. "Hinata, that's not-"

"Shut up!" Her rebuke was visceral, tearing from her throat in a spray of spittle. "Don't lie! Don't lie to me!"

Her chakra spiked again, so intense that his eyes watered at the sight of it- this fetid, unmitigated mass of resentment that expelled from every pore like hundreds of open-faucets. It spilled around her, looming in the air and twisting and turning like wispy, tendrilled fingers. The mark that covered her flesh continued its creep, widening and spreading until it smothered her whole body in its molten, crimson cover.

"Hehe… I don't think I ever realized how much I hated you, until Naruto-kun and I started seeing each other," Hinata wheezed, her eyes clenching under wracks of pain. The curse-mark's influence had fully spread, its glow dulling to reveal her darkened, ash-brown skin. Her hair paled, lightening to a lavender shade and lengthening until it passed her shoulders; her front bangs covered the right of her face in a messy, uneven slant.

"I didn't realize that I could feel anything other than lonely and self-loathing; I didn't realize that wasn't normal. That it wasn't my fault."

Deep, bloody slits carved their place beneath her eyes, stretching into the meat of her cheeks. A thin, vertical cleft split into her bottom lip, finishing its path down to her chin; on either corner of her lips, that shape mirrored itself, extending in diagonal paths to the far corners of either side of her jaw.

Her eyes opened, and Hiashi gasped:

The sclera of her eyes had tinted a glossy back, bordering her pupilless eyes which had been washed fully in scarlet; beneath, a second set of eyes ripped open, an identical set of cloudy, blood moons stretching back to the far end of either cheek. They blinked twice, still sticky with her darkened blood. Then, all four eyes narrowed, locking Hiashi in their hateful sights.

"And now I realize: I can't live with myself, knowing you did that to me- that you're going to do that to Hanabi too, because that's just what you do. And some day, she's going to be just as hurt and hateful as I am."

Thick, colored plates, washed with vibrant splashes of pink, greens, and blues grew atop her flesh, wrapping almost suffocatingly tight around her neck and spreading downward; they covered her intermittently, cladding parts of her shoulders, biceps, and building thoroughly around her forearms. They began to encase her, one slowing its creep at the bracelet on her wrist; the other swallowed her hand fully and began to grow, shredding apart her glove and shaping itself into a rounded, oversized claw like that of a pistol shrimp.

Just what in blazes was happening to her?

"So I won't give you that chance… I'm setting you straight right now, before you manage to break Hanabi too."

---

"So this is what it's like, getting jumped, huh?"

Naruto was really starting to feel pity for all the people he'd smacked around with his Shadow-Clones.

Tayuya and her Doki attacked as a tight unit, the two smaller assailants trying to pincer him on the ground level while their master hung back and lent support from atop their pot-bellied giant.

"So do these guys have names?" Naruto called back to his foe as he vaulted over the shoulder of the cricket-like demon. He pivoted immediately as it turned to lunge for him, leaping forward and kicking out to intercept the fist of the cymbal-wearing one. His other foot swung in, crashing against its face with the same crushing force that had felled Tayuya's pot-bellied giant.

But this one held, remaining tall even as part of its peculiar face ruptured under his force.

So this one was seemingly tougher than the rest, huh? Even in its unarmored bits!

Naruto adapted quickly, righting himself to kick off from the cymbal-wearing Doki. He twisted in mid-air with supreme flexibility, narrowly curving just away from direct impact from the hammer-like fist of the largest one.

"Eel's path."

Palming her planted fist, Naruto swung himself into a forward vault, his forward glide accelerating to a streak that flew up the extended limb to pressure Tayuya before any of her Doki could respond.

"As a matter of fact, I never did getting around to naming them," Orochimaru's sibilant hiss once again perverted the tone of his cousin as they clashed, a right cross from the blonde transitioning quickly; his shoulder rotated twice, a duo of heavy impacts first snapping her guarding forearm before pulverizing her collarbone. "Careful, now! Healing is well and good, but I don't think she can survive a splattered head!"

… He was right. Brute force wasn't going to solve the battle. He couldn't hit Orochimaru, since the asshole was just hiding behind Tayuya; all he was really doing was hurting her. What's more, those Doki of hers weren't staying down.

Clearly, this asshole wasn't just using Tayuya to waste his time, but was also holding her hostage.

"You are a worthless, spineless, belly-crawling little bjiir/rat, you know that!?" Naruto ranted, forced to flip backwards to evade a grabbing attempt from the big one.

He'd call her Opera.

"Your words sting, truly! I'm sure if I understood that last part, my heart would be truly shattered!" Orochimaru laughed into Tayuya's flute, her song intensifying in the next moment; as the song picked up its pace, so-to did her Doki.

"You keep calling yourself a parent, but you're damn quick to use your kids like they're fucking toys to use and discard as you see fit! You have no loyalty to anyone but yourself!"

"Oh, do go on."

"You'll never be grandma's little munchkin!"

"... Okay, ow."

Lucky for him, he had a solution.

"I'll start building chakra," Kushina volunteered. "We'll need a lot if we want to put down somebody like him, so try not to use any big techniques that might disrupt us."

Got it. Which meant clones were off the table if he wanted to close things out neatly.

And better not to get too wild with his chains either…

"So just toughen up and thug it out- I can do that."

Naruto's leap took him to the ceiling, and he picked up the pace to match the increasing haste of his attackers. The cricket came wide this time, meeting Naruto on the ceiling in a flurry of swings with its oversized arm. He tilted just enough to let a swing fly by, turning on deft heels to evade a hearty lunge from below; the Cymbal-one crumbled their footing above and left rubble to drop all around them. Ricocheting from the rubble, he clashed twice with Cricket, aborting a third, decisive lunge to tilt, mid-air to evade a swat from Opera. Her throat colored and expanded, and Naruto groaned, twisting sharply from his position to evade the beam of sound that came from above. Cricket was already there, right into the path of the wave.

What were they doing?

Chakra surged into that wide, complex forearm of its limb, expanding further as it swatted Opera's wave right back at him.

So it could deflect sound, huh?

Naruto cartwheeled just out of the path, the wave crashing right into the path of the waiting Cymbal-armored Doki. The crash emitted a blinding shriek; Naruto's vision wobbled, the leak of blood spilling over from his ear.

Well that wasn't good.

