A/N: Sorry this is slightly late! Especially since I ended up writing a new Harry Potter fic instead of this chapter… I SWORE I WOULDN'T DO THIS AGAIN. But all it took was one facebook post and a little bit of encouragement from a SINGLE reviewer and HERE WE ARE! I will definitely not let it come between me and Girl's Mind updates in the future tho, promise!

I did get that Wandering Fairies 3 posted, and for once it was as long as a normal chapter for me, so at the very least this has been a productive weekend! If not in exactly the way I imagined…

…this is the very first chapter since I started writing this fic where my beta reader found zero issues. But she's also exhausted and half-asleep right now so it's either amazing or awful, flip a coin and find out!

Regardless, thanks for reading! If you like Harry Potter and the idea of Regulus Black as potions professor sounds even slightly interesting to you, take a shot at my Potion Fumes and Periwinkle! And as always, I hope you enjoy the update!

The red chakra burns bright as sunlight, and Sasuke knows, intellectually, that his eyes are made to look at chakra, no matter how intense, but he still finds himself squinting on instinct, hand half-shading his face.

He never really thought much about how everyone treated Naruto, until Natsu spelled it out. Even back when Kakashi was evaluating them, and said something about how Naruto had been taught wrong, he just assumed the idiot misunderstood the instructions so badly as to have ruined his own forms.

Natsu called it sabotage.

Staring at the blood-red inferno of chakra that burns the air itself around his idiotic blond teammate and melts ice straight to steam, Sasuke finds himself wondering who could be stupid enough to sabotage this. The dobe's screams sound more animal than human, like that day back in the Academy where they had to kill a rabbit and one of the civilian-born messed up, missed the vital points and the small creature screamed and screamed and screamed until the sensei put it out of its misery.

The killing intent dwarfs Zabuza's, dwarfs even that man's, a miasma of hatred and fury that locks Sasuke in place. He can't even tremble, the very act of trembling might catch its attention and so every instinct he possesses locks down, and he holds painfully, agonizingly still.

Part of him knows this is Naruto, the dobe, his idiot teammate, and the rest of him doesn't care.

Even Natsu looks affected, staring wide-eyed as Naruto rages, shattering what ice hasn't already melted by the sheer force of his chakra, dropping to all fours and snarling.

His face is distorted. Twisted into something Sasuke might not recognize, if not for the whiskers that cut across his cheekbones like scars. A long, thin stripe of chakra stretches out behind the blond like some demented tail, and as Sasuke watches it thickens, growing fatter and changing shape until it begins to look nearly… fox-like.

Understanding clicks into place, countered almost immediately by his lessons.

Everyone knows the Fourth killed the Kyuubi.

Hysterically, Sasuke wonders what else could possibly explain this.

Naruto turns away, clearly uninterested in them, and Sasuke can't even bring himself to be offended as his teammate turns instead to the masked enemy they were fighting. The bridge warps everywhere he steps - crawls, more like, on all fours as he is - wood warping and even bubbling beneath his chakra.

The masked shinobi drops their hand away from their side, and the wound looks half-healed to Sasuke's sharingan as they quickly leap backwards, trying to put space between themselves and Naruto.

It might be funny, if Sasuke himself didn't feel too terrified to breathe anytime the dobe looked at him.

"What's… happening?"

He drags his eyes away from Naruto's prowling gait, tries not to think about how it looks like a cat playing with its prey, and turns to Natsu.

The pinkette doesn't look scared, just confused and worried, and Sasuke realizes that if Natsu is from the outer continents, then he has no idea. Sasuke isn't even entirely sure his theory's right, because if it is then the entirety of the Academy sensei lied to him and he can't quite figure out a motive for that yet - Shinobi don't deal in bluffs that are easy to call, and pretending to have the power to kill a biju when really they just sealed it is a pretty big bluff, but…

He takes a silent breath, eyes on the dobe, and tries his best to answer. "It might be a demon."

"What?! Naruto isn't-!"

"Not him!" Sasuke cuts across Natsu's shout, but doesn't otherwise move as the blond's head cocks slightly back towards them. The masked shinobi takes his distraction as a chance to launch an attack, and Naruto's attention jerks away from them, entirely focused on his chosen prey again.

Sasuke continues quietly. "He might be… possessed?"

He's not sure what the word is - he knows there is one, it got mentioned as an aside in their textbooks, but the word itself never appeared. Possession is close enough, there's enough folk-tales of that for him to be reasonably sure Natsu will understand-

"What?! Why are you just standing there then, we gotta help him!"

Natsu clearly has no idea what a Biju is, because he rushes forward immediately, calling out Naruto's name as he goes, drawing attention to himself, and Sasuke bites back a curse as he follows. Someone has to keep the enemy shinobi off of Natsu while he decides to be a moron.

Everything-

Hurts-

He isn't- sure?

The enemy stumbled back- and he and the clones… rushed in?

And he doesn't know- it all burns, burns burns burns like something's eating him up from the inside out and-

"Naruto!"

