Fish Bird
魚鳥
The refugees moved like ink bleeding across parchment—messy, urgent, irreversible. Sai hovered at the edges of their flow, brush tracing faint security seals along the tunnel walls. His eyes catalogued threats in practiced sweeps: a child's stumbling gait (trip hazard), a coughing elder (panic catalyst), Yamato's rigid shoulders (stress fissures).
Click. Click. Click.
Sakura's necklace chain snapped against her collarbone in a staccato rhythm. Sai noted the pattern—three taps, pause, repeat—as she corralled a family toward Choji. Her medic pouch hung slack, supplies depleted. Yet her fingers kept returning to the red gem at her throat, twisting it as if unscrewing a poison vial.
"Maintain intervals!" Yamato barked, shepherding stragglers. Lee ricocheted between clusters, his cheer strained. "No shoving! The exit's secure!"
A lie. Sai's brush paused. The refugees' fear had a metallic tang, like wet kunai. They sensed it too.
Click. Click. Click.
Sakura vanished.
Sai's head tilted. Her absence left a perceptual void—pink hair and green vest too distinctive to fade unnoticed. He drifted toward her last position, dodging elbows. A dropped canteen rolled into shadows.
Prioritize the perimeter, Yamato's orders echoed. Secure the flanks.
But protocols fractured under variables like her.
He found her twelve meters down a side tunnel, backlit by distant torchlight. Her posture screamed conflict: feet angled toward the evacuation route, torso twisted toward the mountain's belly. The gem glinted crimson as she worried it between thumb and forefinger.
"Statistically," Sai said, materializing beside her, "Naruto would prefer you alive."
Sakura startled, chakra flaring. Her fist grazed his ribs before recognition doused the aggression. "Don't—!"
"You're compromising the mission." He studied her pupils—dilated beyond torchlight necessity. "Is this hormonal?"
Her laugh sounded fractured. "You're kidding me."
"Observation: Your decision-making correlates with romantic attachment, not tactical—"
"He's hurt." The words hissed between her teeth. Her palm pressed the gemstone flat against her sternum. "I feel it."
Sai blinked. "Ah. 'Woman's intuition.'"
"Fuck you."
"Anecdotal evidence suggests—"
"Listen." Sakura stepped closer, her breath sour with adrenaline. The gem's facets cast rubied shivers across her throat. "This bond… it's not some fairy tale. When he's near death, I vibrate. Right now?" She seized his wrist, slammed his palm against her chest. Her heartbeat thrashed like a caged hawk. "That's not fear. That's him."
Sai analyzed the tremor in her pulse. Elevated cortisol levels. Tachycardia. Inconclusive. "Your symptoms match panic attacks documented in—"
"Sai." Her grip tightened, nails imprinting crescent threats. "Stand aside."
He considered her knuckles—pale, quaking—and calculated the force required to disable her. Minimal. But the aftermath…
"Naruto entrusted me with your survival," he said. "Collateral damage includes dragging you unconscious to the surface."
Her smile chilled him. It reminded him of Root's interrogators—the ones who'd carved seals into his ribs. "Try."
They stood locked in the flickering dark. Above them, the evacuation's din faded. Yamato's voice barked commands, fraying at the edges.
Prioritize the perimeter.
Sai's head tilted. "Compromise: I accompany you."
"No."
"Your odds of locating him alone are 23%. With me—"
"—drop to 18%." Sakura's gaze sliced past him, tracking phantom tremors in the rock. "You're needed here."
"Illogical. My skill set—"
"Is keeping them alive." Her gesture encompassed the distant stragglers. A wailing infant's cry ricocheted through stone. "Go. Be useful."
He didn't move. Sakura's jaw tightened.
Then—
Her fist blurred. Sai ducked, but the strike wasn't aimed at him. Rock shattered where her punch landed, debris clattering between them. When the dust cleared, she'd crossed the boundary—back to the evacuation route, body coiled for pursuit.
"Clever," Sai observed. "Distract with aggression, then retreat."
"Learned from the best." Her smirk wavered. The gem's glow pulsed erratically, staining her teeth pink.
"The necklace," Sai said abruptly. "It's resonating."
Sakura stilled. "What?"
"Observe." He pointed. With each throb of light, faint chakra ripples distorted the air around the stone. "There's a fuinjutsu seal on that. Naruto's work?"
Her throat worked. "He… never mentioned that."