"Your shingin' shucks," He slurred through the pain, stumbling twice in place. His mind's eye warned him enough to throw his arms up, meeting the meaty shoulder of the muscular creature; its force staggered him back, a step. Then its fist crashed directly into his temple and sent him sprawling, rolling once across the ground onto his hands and knees. "And you hit like a bitch!"

"Individually, they're not much of a problem-" Kushina observed, noting the time as Opera's throat began to expand again. "That's five seconds, flat again."

Got it, thanks.

A tiny shard of chain stuck to the business end of the blade for later, as it was planted firmly into the neighboring wall.

A snap of his fingers, and that rigged kunai wiggled free from its place in the wall; it rounded her massive form and jammed into her throat, cutting off the beginning of her screech. The singing Doki scrambled, oversized fingers prying at the kunai in her trachea, and Naruto capitalized immediately; he was on the move again, tucking his head to barge right past the lunging cricket. He stumbled away from the two remaining harassers that nipped at his heels.

"But together, they cover each others' weaknesses pretty darn well."

Yeah.

The cricket was fast and preferred cramped spaces, making it ideal for directing his movements for the other two. It seemed like it could only move quickly in straight lines, and could swap between thrusting attacks with its bow-like limb, and using that flatter limb of its to manipulate the trajectory of sound.

Cymbal was bulky, packing a fair punch and a lot more resilience than the other two, combined. It was much slower than the former, and it seemed to amplify sounds upon contact with its body, making it perfect for staying in the thick of things while receiving suppressing fire from the final one.

Then there was Opera, the largest, and seemingly the lynchpin to Tayuya's little trio. She was surprisingly fragile for her large size; what's more, she was surprisingly mobile, using those cord-like limbs to reach high places and swing herself around. Her most deadly weapon though was that scream of hers, which could fire either as an imprecise wave that was hard to dodge, or as an accurate projectile, which was easier to miss but stronger and could be reflected or amplified by either of the others.

But there seemed to be a delay before she could scream again; exactly five seconds, at least, before she could recover her throat enough to attack. Once full, there wasn't much delay at all before it could be fired. A little under a second.

Naruto ducked into an empty room as a wave came for him, shutting the thing behind him.

He just needed a quick second or two to clear his vision.

The door splintered as something impacted it.

"Occupied, sorry!" Naruto called to the other side.

A moment later, a second one followed, Cymbal's shoulder bashing right through it.

"Eeep!" Naruto yelped, toppling forward through the remains. He recovered quickly though; rolling back to his feet, Naruto let his momentum carry on, rolling again over a gurney and turning in place to palm either side of it. Cymbal met him on the other side, the back of one of those oversized fists scraping just short of his nose; it recovered immediately, a straight jab from that same fist forcing Naruto to lean even further back to evade it while kicking the gurney into it, side-first; it crashed, back against the wall and pinned momentarily by the residual force. A plain kunai followed up, stabbing its hand against the wall and buying Naruto a quick half-second as his and Kushina's senses blared.

"Nope!" He laughed, intercepting the lunging, spear-like limb of the cricket; he dragged it along in a half-circle, one of his fists bashing it against the wall on the other side. Cricket did not delay at all, lunging once again; its body crashed into Naruto like a spear, driving him towards the wall right beside the pinned Cymbal. "Double nope!" Naruto cackled, bracing himself for that impact. His recovery was instant, the blonde smashing his knee right into the waiting face of the Cricket. Its blood spewed free, half its face splintering into shards of bone and viscera; a punch followed immediately, splattering much of its head onto the ground. Even still, its attack persisted, stabbing its lengthy limb center-masse.

"Triple nope!" Naruto's fingers twisted into a familiar sign; his body shrunk, eight limbs popping free to take a tiny, spider-like shape reminiscent of Kumoko and let the spear-like appendage stab just above his head.

"Don't overdo it!" Kushina warned him again.

He skittered along the wall, deftly evading a second stab before leaping free from the wall just over the head of his attacker and twisting just enough mid-air to spring off Cricket's lashing, squatter limb as it rushed to swat him. A thin spool of chain hit the ceiling, rappelling his shrunken form onto a small counter top; the transformed Naruto moved quickly, scrambling into a small cabinet to avoid an impassioned series of stabs from the long arm of the Cricket.

One.

Three.

Five stabs cleaved into the sealed cabinet before it finally cleaved the cabinet-door away. It hung in the air for a moment, drifting from the force that it had been tossed with. Then, something long and fabric-like carved right through its middle from the other side, slicing off the top-half of the enemy's skull; its body slumped forward, its upper half toppling over the counter.

"You guys are really bad at this," Naruto snickered, landing as himself once again and wiping the darkened blood of the beast from his transformed sleeve.

"She's going to scream!"

Kushina's warning came just in time; Naruto groaned as Opera ducked her porcelain-faced head into the room, her masked visage splitting to reveal her true, ghastly, grinning face.

He had less than a second as her swollen throat began to vibrate; he cast his vision around, judging his placement of his two enemies, and an idea hit him. His sleeve carved again, this time through the bicep of the downed cricket; he snatched its severed, flat-ended limb like the hilt of a racket and recalled the way the creature had channeled its chakra…

"Up for a game of chicken!?"

And the room detonated.

---

Naruto's words had left Kurenai to mull them endlessly, long after he was gone.

"Dreams don't exist to be easy…"

Yeah, she knew that, well.

But it had been- well, not just the confidence, but the eagerness with which he had declared that, that had stumped her.

Why in god's name had he seemed so thrilled, at that notion? Was he crazy?

… Probably- maybe a little…

But Naruto Uzumaki's beliefs spoke for themselves, didn't they? In just a few months, he had seemingly taken himself from the underdog of the whole Chunin exams to a damned-capable ninja whose abilities had started to make waves within the village.

A Chunin promotion within the first year of one's tenure was exceedingly rare, even among exceptionally talented ninja; the fact that he had been one among the two to accomplish it- the other being the Shikaku Nara's super-genius son-

Well, that in of itself was a remarkable achievement. But the truly terrifying thought was that the boy in question was rapidly growing past even that level. Soon enough, he would be a Jonin- the same rank as her…

She knew it in her bones.

And that- that was a terrifying thought- an achievement matched in the past only by one-in-a-lifetime monsters like Kakashi Hatake or their late Lord Fourth, himself.