That sounds like Sakura-chan?

No.

No that's Natsu.

Why-?

He swats something away- was it him? He knows he moved- he's not really sure what's happening? And lunges forward, but again-

"Naruto, wait!"

He doesn't.

He can't?

Natsu's asking him to stop so he should, Natsu cares, but he doesn't, he just-

There's something soft under his claws - hands! - and he's not really sure why Natsu screams-

"NARUTO!"

But it feels soft, so he grabs it, pulls, until something tackles him aside, and Sakura-chan - NatsuNatsuNatsuNATSU - keeps chanting, "Stop stop Naruto don't-!"

And suddenly he can see again.

There's almost no blood on him - a bit still clinging to his fingers, but everything else evaporated from the pure heat of his chakra, and Natsu doesn't know if that makes it better or worse. The gaping wound that should decorate his stomach is nowhere to be seen, flesh smooth and unmarred save for fading black lines not unlike a tattoo. Naruto stares up at him, eyes dazed and fading slowly from bloody orange into purple, and from purple into his natural blue.

He looks confused.

Natsu glances behind, to the enemy shinobi they were fighting, entrails sprawled halfway between them from where Naruto refused to let go, and quickly looks away.

If someone had just warned him-!

He's not entirely sure what he would have done, but anything would have been better than nothing.

"N-Natsu...?"

"You're okay!" Or, at least not possessed, but Naruto's eyes are still closer to purple than blue and even he has enough tact to know he shouldn't just blurt out what happened.

"What happened?" Naruto asks groggily, sounding more half-asleep than anything else.

Natsu has no idea how to answer, outside of a blatant, "I'm pretty sure you just got possessed," and he gets the feeling that would not be wise. So he leans over and offers the blond a hand up.

Naruto scrambles to his knees and stares, wide-eyed at Natsu. "You're hurt! Your face-!"

"Just a scratch," Natsu waves off, because it is. Those claws, in the few moments when the red chakra had receded but Naruto's hands were still unnaturally sharp, had lashed out and scored a stripe down his cheek, but he's pretty sure it's not even deep enough to scar so Sakura-chan shouldn't be too upset when he next visits her.

"I-I did- I did that-?" Naruto stutters, pushing himself backwards, and Natsu flinches, lurching forward to stand in front of him but he's not fast enough, and he can tell the moment Naruto sees the enemy shinobi.

The mask must have fallen off at some point, because the shinobi stares at them from their knees, one arm wrapped around their stomach as they try to hold themselves together, and Naruto recognizes them.

"Haku!" He lunges forward, clearly trying to help, and Natsu moves to catch him; he hardly needs to, because the moment the enemy- Haku?- flinches, Naruto freezes in place, eyes wide and tracking slowly down, and he gapes in horror at the mess of Haku's stomach.

"I- I can't- I didn't- H-Haku-?"

Haku stands, legs braced as they force themselves to their feet, and Natsu can't help but admire the determination.

The demon's claws made so much of a mess Natsu isn't sure if Wendy could fix it, but Haku still stands, one arm wrapped around their middle and the other clutching a brace of needles between their knuckles, and Natsu wonders if they want to fight to the end.

Natsu steps in front of the blond. He has no magic he can reach, and even Sakura-chan's chakra is all but gone, and if Haku wants to fight he's not even sure if he could make himself respond in kind, but… he's not sure Naruto would protect himself from an attack, from Haku, and he doesn't want to try dragging the blond away again if he doesn't have to, just in case that red chakra comes back-

So he stands, arms at his sides, between Naruto and Haku, and wishes he didn't feel so useless.

"Y-you-" Haku chokes, blood decorating their lips as they look past Natsu, to Naruto still on his knees behind him. "Y-your… precious people. I told you… dangerous po-power meant nothing if they cared f-for you… I suppose… in the end… your power was just more dangerous than mine…"

"H-Haku-!" Naruto lunges forward and trips, catching himself on Natsu's shoulder as Haku stumbles blearily.

"I am- already dying… perhaps I might… serve Zabuza-sama one last… time…"

Natsu hadn't even consciously realized the mist was clearing, until he tracks Haku's gaze across the bridge to find Zabuza pinned to the ground, Kakashi lunging forward-

In the time it takes to blink, Haku throws themself forward, in front of Kakashi's attack, and the tanto blade he was driving down tears through neck and shoulder, causing a spray of blood to decorate their sensei.

Kakashi's eyes widen, as Naruto screams Haku's name again; Natsu curls his arm around Naruto, holding the blond upright as his legs give out. Kakashi steps back, pulling his blade free, and Haku's body collapses, nearly into Zabuza's arms. The swordsman stares down at his accomplice, organs all but spilling out once more, with no pressure to hold them together, before dragging his eyes over to Natsu and Naruto. Fury curls across the man's face as he turns fully towards them, Kakashi desperately moving to cover his students, before a mocking voice cuts through the air.