"Of course not." Sai's smile felt foreign on his lips. "Sentiment breeds carelessness."
"Shut up." But her fingers trembled as they closed around the gem. "It doesn't matter. I'm going."
"Wait." He unclipped his scroll, brushed a quick sequence. Ink bloomed into a sparrow that alighted on her shoulder. "Tracker. If you die, it'll lead me to your corpse."
Sakura snorted. "Romantic."
"Efficient."
For a heartbeat, something human flickered in her eyes—gratitude, perhaps, or grief. Then she was gone, swallowed by the mountain's gullet.
The sparrow's vision flooded Sai's periphery: Sakura sprinting through utter blackness, gemstone held aloft like a bloody star. He pivoted toward the evacuation route, algorithms recalibrating.
Yamato requires your presence, logic insisted.
She'll die alone, countered the phantom press of her heartbeat against his palm.
"Troublesome," he murmured, parroting Shikamaru's favorite lament. The sparrow's sight showed jagged walls, Sakura's panicked breath. Yamato's shouts echoed from above—Close the rear flank! Lee, secure the ledge!
Sai hesitated.
Then ink swirled around his calves, summoning twin tigers. "Guard them," he ordered, nodding toward the refugees. The beasts melted into the shadows as he turned.
His feet carried him forward before logic could object.
Cold bit through his ribs first—a thousand needles pricking bone marrow. Naruto gagged, bile searing his throat as he vomited onto stone. The world tilted violently. Shadows swam: stalactites like fangs, walls veined with bioluminescent rot, something wet and clicking retreating into the dark.
Move. Move.
His palms slipped in his own sick. Chakra flickered and died in his veins, smothered by the tranquilizer's oily residue. Kurama's growl echoed faintly, muffled as if underwater.
Get up, the fox snarled. Before she—
Naruto lurched upright, vision tunneling. The cavern spun—a grotesque womb of pulsing membranes and jagged rock. Across the chamber, a pale smear resolved into a human shape.
Sasuke.
He was half-merged with the wall, stone swallowing him from the waist down. Arms splayed crucifixion-style, head lolling. Alive. Alive.
"Sas'ke—" Naruto staggered forward, knees buckling. His fingernails tore as he crawled. The smell hit him first—blood, stale sweat, the sweet decay of infected flesh. Sasuke's skin glistened feverishly under Naruto's touch, damp with what might've been sweat or condensed malice.
"Hey. Hey." Naruto slapped his cheek, too gentle. "Wake up, bastard."
Sasuke's eyelids fluttered. A moan escaped his cracked lips, raw and animal. His pupils swam into focus—grey as storm clouds, widening in horror.
"Run," he rasped.
"Yeah, yeah. Heard that before." Naruto wedged his shoulder under Sasuke's armpit, heaving. Stone groaned. Sasuke's torso shifted an inch, tendons standing out like cables. "C'mon, work with me here—"
"Idiot." Sasuke's knee jerked free with a wet pop. Black sludge oozed from the wall. "They want you. Alive."
"Lucky me," Naruto grunted. His fingers found purchase in a fissure behind Sasuke's back. Chakra sparked—weak, erratic. Stone cracked. Sasuke slid forward, collapsing into Naruto's arms.
They hit the ground in a tangle. Sasuke's breath hitched—pained, alive, alive—as Naruto rolled them upright. His hands shook where they gripped Sasuke's torn shirt.
"Still with me?"
Sasuke's glare could've flayed skin. "Why… always you?"
"You think I'd let you die twice in one week?" Naruto snarled, knuckles whitening against fabric. "Like hell I'd let you martyr yourself aga—"
The air curdled.
She stood behind them, though Naruto hadn't heard movement. Her form flickered—corpse-pale limbs, hair like oil spills, eyes voids where stars went to die. Rot blossomed across her skin in real time: flesh sloughing, reforming, a grotesque loop.
"Oh, Naruto," she sighed. His mother's voice.
He recoiled. Kurama roared.
The vision hit like a sledgehammer:
Kushina's laugh as she tousled his hair. Minato's hand on his shoulder. A family dinner—steam rising from miso soup, sunlight gilding the table. Then blood. Always blood. Her chains snapping. The Nine-Tails' jaws. His father's last smile as the reaper's grip closed—
"Stop." Sasuke's elbow jammed into Naruto's ribs. "It's not real."