But it wasn't just that either; if it were, she could have simply written him off as some kind of immaculate talent- a late bloomer, of sorts, and moved on.

The real surprise had been Hinata. She was the perfect testament to his ideology; Kurenai had seen her darling student jump in prowess, seemingly following the very same practices that Naruto had preached to her. She had gone from a soft girl, always doubting and prone to quitting- often hesitating or making mistakes in the field, to- well, Kurenai really wasn't sure yet what her student had become, but she knew damned well that her bond with Naruto had been the catalyst.

And she had seen enough of her fight against Raiga amidst her struggle with her bone-wielding assailant to get an impression of what that catalyst had created.

Passion; hunger… Thrill. Hinata had rarely even seemed present- not truly so, as of late…

Except when she was in the thick of it all.

Was that the key to it? Had she simply gotten complacent, in her age? Forgotten how to want, not just for the sake of her village or responsibilities, but simply for the thrill of the journey?

God, it felt like she was thinking in circles.

Her thoughts had circled back in that way thrice, now; it had dominated her, distracting her from the inevitable amputation of her dead arm. Preparing her; galvanizing her too…

It had nearly distracted her even further from the commotion outside- let her convince herself that it wasn't her problem.

Until an explosion sounded, a floor above. All at once, her instincts kicked in, and Kurenai was struggling out of her chair, hobbling to her feet.

"What's going on?"

A second explosion sounded, this one even mightier than the last. The building seemed to shake in its entirety, bits of rubble crumbling from above to rain down around her. She rushed through it all, jerking the door open and taking stock of the situation.

People, all about on this level- chaos jerking their strings. A young man toppled in the crowd, crashing onto his belly; his instincts saved him, tucking his head and curling up to weather the stampede of feet that battered or scrambled over him.

Farther out, she could make out a nurse fighting to wade through the haste to get to him, horror and responsibility dragging her further into the slop in a way that Kurenai knew would only end poorly.

And she may have been injured, but she was still a Jonin of the Leaf.

"STOP! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" She shouted, battered chakra rising and twisting clumsily to aid her. Her compulsion stumbled through the air, aided poorly by a one-handed seal.

But for mere civilians, it would be enough.

The stampede ground to a halt, the peoples' gaze yanked to her.

A breath, to cool the disgust in that festered in her chest.

"Single file lines. Follow her," She demanded, pointing toward the frazzled nurse, who now seemed a deer in the headlights. "Move, slowly!"

The people obeyed, allowing her to mesh right into the mass to secure the fallen man.

"Are you alright?" She hauled him to his feet, but he didn't really seem to be in any kind of walking state. "You-" Kurenai singled out another man, taller and larger, and seeming thoroughly chastened by her earlier rebuke. "Help him out."

"Er- yes, ma'am…" He near-whispered, sheepishly ducking under the poor guy's arm and leading him along.

She stepped out of the line with a sigh, watching them go. Another explosion sounded above, this one sounding awfully close.

Just what in the world was going on?

Then the ceiling blew apart, a familiar silhouette tumbling through the debris to land, hands and knees, with a yelp.

"Okay, so that's a bit harder than it looks," Naruto groaned to himself, rising through the damage to handle what appeared to be… A severed limb? "But I understand it now."

"What in god's name are you doing?" Kurenai hissed, because for all his antics, she knew well that the boy in front of her would never pick a fight in a hospital.

… She hoped.

"Oh heya, Kurenai-sensei." Naruto pulled himself to his full height and waved, patting the ruins off his somewhat damaged kimono-top; a sleeve had been torn away, and his obi had been nearly completely shredded apart down the middle. A sheepish grin melted onto his pretty face. "Fancy meeting you here- eep!" He yelped again as bits of the ceiling crumbled for a second time, a large, bulky body crashing down in a meaty heap where he had stood. "I promise this is not my fault! I'm simply a victim of circumstance! Er- I think?"

"Do you not realize how contradictory that sounds!?" Kurenai snapped, kipping back, herself, to avoid the blowback of the new party's landing. "What's going on?"

The dust surrounding the creature parted, revealing the corpse of a large, plated thing. Only a moment's pause followed before it began to stir, its mangled body trying to stand on one broken leg.

"Er- right…" Naruto rubbed the back of his head, his grin widening with something close to eagerness. "So Tayuya and Hinata ain't exactly in their right minds, right about now-"

Hinata was involved too!?

"Where is she!? What happened to her?"

"The mark on her neck has her spazzing out on the roof! She's fighting Hiashi!" He winced, eyeing above; his lips curled downward, concern taking over. "Getting awfully rowdy up there too."

Then, a haunting melody began to play from above; its sound spilled out through the hole in the ceiling, and immediately, the mangled body of the fallen, cymbal-wearing creature began to reform itself.

"Welp, there goes my break!" Naruto cut in front of her, rushing to meet the quickening charge of the now two-legged creature. His limbs struck out in a blinding flurry, an opening palm awarding a vile 'crack' from its ribs; the sound meshed with rapid echoes of damage- the hammer side of the blonde's fist weakening its jaw before a rising elbow finished it off; its block-like teeth spewed, bloody flecks chasing close-after.

"See, I'm trying to get to her; once I do, I'm sure I can sort her out, no problem!" He leaned back to dodge a wild punch from the thing, his fingers closing a strangling grip around its bicep to pull it in while he righted himself; his elbow jabbed out like the tip of a spear, another crack splitting from its collarbone. "But these things ain't exactly staying down, ya know!?"

There were more!?

As if on cue, a large, long-limbed beast descended from the hole in the ceiling, half of its monstrous face mutilated to a pile of shredded, scabbed meat. Lurching over its shoulder, still in some disarray, was the sagging shape of a monsterized redhead; her two, viciously curled horns were splintered apart; severe lacerations littered much of her arms, shredding apart much of her top and into her chest. She was bleeding profusely, but seemed to be recovering at an alarming rate.

Naruto's heel drove into his opponent's torso, sending it sprawling right before the landing newcomers. A moment later, a large, insectoid thing dropped down to join the other three; the oddly shaped limb that Naruto had been inspecting ripped away from his grasp, snapping back onto that final beast with a heavy 'slosh' of flesh.

