glass breaks but still cuts deep

Sakura panted heavily as she focussed on healing Shino's leg. Akamaru towered over the both of them, keeping an eye out for any enemies around, his coat covered in the blood of friend and foe, while a brown-skinned Suna-nin called Mitsuko sharpened a small pile of kunai - the last of their weapons. The battle was finally winding down, the last of the Zetsu clones that had flooded the fields of what used to be a large farm on the outskirts of Konoha now retreating.

Tenten dumped another pile of amunition at Mitsuko's feet, scavenged from the nearest bodies of fallen allies. Her arms were stinging with cuts and nicks from where the bandages had torn away during her scavenger run, but she ignored the pain in favour of unhooking her water flask and draining the last mouthful. She took a moment to survey the field around her, knowing that Akamaru would warn of any danger. Nearby she could make out a small group of survivors trying to wrestle a small body onto the back of another, but the darkness of night had fallen, making it impossible to see much.

To the east lay a foreign landscape of torn earth, smoke rising from plant-like bodies that were still on fire, the death-containment squads going about their work now that the enemy had disengaged. The squad consisted of groups of Chunin who were tasked with destroying the bodies of ally and enemy alike in order to stop sickness before it spread. The heavy smoke tainted the air and even the chill evening breeze couldn't get rid of the scent.

Heaving a sigh, she turned towards Shino, now leaning on Akamaru to take pressure off his injured leg. It would likely be left as it was until they got back to the Konoha tunnels - the village itself having been destroyed by Pein's attack a few months ago. Rebuilding had just begun to take shape when Madara and his army of Zetsu clones attacked, destroying everything around them. A desperate, feirce battle had taken place in which many lives were lost, but eventually the enemy were routed, thanks in large part to Kiri and Suna reinforcements flanking their foe.

Since then there'd been raids - the aim of which seemed to be focusing on the destruction of any effort to rebuild - so the population of Konoha - now significantly smaller than it had been - had taken to the tunnels under their village and inside the mountain. It was cramped, tempers were at an all-time high, and privacy was hard to come by, but they were safe. Alive.

Mitsuko handed Tenten a few of the kunai before standing up and making her way towards the other group. Sakura gripped Tenten's shoulder tightly before following, moving to check the body draped over the back of a boy barely old enough to be out of the Academy. Tenten positioned her newly aquired kunai where she could easily grab them before offering her shoulder to Shino. With a grateful nod, he leaned on her, settling his warm weight against her side and draping an arm across her shoulder for support. She smiled back tiredly and started to walk, Akamaru taking up the rear, in a defensive position.

They moved in silence, only the harsh breathing and soft whimpers of pain from one of the other survivors breaking the quiet as they slowly dragged themselves back to what was left of Konoha, barely visible through red light cast by the moon above and the smoky haze in the distance. Soon they would be safe, back in the tunnels of their home.

~^~^~^~^~

Uzumaki Naruto was a hero, though he didn't feel like it at the moment, his hand buried in the chest cavity of what looked to be a boy barely seven years old. With a grunt, he pulled the offending limb free and stared at the blood coating it in pained silence before turning away to focus on the chaos around him. The fighting had finally ended, night approaching fast, his fists covered in other peoples' blood. He'd lost the last of his weapons an hour back and had resorted to fists and feet towards the end of the battle.

A few feet away an injured Iwa-nin leaned against a Kumo-nin, eyes half-closed, fist clamped around a broken-edged tanto. The Kumo-nin wiped a dribble of blood from her mouth before turning to look at Naruto with deadened eyes. Sighing, Naruto stumbled towards the both of them - the only visible allies still breathing - and carefully leaned down before unhooking his water, taking a sip, then offering it to the woman. She hesistated just a moment before grabbing it and taking a large gulp.

"Hey, leave some for that guy, nee-san!" Naruto grumbled, before taking it back off her and helping the injured Iwa-nin drink some. It seemed to revive the man, his eyes opening fully and darting around to take in the devastation around them. Naruto knew what he'd see - bodies and blood, death and destruction. The landscape changed from peaceful fields into a war-torn hellscape.

Careful not to alarm the man, Naruto moved forward and offered him his hand.

"Come on, we can't stay here. There's food back in Konoha. Food and bed and bandages. Healers, home and safety."

The man reached up and, despite his larger size and heavier weight, Naruto swung him over his shoulder, to cling to his back with little effort. Grunting, the Kumo-nin pulled herself up out of the muck she'd settled in and stumbled into the both of them, sending them all flailing for balance for a few moments. Her left leg started to bleed from a cut near her knee and she cursed as she tried to stand up well enough to walk. Naruto swiped some of the mud from his jacket and leaned down a bit, careful of his heavy cargo, to pat it on her wound.