The entity tilted her head. The vision shifted:
Sasuke's mouth on his, rain soaking through clothes. Calloused palms sliding under flak jackets. He whispered against his throat. Then betrayal—Sasuke's blade piercing his lung, Sakura's scream, Konoha burning—
"Enough!" Naruto slammed his fist into the ground. Rock shattered. The visions dissolved, leaving his nostrils bleeding.
She laughed—Sakura's laugh, warped and wet. "You'll thank me later, dummy."
Her hand shot out. Naruto moved to block, but Sasuke was faster—shoving him aside, taking the blow.
Black sigils erupted across Sasuke's chest. He convulsed, choking, as the entity's fingers sank into his sternum.
"NO!" Naruto lunged.
Too slow.
Her palm met his chest. Cold flooded him—not ice, but absence. The void where stars scream.
The seal burned into his skin, searing through muscle, scraping bone. Kurama howled as chains materialized in the fox's prison, barbed and hungry.
"Got you," the entity crooned.
Naruto collapsed, fingers clawing at the seal. It pulsed like a second heart, leaching chakra with every beat. Kurama's rage faded to whispers, then silence.
Sasuke dragged himself forward, arm trembling. "Naruto—fight it."
"Trying…" His voice sounded foreign. Distant.
The entity knelt, decayed lips brushing his ear. "Let's make a deal, jinchūriki. Your life… for his."
Sasuke's kunai flashed. She caught his wrist, throwing him back casually as if he were a fly.
"Don't," Naruto growled.
"Or what?" She licked a strip of flesh from Sasuke's arm. He didn't flinch. "You want to die together? How romantic."
Kurama's voice slithered through the void: Let me out. Burn her.
Naruto's vision hazed red. The seal squeezed.
No. He wouldn't risk Sasuke. Not again.
The entity's nail traced his jaw. "It has been so long since I was separated from my children."
Sasuke met his gaze. A flicker of that old defiance—Uchiha pride and regret and stay alive, you idiot.
Naruto's fingers found Sasuke's. Intertwined.
They ran at her in unison.
The bomb's straps sawed into his shoulders, each step grinding vertebrae. Shikamaru careened down the tunnel, the vial-light trembling in his grip. Behind him, claws scraped stone—closer with every breath.
Click. Click. Click.
Kiba's laughter echoed, warped and wet. "M̸͝a̷̚r̵̿u̶͆~̴̚!̷͝ C̶̕o̵̓m̷̈́e̸͆ p̴̚l̶̿a̵͝y̷̕!̸̚"
Shikamaru veered left, ducking into a fissure barely wider than his hips. The rock tore his flak jacket, ribs screaming as he squeezed through. Think. Adapt. His memory mapped the labyrinth: stalactite grove ahead, then the sulfur vents. If he could—
A clawed hand burst through the wall, snagging his ankle. Shikamaru slammed the vial into the thing's wrist. Flesh sizzled; the grip loosened. He kicked free, blood slicking his heel.
Left. Right. Straight.
The bomb's timer ticked mockingly on his back. He'd recalibrated it mid-sprint, fingers steady even as his lungs burned. Ino's voice floated through the static: "Make sure you come back, Shikamaru."
"Shut up," he hissed, to himself or the memory.
A fork ahead. Shikamaru hurled a smoke pellet backward and dove right. The tunnel narrowed, ceiling dipping until he crawled on bruised knees.
Stone groaned above him. Shikamaru rolled sideways as a stalactite speared the ground where his head had been.
"W̸͝a̷̚r̴̿m̶͆e̷͝r̸͝," Kiba sing-songed.
Shikamaru's fingers found the tripwire too late.
Snap.
Blinding pain as the kunai grazed his thigh. A child's trap—crude, effective. His own design, taught to rookies last spring. Blood soaked his pants, sticky and warm.
Ino's hands warm against his own. "Girl or boy do you think?"
"Not now," Shikamaru snarled, tearing his sleeve for a tourniquet. The bomb slipped, its edge gouging his spine. He caught it with a grunt, vision graying.
Kiba's silhouette filled the tunnel mouth.
"There you are," the thing purred with Kiba's voice, head cocked. Black eyes glinted, pupils slit like a viper's. Akamaru's pelt hung from its belt, still dripping.
Shikamaru's gut twisted.
"You're slow, Maru." The thing licked Kiba's cracked lips. "Weak. Human."
Shikamaru backpedaled, fingers brushing the wall. Damp moss—perfect. "And you're monologuing. How fucking original."