"That was a cute trick," Tayuya's distorted voice made Kurenai's skin crawl, because she knew that inflection well. She had only ever heard it once now, but Orochimaru's hiss was unmistakable. "Shall we continue?"

"What in god's name-"

"So- uh, I have a favor to ask!" Naruto took her attention right back from the messed up band of creatures.

"...I can stall them. Go to her!" Kurenai insisted, anticipating his need.

"Not that." He shook his head, a wry grin twisting onto his face. "I've just about got the measure of these guys. Naruto snickered, once again dusting himself off. This time, his clothes seemed to restore themselves until he seemed utterly unharmed, save for the dust on his person. "I was just about to wrap this up, believe it."

Tayuya's brow raised. "So soon, hm? Well, don't disappoint me, now."

Naruto ignored Orochimaru. "There are more who are under the spell: Sasuke and Anko; Kidomaru, Sakon and Ukon… You can't miss those guys. But they're rushing here damn-fast! Do you think you could help stall them for me?" Now looking at his enemy- "I've got Tayuya handled just fine; once I get Hinata settled, I can cut the signal and everybody else should settle too! I just need some time. So- uh… Go to the time store and buy me some… Super please? See, that's like regular 'please' but-"

"But super. Yes, I know how it goes, dear." Kurenai frowned. Even against just one opponent, her wounds would surely make fighting a challenge.

Thrill, huh?

"I'll take care of it," She promised, nodding. She followed his point, turning away from his scuffle. "Don't go letting me down here, okay?"

"Just who the hell do you think I am, huh?" He cracked his knuckles, then his posture relaxed as she made her exit. A hand slipped right into his pocket, secondary arms falling loose by his sides; a single palm tilted toward the possessed Tayuya and the three Doki, a clear invitation of challenge in that one gesture. "Alrighty snake-man. Let's wrap this up; I'll take you down in a flash."

"Ready when you are. Go wild!"

"A flash, huh? Now where have I heard that one?"

Tayuya's lips closed around her flute, and Cricket rushed him in an instant.

But he'd seen everything they could do. By now, it was damn-predictable.

"This one always rushes in straight lines." Naruto stepped forward, tilting and angling just enough to let its pointed limb skewer air as it passed slightly overhead. "And this one always uses the rush of the first to cover for its slow bulk." Another step, and his heel collided squarely with the knee of the Cymbal, halting its follow-up; he leaned all the way back until his body was near-parallel to the floor, letting its flailing fist pass just over his nose; at the same time, Cricket's returning swipe did the same, the two limbs meeting in the middle.

And once they had you pincered, they closed the distance and struck as one.

"Yeah, this won't take longer than a minute," Naruto decided. Fingers twisted, and chain unraveled from his back, stabbing into the ground and lifting him up. Tucking his knees in, Naruto barged past the meeting limbs of the two attacking Doki, flipping backward and eyeing the swelling throat of Opera.

Five seconds on the dot- that was the minimum amount of time that it needed to fill that air sack in its throat; once it did, it was a little more than a half-second before it could scream.

He was more than fast enough to capitalize on that.

"Cut that shit out." A snap of his fingers, and the grounded chain burst free on a rapid course for her. They filled the narrow space entirely, leaving no room for her large bulk to even try to evade. "Adamantine Formation: Thistle." Makeshift thorns of metal closed in on her from all sides, skewering through her feet and hands, then joined by more which punched deep into her torso and throat; the air she had gathered expelled with a pathetic wheeze.

With Opera's suppressing fire neutralized, the other two lacked their more wily options. Cricket had nothing to reflect, and thus could only lunge; Cymbal had no sound waves to cover its approach, and its slowness would show.

Landing neatly, Naruto tilted again to let the cricket fly past him; at the same time, he reached behind him, catching the rushing fist of Cymbal and twisting. Its arm snapped like a pencil underfoot, flesh bursting apart to make way for ruined bones and blood. Not yet releasing it, he dragged the creature in, planting his feet and rotating while dragging it with him. Its body crashed right into the follow-up rush of Cricket, and Naruto fell in step to follow them as they fell. "Adamantine Formation: Spear-fishing." A single, hooked thorn flew free from his chasing palm, skewering through the two and pinning their bodies to one another and the ground. "Bloom." That one spear burst into a shower of thorns; they littered much of their conjoined bodies, spiking outward like a large, macabre cactus.

Forget a minute, he'd hardly needed six seconds.

"These guys are pretty annoying; they pair well with each other, and that song of hers makes it hard to put them down, proper… But once you know how they work, it's not so bad, huh?"

And with the Doki thoroughly out of commission, not just wounded, but restrained and suppressed by chain, there was only one option left to anticipate.

Tayuya's flute music washed over him, twisting the world around them.

Genjutsu.

Even with the curse-mark to bolster her chakra, those Doki seemed to drain a ton of energy to keep on the field; even more to continually regenerate them. Tayuya's chakra was running dangerously low, which explained why Orochimaru had made her hold off on an all-out genjutsu attack for so long.

Genjutsu were generally fairly cheap to cast, compared to something like elemental jutsu. However, they had to be precise; they were easy to destabilize without a constant foundation, which made them especially difficult to use alongside other active techniques. Moreover, they continually drained chakra to reinforce against attempts to break them. Against a capable opponent, a genjutsu attack like this was best served as either a fight ender or a stalling tactic.

The hospital walls fogged over, their pristine likeness marred by scarlet trails of mess. Beneath their feet, ash-gray flowers began to bloom, bursting free from between the tileset to coil their lanky petals across every inch; then they spread further, embedding their places up the walls and into the ceiling until every inch of the surrounding space had been covered.

From their scarlet buds, a faint red haze began to fill the room; the spread intensified by the second, density increasing until the runoff was so thick that Naruto could barely make out Tayuya or her Doki, save for the girl's black-bordered, yellowish glow.

"This was her first genjutsu, you know," Orochimaru told him, wistfully. "Well- the first that she ever made, herself. Do you know what she called it?"

Naruto raised a brow. "Corpse-flower Wedding."

"So you do… I suppose you two are quite close, hm? Mere weeks under your wing, and already, she belongs so thoroughly to you; even now, with her mind in my grasp, her heart fights me on your behalf." Tayuya pulled away from her flute, a bitter smile finding her darkened lips. "I must admit, it really… Vexes me."