"How pathetic! I knew if I let you foolish shinobi fight it out amongst yourselves, I could just clean up the leftovers, but I expected someone of your reputation to have dealt with at least one of the brats before you up and died! Instead, it's your brat I see here, Zabuza! Peh! Some demon you are!"

Natsu turns slightly, to catch sight of well over thirty armed men standing at the edge of the bridge, flanking some tiny man in a suit that he distantly thinks must be Gato.

He'd expected someone taller, honestly.

And then he tenses, because he left Tazuna behind. He was pretty damn sure Zabuza wouldn't run from a fight to hunt the client down, but if Gato came to deal with this himself and found Tazuna on the way-!

Desperately, he scans Gato's men, only relaxing when he realizes there's no blood on any of their weapons. Wherever the old man ended up, he's not dead, and that's enough for Natsu, right now. He sighs in relief, only for his breath to catch as Gato orders his men to attack.

Sasuke was half-pincushioned even when he showed up, and after Naruto got possessed Natsu's pretty sure he got hit worse, and Natsu himself has no chakra left and he can feel the exhaustion clinging to all his limbs, and both Zabuza and Kakashi look two shades of a mess-

Naruto's the only one who even seems close to fighting-fit, and Natsu isn't even sure if the blond can fight without being possessed again, right now.

He's never let bad odds stop him before though, and he's not about to start now, so he carefully unwraps his arm from around his teammate and pulls a kunai out of his pouch.

He hasn't touched any of them, if only because he still doesn't feel comfortable throwing them around, but something to defend with is better than nothing when Sakura-chan's body just can't keep up with him.

Naruto stutters his name behind him, but Natsu doesn't respond, just waits maybe more patiently than he'd like for the enemy to move.

Every moment to recover strength is good by him, even if waiting for a fight to start really isn't his style.

It feels like the entire world holds its breath, waiting for something to set it off.

Gato's the one to break the stillness, snarling at his men.

"What are you waiting for? Kill them all! I'll pay you for every head!"

The men let out a battlecry, lunging forward in a mob, and Natsu's first instinct is to just - lunge forward, break it up with fire, throw a few people over the edge of the bridge to clear out room to fight - and he has the strength for none of those.

Before he can quite figure out what he does have the strength for, Kakashi and Zabuza dart past him. Kakashi's headband pulled back down, a tanto blade in one hand and a kunai in the other, and Zabuza's right arm doesn't move except to swing listlessly, but he's got a kunai in his left and between his teeth, and the two of them tear forward with no chakra, just blades and blood.

Kakashi fights more defensively, keeping the mob away from the three of them, but Zabuza tears recklessly through, ignoring every hit that gets through his guard, lethal or otherwise, pure determination holding him together as he drives a line straight to Gato.

His head flies off in a spray of blood, and-

Natsu's never seen such carnage before - broken bodies tossed like ragdolls, the smell of burning flesh thick in the air - and he feels an urge to reach for a scar that isn't even there, hand coming up to rub at his neck-

He'd forgotten he still had a kunai in his hand til he pokes himself in the face with it. He yelps, dropping his arm and backing up a step, thumping into Naruto behind him.

The mercenaries stutter in confusion at Gato's rapid death, hesitating a moment, and Kakashi steps back to catch his breath, one of Naruto's hands resting on Natsu's back.

"Y-you okay?" the blond asks quietly, and Natsu grimaces.

He can panic over all of this later. Right now, he's got kids to protect. He can worry about the implications later. About everything later.

He digs a second kunai out of his pouch and moves forward again, closer to Kakashi and the mercenaries. They come together again, going on about bounties, and Natsu wonders distantly how much Kakashi is worth for them to be willing to try, but that's a question for later too.

Sasuke's too hurt to fight.

Naruto's in shock.

He won't let Kakashi handle it alone just because he's a coward.

The mercenaries re-gather themselves, and maybe it would be better to rush in now while they're still disorganized, but Natsu keeps hoping for a miracle, and he won't say no to a chance to catch his breath either, so he waits, and Kakashi does too, and just as the mercenaries get ready for a second charge, a miracle does happen.

A crossbow bolt slams into the bridge just in front of the mercenaries, causing them to look around for a shooter-

Behind their bulk, Natsu catches sight of a different crowd; poorly armed but twice as large, they flank the mercenaries against Natsu and his team, and through the armed men he catches sight of a child.

Inari's voice rings out just a moment later.

"This is our town! And we're taking it back! So you'd better leave if you don't wanna get it!"

The array of townspeople behind him let out a ragged cheer, and surrounded by shinobi on one side, Zabuza's mad charge clear in their minds, and a crowd of angry villagers on the other, the mercenaries throw down their weapons and surrender.

Natsu thinks he's never been so happy to be denied a fight in his life.

His kunai slip between his fingers to clatter on the bridge as he just. Sits down, puts his head between his knees, and breathes.

Everyone's alive - on his team, at least, and for now…

For now that's good enough.