He slammed his palm into the growth. Spores erupted—toxic, hallucinogenic. The creature coughed, momentarily blind.
Shikamaru ran.
The sulfur vents loomed, stench searing his nostrils. Shikamaru ripped the bomb free, hands flying across its panels. Detonate here—seal the mountain, save Konoha. Die.
Ino's laugh, bright as sun through leaves. "You'll what? Trade shogi for nappies?"
His finger hovered over the trigger.
A claw closed around his wrist.
"Tsk tsk." Kiba's face filled his vision, nose flattened against Shikamaru's. The creature's breath reeked of necrosis. "No funerals. No goodbyes."
Shikamaru headbutted it. Cartilage crunched. "Go. To. Hell."
They grappled, the bomb wedged between them. Kiba's strength was obscene—fingers denting his collarbone, jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-teeth.
Ino, seven months along, napping in a sunlit kitchen.
Shikamaru hooked his foot around a stalagmite and kicked. The rock sheared off, plunging them into the vents.
Freefall.
Heat. Screams.
They struck a ledge. Shikamaru's ankle snapped on impact. The bomb skidded toward the edge—he lunged, hauling it back as Kiba rose, bones knitting audibly.
"Enough!" The creature spread Kiba's arms, triumphant. "Your mind's the last gift I'll give her. She'll savor it."
Her? The mountain's beating heart?
Shikamaru's fingers found the detonator. Ino's voice, trembling: "Don't you dare leave us."
He hesitated.
The ceiling collapsed.
Trapped.
Shikamaru lay in a tomb of stone, dust choking his lungs. The bomb's light glinted off the Hitai on his arm.
Somewhere beyond the rubble, Kiba screeched.
Shikamaru's shattered ankle pulsed in time with the tiker.
He dragged the bomb onto his chest, its weight familiar as a child's head.
Ino, radiant in morning light, pressing his hand to her swollen belly. "Feel that? Kicks like a taijutsu master."
"Sorry," he whispered, to the dark and the child he'd never meet.
He flipped open the override panel and reached for the trigger.
The mountain's throat tightened around Sai, jagged walls glistening with bioluminescent slime. His sparrow's vision flickered as Sakura barreled ahead, her necklace casting frenzied rubied splinters across the tunnel. He catalogued her adversaries with cold precision: a demon oozing mucus from its bulbous eyes skittered across the ceiling, needle-teeth chattering. Sai's brush lashed ink-wasps to swarm it, dissolving cartilage into acidic froth. Further down, a hulking brute with serrated, spinning teeth lunged from an alcove—Sakura sidestepped, shattering its jaw with a chakra-enhanced kick. Her left hand never left the gem, its glow now fever-bright.
Prioritize interception, his training insisted. Yet her reckless velocity defied algorithms.
The sparrow's feed flared crimson as she stumbled into a cavern. There—Naruto slumped against a stalagmite, blond hair matted with grime. Sai's sensors prickled. Too still. No chakra signature.
"Trap," he hissed through the bird, but Sakura was already collapsing at the figure's side, her voice cracking. "Idiot… you'd better breathe—"
The corpse's hand shot up, oily fingers clamping her wrist. Its skin rippled, blackening like molten tar as it reshaped—elongated limbs, a faceless head split by a vertical maw lined with rotating teeth. Sakura's chakra flared, but the demon yanked, its body liquefying into the rock wall. She vanished mid-curse, dragged through solid stone. The sparrow plunged after her, its final transmission a kaleidoscope of crushing darkness.
Sai skidded into the cavern seconds later. Empty. His ink-tigers sniffed the wall where she'd disappeared—no seam, no residue. Only the faintest vibration hummed beneath his boots, as if the mountain itself had swallowed her.
Prioritize—
His thoughts stuttered. Protocols demanded he return to Yamato, warn them of Kiba's betrayal (Akamaru's corpse still fresh in his memory, throat slit by a friend's blade). But the sparrow's tether pulsed faintly in his mind's eye—Sakura alive, descending.
"Troublesome," he muttered, a stolen mannerism that steadied him. Unfurling his scroll, he inked a badger with diamond claws. It shredded the vibrating rock, revealing a tunnel slick with black ichor.
He plunged in.