Without warning, the flowers began to move as if they had a mind of their own. They twisted, their petals coiling around his body with suffocating tightness until the breath in his lungs began a wistful memory. They heaved, and his legs began to sink into the field; the burn in his lungs heightened as the pollen around them began to heat and ignite.

"The flowers embrace you tightly like a lover would. Then, the pollen ignites your lungs with their passion as you are dragged beneath the surface, unionized forever with the earth's soil… How poetic, hm?"

"Sure, sure…" Naruto allowed, shaking his head. "But see, there's this fun little weakness to genjutsu that Kurenai-sensei and Tayuya both taught me."

Tayuya's brow raised.

"Genjutsu are usually categorized in one of two ways. Idle effects- set 'em and forget 'em; you inject your chakra into a guy, weave it into your illusion, and let nature take its course."

Kurenai-sensei's preferred style. It was these types that were typically used for mere distractions. They were subtle, and also fairly easy to break, demanding only that the affected be able to recognize the illusion and disrupt its hold on their chakra.

"Then there are lingering effects, where you plug the controller up somebody's ass and stick around to watch the fire-works!"

Tayuya's preference. Typically used for offensive purposes; they were more resistant to being broken, due to the caster being present to reinforce the genjutsu against attempts to break it.

"But see, when you cast a genjutsu, you are establishing a link with your yin-chakra; through that link, you impose upon the enemy. " Naruto's descent had nearly taken him down to his neck, and he snickered. "And with lingering genjutsu, you even double down to protect that link… But you also expose yourself to that very same risk. Against an equal or greater enemy, you're increasingly likely to have that risk exploited."

And he would hazard a guess that Orochimaru was doing the same thing to possess her.

"Oh?" Orochimaru's patronizing amusement perverted his cousin's pretty features. "Fancy yourself a genjutsu expert then?"

"Nah." Naruto let the clear taunt slide right off. "But I can do this."

Orochimaru couldn't have been any more prepared for it than Tsunade had been. Naruto's spiritual energies spiked, hyper-condensed chakra releasing its binds; it swelled to the point of bursting and took aim- not at Tayuya, but reaching deeper, guided by their mind's eye and settling squarely on the presence of the snake, himself.

"Yin-release: Empty Bead."

The distortion twisted apart, leaving Naruto standing in the shaking hospital once again. A half-second, then the Doki dispersed in three simultaneous puffs of smoke. Tayuya fell forward, landing flat on her face; her flesh reddened and bubbled, the molten ink of the curse-mark peeling away to reveal her person as he knew her; it receded back to the mark on her neck.

"Bet you thought you were being damn cute, hiding behind her, huh? Just made it damn easy to kill two birds with one stone." A huff. "Keep your grubby hands off me and mine, jackass," Naruto grumbled, kneeling down to gather the girl in his arms. Her wounds were superficial, mostly healed by the curse-mark's influence before it had gone. Her eyes cracked apart, those brown orbs regarding him with delirium.

"Told you I'd take care of it, ya know?" Naruto tucked her into his chest, palm closing around the side of her neck; his chakra wove into place to secure the mark once more.

His secondary arms rose, fingers crossing to summon a clone.

"Take her home."

---

"Marvelous."

Orochimaru's eyes peeled open, a deep exhale of breath heralding bloodshot whites and the light of gold. Bone-white hands seized either armrest of his chair, the serpentine man uncoiling from the lounge and staggering forward, a step.

"To think that you would come so far, so soon…"

He could hardly recognize young Naruto Uzumaki, from the orange-clad nuisance who had opposed him just a few short months ago in the Forest of Death.

Back then, that boy had hardly served an afterthought, when placed beside his true interest; even the mighty Kyuubi and its overwhelming, caustic chakra had taken a backseat, compared to the prized eyes of Sasuke Uchiha.

Now though, he understood his folly- truly.

"Hrk!" Orochimaru wobbled, eyes jamming shut as a wave of illness hit him; the world spun, his eyes rolling back as agony lit its fire in his cells. He staggered back a step, a fortunate hand snapping to steady himself with the rest of his chair.

Such formidable chakra, the boy had cultivated. Even Orochimaru's own remarkable reserves could not compare- "Certainly not with this insufficient husk," he hissed, self-derision fueling the chuckle that followed.

It had been a bit foolish of him to try leveraging a remote-possession with his curse-mark. Young Naruto had had it right- establishing such a link in such a way, for genjutsu or whatever else, was extremely risky business. Whatever yin-release attack he had pointed Orochimaru's way had managed to strike the fraying bonds between Orochimaru's soul and his current body.

Lucky, surely; however, the results spoke well enough for themselves.

Having his barrier torn down as well had not helped his condition. That spider-like pet of his, with chakra nearly as impressive as the boy himself- it vaguely matched the description of the titan that young Naruto had used to face down the One Tails, according to his Kabuto; it had been that very story that had inspired him to create the Yamata no Orochi.

"How fascinating!" They truly were two peas in a pod!

Wetness touched his lip, and a smear of crimson 'plopped' to his feet.

"Ah. Well that's not good."

His body was rejecting him- sooner than he would have liked… This exchange had only solidified that concern- massively expedited it, even. Where once, he should have had days, now he worried he might not even have minutes.

"Orochimaru-sama?" Kabuto's voice eased him from his thoughts. His glance found the bespectacled young man's approach, the mar of concern upon his lips.

"Be a dear for me, Kabuto-kun," Orochimaru snickered, a bit sheepish. "Prepare my replacement, will you?"

"Of course." Kabuto's exit was swift, and his master followed after him at a more leisurely pace.

"Fascinating… How truly fascinating!" He muttered to himself, a glaze crossing his vision in step with his condition; a painful cough wracked his body, the Snake Sannin's fingers slipping against the slickness of his leaning wall. "Oh, whoopsie," He grumbled, but his fall was halted abruptly; strands of white filled his vision, then Kimimaro's teal eyes met him halfway.

"Ah, good evening, Kimimaro," Orochimaru chuckled, some joke on his mind that his pet could not begin to assume.

"May I aid you, Orochimaru-sama?"

"Oh, I suppose so." Another chuckle, this one just a tad darker than the last as Kimimaro wrapped an arm around the man's waist, hauling him steady. "How fortunate, your presence is. Not long ago, it would have been I who carried you, hm?"

"Er- yes…" Kimimaro shifted, some manner of trepidation rife in his posture; it vibrated through his flesh and rankled at his mark, writhing with uncertainty on his chest.

"Speak." Orochimaru's order came pleasantly; however, it left no room for argument.

"My lord… I wished to-" Kimimaro fumbled, seeming unsure as to where to take his next words. Although it ached for his master to wait, Orochimaru allowed the boy this patience, if only because he had come to aid him. "To apologize, I suppose…"

Apologize, hm?

Orochimaru raised a brow. "Whatever for, my dear?"

"For… Flinching." The boy's voice cracked, and a familiar something followed that sound.

Ah… That familiar sting.

Those eyes of his, always so adoring; so devoted. He had wondered what that change had been in them. But now, he could see it so clearly that his stomach turned and turned again.

He should have been proud of himself, when Anko's heart restarted. That tiny, most precious life, which he cherished more than anything else- he had saved it. Saved her…

And yet, it was the way that she looked at him when she awoke that told him things could never be the same.

She would leave him. Later, she would betray him.

He had known the very day he saw that same look in Tayuya's eyes; it had mirrored in his other children too- Kidomaru, Sakon, Ukon…

Even Jirobo, however indistinct.

Now, he could see its manifest in Kimimaro as well.

"You ever consider that maybe your 'pets' have become estranged from you because you ain't shit as a master? They left you because you suck!"

Hm… But where had he gone wrong? Where had he failed, that his kids would all come away from him- each and every single one of them, haunted by that same demon?

"Parents are supposed to protect their children! How can you call yourself a parent, when your children are afraid of you!?"

How would Young Naruto Uzumaki handle his opposition? "What is it that I am missing?"

"Orochimaru-sama?"

"Hm…" Orochimaru shook his head, his lips curling into an easy smile that soothed the boy's nerves. "Think nothing of it, my dear."

---

Kurenai hadn't needed to wait long at all before the first attack came. They crashed through the front door like twin comets, spilling into the wider waiting room with wild eyes. A spray of debris, and from that mass, a pair of malformed shapes rose: Browning flesh and wild hair; six twitching arms; a protruding, black-bordered third eye bulging from his forehead.

The other, a pair of pointed faces, each clad with one horn apiece. All of them sported the same putrid eyes, bordered by voids of black.

Even from her distance, she could make out flecks of blood and cloth still drying on their clawed hands. A telltale sign that they'd run into opposition on the way.

And a bright-as-day indicator as to what had become of said opposition.

"You boys wouldn't hit a lady, would you?" Kurenai smiled, shifting her weight from her bad leg- her only arm raised in defense. "Let's just settle down and-"

The conjoined pair rushed her.

"Alright fine just cut me off, sure-" Her guard was sure, intercepting a flying kick from the mutant pair. Their other leg swung in, and she moved to defend; pain flared in that ruined limb. Then in her jaw as it cracked under the impact.

Right. One arm… That was going to get old, fast.

They vaulted off from her, somersaulting twice to right themselves, then rushing to flank; at the same time, the straggling one broke into a prowl, spitting some golden fluid into his hands. They worked quickly, shaping the stuff into what took her only a moment longer to realize was a longbow.

So a marksman then, huh? Which meant she couldn't afford to lose sight of that one.

The conjoined twins found her back, coiling around her blind spot and set to rush.

Kurenai's fingers snapped up, arming with a 'tiger' seal. Sakon paused as a certain sound rose from beneath his leading foot, him and his brother peering down; the outline of a tag sizzled from beneath their footwear.

Debris ripped up from beneath them as the damage piled high, obscuring the twins in the rising smoke. Kurenai ducked back into it, weaving to the side from beneath the cover to avoid the first arrow; a second followed, this one whizzing just past her head.

Paper bombs were loud; someone would come to aid her, shortly.

A lunging fist cut past her cheek, drawing a faint line of blood. Kurenai hooked that boy's arm with her own, drawing Sakon's frightening visage close.

"You know, I'm supposed to be on bedrest, right about now!" She grumbled through gritted teeth. The crown of her skull smashed into his sharp nose, drawing less blood than she would have hoped.

Huh… Where was his other head?

Kurenai's ear twitched, and she vaulted, twisting mid-air to cartwheel past another arrow. A kunai followed from within the smoke, this one far slower; she whirled to snatch it, pivoting again to deflect the next arrow right in time before pressing her advantage against the stunned
Sakon. Her stolen kunai hurled for his head, but the possessed boy was already recovering.

He lashed out, following up with two more blows- an uppercut that discouraged her approach, and an elbow that she carefully led to expose his body; her knee crashed into his chest, sending aching sparks through her wounded nerves that she weathered; her extended leg swept in, the back of her heel battering his inner knee, then curving to hook the other leg and pull him in. She planted herself, rotating in place and hip-checking him for some space; Sakon stumbled just into optimal range, and she rotated again, a side kick sending him sprawling.

Come high heaven or hell- whatever her wounds-

She was still a goddamned Jonin! And one of the best, at that!

The scrape of feet in the debris demanded her attention; she whirled around again, good hand ready to parry another flying kick- same as their opening attack. The other twin feinted, leg leading to swing in just like they had, before. But then he changed course, reversing his swing to scrape the bridge of her nose with a reversal.

Slow. Much slower than the other one.

He landed roughly, unprepared to have caught mostly air, and Kurenai capitalized, shoving him hard enough to make him stumble. He caught himself quickly, shoring back up from the back foot and trying to tug some of the momentum back in his favor. As they scrambled for leverage, Sakon had already righted himself, and was already on the move to support his brother. The smoke cleared as if commanded, and Kidomaru's bow found its target, his bead drawn, center-masse. He let it fly, and she couldn't have dodged- not with the other two pressuring her so recklessly.

Well damn, Shizune-san had said it needed amputating anyhow, right?

She swung her ruined limb right into its path; the arrow punched right through, halting only briefly on its path through deadened flesh.

Just enough to slide neatly into her waiting grasp.

Kurenai circled one of the twins, bracing her footing and revolving again as his kick chased after her. She was vicious, flipping the pointy-end of that arrow into a reverse-grip, and stabbing deeply into Ukon's exposed ankle.

"So you're the weak link here, huh?"