The descent warped reality. Walls throbbed like diseased flesh. Pale, mucus-dripping demons scuttled past, ignoring him—their bulbous eyes fixed downward, drawn to some deeper horror. Sai's brush moved on instinct: ink-vipers to blind, acid-moths to corrode. The sparrow's tether sharpened—Sakura's pulse erratic but fierce, the demon's oily grip leaching her chakra.
Faster.
He burst into a vaulted chamber just as the ceiling ruptured. Sakura crashed down, the black demon coiled around her torso. Its maw yawned over her face, spinning teeth dripping viscous saliva.
"Still… alive," she rasped, driving a kunai into its gelatinous flank. It screeched, tendrils constricting.
Sai's ink-badger lunged, tearing at its limbs. The demon convulsed, dissolving into a puddle—only to reform behind Sakura, claws hooked around her necklace chain.
"No!" She grabbed the gem, but the chain snapped. The demon swallowed it whole, its body flaring crimson.
A pulse shook the mountain. Somewhere far above, Yamato's seals shuddered.
The demon hissed, retreating into the wall. Sakura gave chase, but Sai tackled her mid-leap.
"Get off me!" Her elbow cracked his ribs.
"They're herding us," he wheezed, pinning her. "Like it's time for dinner. But we're the main course."
She stilled. The chamber trembled as unseen things stirred—claws scraping rock, wet gurgles echoing. The sparrow's tether had gone silent.
"Then we find him first," she said, voice hollow.
Sai studied her pupils—dilated, gemstone withdrawal already sapping focus. "Your survival odds are—"
"—better with him," she snapped. "Always."
He opened his mouth to rebut, but a sound froze them both: laughter. Feminine, languid, oozing through cracks in the stone.
"Pathetic," the voice cooed. "You've brought me two candles to snuff."
The walls sprouted claws.
The rubble shifted with a wet crunch. Shikamaru's shattered ankle screamed as claws closed around it, dragging him backward through jagged debris. Stone scraped raw flesh, blood smearing the rocks.
"M̸͝a̷̚r̵̿u̶͆~̴̚!̷͝" Kiba's voice gurgled, half-human, half-static. His eyes—black voids with serpentine slits—glinted in the bomb's cold light. "N̴͠o̵͝ ̷͠f̸̍u̵͝n̷̋e̴͝r̵̚a̴͝l̸̚s̴̚.̶̚.̸̚.̵̚"
Shikamaru kicked blindly, his heel connecting with Kiba's jaw. Teeth snapped, but the thing only laughed, spitting splintered enamel. He scrabbled for purchase, fingers clawing at the bomb's edge as Kiba yanked him closer.
"Kiba—stop!" Shikamaru choked, the rockslide grinding against his spine. "It's me! I'm your best friend!"
The creature snarled, canines elongating. Shikamaru's hand closed around a loose stone. He swung.
Crack.
Kiba's temple split open, oozing black ichor. For a heartbeat, his grip faltered. Shikamaru lunged for the detonator, but a clawed hand seized his throat, slamming his skull into the ground. Stars burst behind his eyes.
"P̷͝a̵̚t̸͝h̴͠e̷͝t̸͝i̴͝c̴̚," the thing spat, Kiba's face contorting. Its jaws unhinged, needle-teeth dripping.
Shikamaru's vision blurred. Ino's laugh. Choji's snacks. Lee's stupid bowl cut. Naruto's grin. Fragments of a life he'd never see again.
"You… loved Akamaru," Shikamaru rasped, blood pooling in his mouth. "Remember?'"
The teeth hovered, trembling.
"You should have told Hinata you loved her," Shikamaru gasped, tears mixing with grime. "I watched you cry when she got engaged. You pretended—but I think she always knew. She was waiting for you to say something."
A flicker. Amber bled into the void—Kiba's eyes, his eyes—wide and terrified.
"Maru…?" The voice cracked, human.
The detonator blinked.
Shikamaru lunged. So did Kiba—no, both of them, hands slamming the switch in unison.
Click.
The world erupted.
Naruto's chakra lashed like a dying star—orange flares snuffed by the entity's creeping seal. Sasuke's sword arm trembled, his Sharingan tracking her fractal movements: there, a flicker of decaying flesh; there, the glint of stolen chakra.
"Pathetic," the entity crooned, dissolving as Sasuke's blade passed through her. She reformed behind Naruto, fingers tracing the seal on his chest. "You'll exhaust yourself before you ever touch me."