Lifting the damaged limb by that grappling point, she ducked right under and heaved, sending him into a flailing sprawl. Her stomp chased close-behind, flecks of black blood splattering with his head underfoot and hauling her forward. The other brother was already moving to punish her, something close to fury digging through even the haze of possession. His fingers wrapped around her throat with lethal intent; Kurenai's eyes panned over to the archer, another arrow already nocked to skewer her.

Thrill, huh? Maybe he really was on to something, after all!

Back to the strangling brother. She spit right in his face, coppery spittle blinding him.

Wonderful, Kurenai. Your 'lady' status has been revoked.

Her good arm punched in, fist striking his bicep to weaken his grip. Then she hooked him,

yanking herself close enough that she could smell her own blood on his face. Her hand stole his own, abusing her leverage and proximity to force him to form seals with her.

Rat, tiger, dog, tiger, boar, snake.

Kidomaru's arrow let loose, aimed to pierce them both. Hauling her charge, she let him fly, Kidomaru's arrow driving right through his ally's shoulder and slowing its flight just enough to duck it as it tore right through.

Sakon barely even seemed to feel the puncture, stumbling for only a moment before he whipped around, a savage scream and flying spittle as her reward.

Behind her, Ukon began to stand, her bloody footprint sizzling on his skull.

Kidomaru's large, bulbous eye tracked her relentlessly, his next arrow finding its place.

"Three against one, huh?" Kurenai couldn't quite help the wild grin that found her face. Her fingers snapped up, taking on a one-handed 'tiger' seal.

This was getting fun.

"You'll need all the help you can get!"

---

His daughter had become a whole different beast, now. Gone was the pretense of a proper duel; now, Hinata came at him like a bat out of hell, her onslaught tearing chunks from the rooftop as she chased him down.

Hiashi stumbled back on dwindling elegance, a hasty limb meeting the transformed girl's charge. His fingers ached as that massive claw of hers glanced past him, crashing down by his feet with such force that his stomach lurched. She gave him no time to even appreciate that near-miss, her biting claw tearing from the surface and hurling its debris in her follow-up swing. Hiashi leaned back just enough to avoid it, but the blowback alone left him skidding; a stray chunk of stone sniped his temple as he went, rocking his vision and spilling his blood over one of his eyes.

Hinata capitalized immediately, feinting yet another wild swing of that clawed limb of hers before closing the distance in full with a single bound; she whipped about, her giant claw catching her momentum on a crash-course to snap his neck under its force. Hiashi was quick to duck, but regretted it immediately.

Another feint!?

Sure enough, Hinata instead angled herself parallel to the ground, extending her claw to once again dig into the surface; she whipped around on that leverage immediately, carrying her momentum into a back kick that cut the breath from his lungs. Hiashi's wobbling feet carved a trench in the rooftop as he skid back; he keeled over as her chakra fired off, eyes bugging and bile splashing his tongue.

His daughter truly meant to kill him…

She was already on him again, her clawed limb overwhelming his guard and sending him rolling and skipping like a rock on a lakeside; his body tore through a water tower, its red-tinged contents pooling around him and drinking into the bottom of his robes

"I liked this robe," Hiashi grumbled, pulling himself to his feet once more.

"It's damn ugly!" Hinata crowed, cutting past him in a blink. Her clawed limb threatened him with a pair of feints, then slammed squarely into his shoulder, sending him stumbling. She capitalized, leaping after her father to spring off his chest; the residual force sent him sprawling, and his disoriented gaze caught the girl spiraling out, just above.

His byakugan could make out a wealth of chakra, building rapidly into that giant claw. It all condensed into a single point- a nozzle-like protrusion, which began to rapidly rotate.

"And I hate, hate, hate lemon ginger!" Hinata took aim, and a thin streak of chaotic purple chakra chased after him; he only just managed to roll out of the way. His byakugan ached, trying to follow the reeking line of devastation that that beam left in its wake:

A laser-thin sear had cut right through the chunk of the building-top he'd laid on. A moment passed, and it began to crumble down, sliding off the edge of the roof to careen off and down the several stories it took to smash the ground.

"I'm not weak or a bad student! You're just a terrible teacher! I learned more just fumbling about on my own than I ever learned under you!"

Another beam followed, slicing a chunk right out of Hiashi's upper ear; a third sent him rolling once more, thick strands of his hair cutting away from yet another near-miss.

"You used me as your experiment, right!? And once you got tired of kicking me around, you turned to Hanabi, right? RIGHT!? You make me sick!" She snapped, leveraging that oversized firearm over her other forearm. It clicked twice, spreading out like a jaw, unhinged. A salvo of tiny beads of chakra rocketed after him, each so densely laden with chakra that Hiashi did not for a second doubt the threat on his life.

"Eight Trigrams: Heavenly Rotation!"

He spun on his heel. On the first rotation, his dome erected; on the second, it expanded, deflecting each of the encroaching projectiles far above them. At the peak of their ascent, they detonated, each one sounding off like the fallout of a paper bomb.

"Hinata! Enough!"

"Shut up!"

"Hinata, please!"

"Shut up, shut up!"

Her chakra shunted her forward in a cross-cross, her body rotating in full to deliver a palm that rocked his posture even as he guarded. An uppercut with that claw forced him to lean back, and he was only just quick enough to protect himself as it slammed back down, bruising his forearm.

She was getting faster by the second!

"You and the rest of the main-branch- you're just a bunch of losers who are still clinging to a power you never had to earn!" She snarled. "You'll happily declare yourselves the strongest, right? Nevermind the fact that most of our people live as slaves! Where are your bloody principles!?"

"That's not how it is!" Hiashi wheezed, swatting out at her a bit petulantly. He paid for it as she turned, tucking her head low and slamming yet another heel into his chest. This time, his chakra could not protect him nearly well enough; something in his body yielded, ribs falling apart around a very punctured lung.

"Hrk!"

"What honor do you have, huh!?" She chased him down relentlessly, snatching the collar of his robe and hauling him with her. Hiashi could only flail and hiss through bloodied lips as she hurled him, smashing him bodily beneath her feet. Hinata gave him no reprieve, her plain fist cracking across his jaw hard enough to dislodge it.

Uncle Hizashi died to protect your worthless status quo! Just because he was born a few minutes later! But you really looked Kurenai-sensei dead in the eye and talked about honorable death, like our culture has an ounce of it to spare!"

The back of her fist returned, spewing one of his teeth. Hinata dropped down, straddling her father's chest and hammering him with yet another.

No chakra; no technique.

She just wanted him to hurt!

"You told Kurenai-sensei that I should die!"

"Thatsh not-" Hiashi tried to slur back; his retort choked off as another strike caved in his cheek.

"You wished I'd died instead of her, right? That way you wouldn't have to waste your time on a failure like me!" Her sob bled into a manic laugh as she wailed on him again. "Hehehe- I worked myself to the bone for you- told myself that if I could just do something right, you'd smile again! That you'd show me an ounce of fucking love! But I'm the idiot, because I never had a chance, right!? You've always hated me! Always!" She howled, chest heaving with hysterical, wheezing breaths.

"That's the only thing you ever taught right- you know that!? How to hate!"

His brow split under her fist.

"Hate you!"

Hiashi's eye swelled nearly shut.

"Hate myself!"

Her blows abandoned any semblance of form or grace, a blind slap stinging his face. "Why do you hate me so much!? Why do you hate me!?"

There was something so broken in her tone as she wailed- almost whining; almost begging.

Hiashi's hand snapped up, capturing her hand. Her breath hitched, and Hinata flinched, anticipating some retaliation.

"Never," Hiashi choked out through broken teeth. A wheeze fought through his collapsed chest, like a balloon deflating in slow motion. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, she could make out his gaze, even through the purpling damage. "I've never hated you. Not for one minute- not for one second," He insisted. "Not then; not now." His chest stuttered under her weight, and it was like a switch had flipped for Hinata; with it, clarity. She glanced down at what she'd made of him, as if only just now seeing his state as he truly was..

"Wait, hold on- I-I didn't mean to-"

"Hinata," Her awareness snapped back to him. Hearing him like that- she had nearly forgotten what her name sounded like on that tongue. "Never. Not in a million years… You and Hanabi- you two are my greatest treasures."

---

What a wonderful place to end a chapter!

We're not even close to done, here. But the chapter got so long I actually needed to split it for the sake of quality. I chose this particular spot because I'm a shameless villain and thrive on chaos.

Next chapter is right around the corner- a few days, at most. So bear with me while I work on getting that out.

Now let me deliver some news, which may also hopefully explain a bit why the chapter had to get cut like it did.

Bad news, first:

I've been experiencing some severe wrist pain, over the last few weeks- excruciating, really. Makes it difficult to write or type for extended periods. At the moment of speaking, it feels like I've got a bunch of midgets eating each other inside my arm.

Not great.

The bad news ultimately being that there are going to be moments where my usual pace might plummet, as I try to recover. I'm not dropping the story. This fic is my baby and I'll eat an impoverished orphan child with a fork and knife before I let anything make me drop it. But I also know that I can't promise any consistent schedule, knowing how bad it gets, sometimes. Just know that I'll be trying to stick to my preferred update schedule, but things can and will switch up a lot, and all I can really ask is that y'all show me some patience there.

That's it; that's the bad news. I might be slow, from time-to-time. What else is new?

For the GOOD news, I've got a neat little project around the corner that I'm hoping to talk more about, soon. For those of you who aren't in the know, I've been teaching myself how to draw for the last few months, specifically because I wanted to be able to produce art for this fic- mostly just for my own satisfaction and you guys' enjoyment.

I'm still a bit iffy with it. I know that many of you within the server have likely seen my progress enough to know that I'm still very rough around the edges, but I'm just about starting to feel confident enough to start actively creating stuff to submit. I know some of you have had many questions regarding character designs, and my hope is to eventually get to a point where I can draw full spreads/scenes on occasion for people to enjoy.

This is all just a personal project I'm working on for my own satisfaction; I'll come with more details regarding that, as my plans hit some finality. But- uh... That's a thing!

Now, to kick off the New Year right, have another omake from yours truly before I go:

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Omake: The Joys of Parenthood

Kushina's snicker went very much ignored as she watched her son.

He was all but plastered to the giant head of Kumoko, planting great, obnoxious pats and kisses onto her shell.

"You are the bravest, most beautiful girl, you know that!?" He cooed, another wet kiss planting an imprint of gloss on her already shiny shell. "You absolutely, positively saved me!"

Kumoko's large, unblinking eyes seemed to near-sparkle at the uncharacteristic praise from the blonde.

"You know-" Kushina giggled into her hand. "I think this is the first time I've seen you show her affection like this!"

"Huh?" Naruto blinked twice, glancing back at her. He righted himself, stroking Kumoko's shell once more before separating. "Is it?"

He supposed when she really put it like that, he'd never really tried to be affectionate with the giant turbo spider. Mostly, he'd just figured she wouldn't appreciate to have her space invaded.

But she had come for him, following the straining tether of his mind and smashing through Orochimaru's barrier to free him. What's more, she had done so entirely without Kushina's instruction- gone before his mother could have even thought to ask.

They were still trying to figure out how she had done so.

"You know, it's almost like watching a parent praise their child," Kushina cackled.

And she would know. She still remembered the joy she had felt- especially early on, whenever Naruto figured something out or made some kind of breakthrough.

"Er-" Now, Naruto frowned. "Well I guess I did create her, huh?"

Well, that was an odd thought.

Kumoko let out a sound, a deep rumble accompanied by the 'clack' of her jaws. He'd not heard it often, but knew it well enough to be something close to affection.

"MoMmy," The sound made him jump; Kushina too- they both snapped to look at the giant spider, something close to a splice between fascination and plain horror.

Naruto recognized his own voice, rough around the edges, and yet he understood the mimicry, intrinsically.

"HeY mOmMy."

"yEs MoMmY."

"'SuP moMMy?"

It was Kushina who recovered, first. Her cheeks puffed and colored, a hysterical chuckle choking out through the cracks in her fingers. "She's mimicking you! She called you mommy!" His mother rolled, banging on her chest as she began to cough. "Holy- wait... I'm not ready to be a grandma..."

Naruto ducked his head, his blush filling his face and bleeding down even into his hands and fingers, which moved to cover his face.

All the times he'd bullied Kurenai-sensei... Had Kumoko been learning to mimic him?

"MoMmY?" Kumoko nudged him with the rounded end of one of her giant claws.

"I deserve this..."