Naruto snarled, Kurama's residual energy sparking in his fists. "Keep… talking… creep—"
Her laughter morphed into Sakura's voice. Naruto flinched. A demon snaked towards her regurgitating something red and glinting into her outstretched hand. For a moment he was distracted by it, his eyes widening as he realised what it was.
A mistake.
The entity's hand plunged into his ribcage. Not flesh—soul. Agony ripped through him as she siphoned Kurama's essence, her form swelling with stolen light.
Sasuke lunged, Sharigan blazing. "Let him go!"
"Or you'll what?" She backhanded him with Naruto's own chakra, the blast cratering the wall.
Sakura's fist glowed green as she punched through the membrane wall. The tunnel convulsed, ichor spraying as Sai's ink-badger tore ahead.
"Slower," Sai warned, but she was already sprinting.
Her necklace burned now—her connection to Naruto severed. Dead? No. She'd feel it. She'd know.
The walls pulsed. A voice slithered through cracks in the stone: "He begged for you at the end. 'Sakura-chan, save me—'"
"Shut up!" She slammed chakra into the floor, rupturing the tunnel.
Sai yanked her back as the ground collapsed. Below, a cavern throbbed with familiar orange light.
Naruto.
The entity stiffened, her stolen chakra stuttering.
"Fools," she hissed.
Naruto seized the hesitation. His fist connected with her jaw—not chakra, just raw, stupid grit. She reeled, the seal on his chest flickering.
Sasuke struck low, sword aimed for her knees. She dematerialized, but not fast enough—black blood splattered the stones.
"Enough!" The mountain itself roared. Stalactites rained down as the chamber's walls moved, coalescing into clawed hands.
Sakura dropped into the fray, cratering the floor between Naruto and the entity. "Did you miss me?"
The entity's form destabilized—Sakura's presence disrupting her control. "You…"
Naruto grinned through bloody teeth. "Heh. Yeah. She's way scarier than you."
Sai's ink-tigers flanked Sasuke, harrying the entity's left side. She fragmented, reassembling near the ceiling.
"Fools! You think this changes anything?" Her voice splintered into a chorus—Kushina, Sasuke, Sakura. "I am eternity."
Sakura's fist glowed. "You need an expiration date."
The entity lunged.
So did they all.
The chamber buckled. Naruto's chakra—wild and leaking Kurama's rage—merged with the her stolen energy in a maelstrom. Sakura's medical instincts howled: Stabilize him. Now.
But the blade appeared first—obsidian, humming, pressed to Naruto's throat by a shadowy tendril.
Sakura moved without thinking.
"Idiots!" she screamed, shoving Naruto behind her. His skin burned where they touched, Kurama's unstable energy searing her palm. "Stay down!"
The entity smiled with Sakura's stolen lips. "Little candle. You'll gutter out first."
A tendril of dark matter lashed out. Sakura pivoted, but it grazed her thigh—ice and fire devouring muscle. She gritted her teeth, slamming a healing palm against the wound. Not now. Not when he needs—
Naruto's roar shook stalactites from the ceiling. Sakura turned just as a boulder-sized demon plowed into him, serrated teeth gnashing at his shoulder.
"Sakura!" Sai's ink-tigers intercepted a swarm of mucus-dripping horrors. "Flank him!"
She lunged, but Naruto's chakra erupted—a maelstrom of orange and inky black. The shockwave hurled her into a stalagmite. Ribs cracked.
Through blurred vision, she saw it: the entity's hand buried in Naruto's chest, her fingers inside him like he was clay to reshape. His eyes flickered between blue and fox-slitted gold.
"Stop…" Sakura crawled forward, each breath a knife twist. "Let him go!"
The gem at the entity's throat pulsed—Naruto's desperate gaze snapped to it. For a heartbeat, he surfaced: "Sakura… ring…"
Then the entity pulled.
Kurama's howl curdled into static. Naruto's skin rippled, veins bulging black.
Sasuke's Sharingan burned as he carved through the horde. Demons disintegrated under his blade—oily ash, no blood. Distractions. All of it.
The real threat stood center-stage, her hand fused to Naruto's sternum. He could see the seal's roots now—chakra threads burrowed into Naruto's coils, pumping stolen energy back into her decaying form.
"Sai!" Sasuke barked. The artist materialized, ink-scroll unfurling. "Create an opening."
"For what?"
"A mistake."
Sasuke's Sharingan flared. He saw it in fractured glimpses: the entity's stolen ring resonating with her and Naruto's chakra. Naruto's dwindling energy reserves flowing two ways—into the monster, and into that thrice-damned trinket.
The key's in the backlash.
He lunged—
—and collided with Sakura instead.
"Move!" Sasuke snarled, shoving her aside.
Sakura's heel caught rubble. She barely registered the kunai meant for her throat before Sasuke deflected it, his blade scraping the entity's forearm.
"The ring," he hissed. "It's a failsafe!"
Sakura's fingers flew to her neck out of reflex, fingertips feeling the phantom press of the jewel. Her eyes flicked to the ring around the entity's neck, Naruto's chakra signature flickered inside it, weak but alive.
Oh.
She understood.
The entity whirled, sensing the shift. "You meddlesome insect—"
Sakura threw herself forwards ripping the gem from its chain. "Naruto! Catch!"
He moved on instinct—dodging the entity's grasp, fingers closing around the stone. Light erupted. The chamber trembled as the gem pulsed in his hands.
The seal etched itself deeper into Naruto's ribs.
Sasuke's blade found the her spine. Or tried to—she dissolved into shadow, reforming behind Sakura.
"No!" Naruto's raw scream tore through the chaos.
The sword materialized first. Obsidian. Humming. Sakura didn't flinch.
Idiot. Self-sacrificing idiot.
Sasuke's body moved before his mind parsed the scene. He swapped their positions before she could protest—
—steel punched through his lung instead of her heart.
Time fractured.
Sasuke collapsed against Sakura, blood slicking her arms. The entity wrenched her blade free, poised to strike again—
—when Naruto's fist connected with her jaw.
"Enough!" Nine-Tails' chakra ravaged his form, tails lashing, eyes bleeding red. The seal on his chest screamed, cracks spiderwebbing through its design.
Sakura pressed trembling hands to Sasuke's wound. "Stay with me, you bastard—"
"Now, Sakura!" he choked, shoving the entity's blade into her grip. "The ring!"
She ran.
The mountain groaned. Cracks split the ceiling—Yamato's bomb, no doubt.
Sasuke dragged himself upright. Blood filled his left eye. Pathetic.
Across the disintegrating chamber, Sakura vaulted over falling debris. The entity recoiled as she neared, Naruto's unstable chakra scorching her stolen flesh.
Do it.
Sakura's strike was textbook-perfect: chakra-enhanced, precise, aimed for the ring's glowing core.
The entity caught her wrist.
Sakura whirled round, determination etched into every atom.
Then she felt it.
Cold. So cold.
The entity's gaze locked onto hers, starless voids peeling back layers of her psyche: Insecure child. Second-best healer. Always chasing their shadows.
"You're nothing," the entity whispered.
Sakura smiled. "I know."
She let go of the blade.
Idiot. Brilliant idiot.
The dagger fell—Sasuke's Chidori ignited, lightning arcing through the steel. It pierced the ring first, then the entity's chest.
The scream split reality.
The blue light was overwhelming.
Cherenkov radiance devoured the chamber. Sakura's skin blistered. Naruto's chakra—pure, unfiltered, breaking—engulfed them all as he screamed her name.
She reached for him.
Sasuke found Naruto through the haze, Sakura's body limp in his arms.
Too late.
The mountain collapsed in slow motion. Sasuke's mangled hand closed over Naruto's wrist.
"Naruto," he didn't question why he'd given it to him, or what he was supposed to do with it apart from wearing it around his neck, but it seemed important to say it.
"Naruto, at the end of this, I promise I'll come back to you."
Their fingers intertwined—pinky vows and last breaths and always, always chasing you.
The light consumed everything.
A/N: No you are not hallucinating - I decided sometime last year that I would like to re-edit Fish Bird because although it was my first real story where I had a coherent plot, I understood the narrative I was going for etc. I shied away from finishing it because the next part of it required finessing and exploration of lore I wasn't at the time comfortable with and life got really busy. But it always bugged me that I never wrote this chapter.
The whole of the fic (or almost all of it) is reuploaded onto AO3 - you can find my username in my profile (or just google Fish Bird AO3 it'll come up under Naruto) a lot of the chapters have been condensed and slightly re-written or combined to make more narrative sense. I didn't want to take the chapters down from here and re-arrange because I think it also deletes reviews? Anyway - it still makes narrative sense.
Also to the person who said I'd never finish this 😝
Worry not, there's an epilogue and possible a sequel.