"To stop the bleeding." he murmured, before straightening back up and resettling the Iwa-nin more comfortably on his back.

The woman stared at the mud now on her leg before nodding her thanks. She pulled out a kunai from a pouch on her hip, considered it for a long moment and handed it over to him.

"That's my last. Watch my back. I'll lead." she said in a soft whisper. The man on Naruto's back flung the hand holding the tanto in front of his face, pushing the blade out towards the woman, causing her to freeze, before turning the grip to offer her the handle.

"It's broken, but it can stab. You'll get more use from it than me."

She took the handle gingerly, looking at the blade before she turned towards the broken walls of Konoha, carefully leading the way through the carnage ahead of them. Naruto followed closely behind, kunai carefully gripped in his sweaty hand, eyes darting left and right for any sign of enemy movement.

An hour passed before they met up with another group of survivors - a fight almost starting before both sides realised they were allies - but it wasn't until a third group joined them that Naruto felt it safe enough to relax his guard a bit. He no longer carried the wounded Iwa-nin - he'd been handed over to a burly civillian who'd been caught out in the forest hunting for food when the attack took place to carry. The Kiri-nin, Asumi, now had a wakazashi she'd picked up along the way, it's blade blood-splattered and mud-soaked but still keen.

She'd wiped what she could from it onto a cloth taken from the body of another Kumo-nin that she'd stopped next to, a name on her lips whipsered as if in prayer, as she pocketed dogtags she'd ripped from around his neck. The group had moved on without acknowledging the moment, studiously ignoring the faces of the bodies around them, fear of finding a loved one among the muck and mire enough to drive them forward in one-minded purpose.

Night had long fallen when they finally reached the broken walls of Konoha, once-great monoliths that had stood the test of time against many a war waged, now reduced to mere rubble surrounding a desolate pile of refuse and shattered streets. The group took a breather as they surveyed the area within, peering into shadows as the red moon shone down from above, casting a hazy scarlet light over the elemental nations.

"I think it's safe enough," murmured one of the Jonin they'd met along the way, another Kumo-nin who was well-regarded as a defensive expert thanks to his skills in earth jutsu. His strawberry blond locks seemed even redder in the night, making him look more like an Uzumaki than the blonde teen kneeling next to him.

Naruto gave it a moment more before nodding his assent, and the group quickly moved out, speeding stealthily from shadow to shadow, carefully keeping the civilian in the center of the group and trying not to linger too long in any one spot. As they drew closer to the mountain where the faces of the past Hokages had once been carved, their anxiety rose. By now they should have met with at least one check-point to make sure of their identity, but the night was silent around them as they moved towards the closest hidden entrance into the tunnels below.

Naruto raised a hand, gesturing a stop as the immediate area around the entrance came into view. Usually there was at least a Jonin stationed nearby, often one of Ne who had found a mission after Danzo's death in being the guardians to the 'seed' of Konoha, hidden within the mountain. They'd yet to fail their duty in protecting the entrances, in detecting any who came too close and sounding the alarm when something wasn't right.

Naruto made a few gestures, his hands moving awkwardly through the newly learned hand-language that he was still getting the hang of. It was once restricted to ANBU use, but now served as a system of messaging between the allied shinobi forces when outside of safe zones. Every week words were dropped or subbed with different hand signs for different words, taken from each of the different country's elite hand-languages and shared in order to catch out any clones who tried to impersonate allies. It was an ever-evolving code meant to keep themselves safe from infiltration and sabotage, passed on by word-of-mouth. So far it had worked out well.

Hold. Other self observe entrance.

He then put his hands together and a small puff of smoke appeared next to him, the bomf of his clone appearing the only sound to be heard in the night. A few more hand signs and the clone was now henged to look like a mangy cat, half-starved and patchy-looking, one eye closed over by dried blood and a paw clearly injured. It slunk out across the street, making no sound as it stalked closer to the entrance before disappearing behind a pile of chipped stone and twisted wood that served as cover for the hidden door into the tunnels below.

A few tense minutes passed before there was another bomf and Naruto sucked in a shocked breath as the information from his shadow clone joined with his memories. His hands were shaking, his knuckles white around the kunai in his hand as the memories of dead bodies strewn along the tunnels below flashed in his mind. Cursing he hunched forward, blinking back burning tears, before taking a breath and looking back at the group behind him.

Many body inside. Self go. Team?

His hands flashed the signs clumsily but seemed to get the intent across well enough. Asumi clutched the grip of her blade, face paling dramatically before nodding grimly. The red-haired Jonin closed his eyes for a moment before also nodding his assent, the two chunin who'd joined the group with him following his lead after a few drawn-out seconds. The Iwa-nin tried to push himself off the civilian's back, a frown spasming over his face, but was wrestled back up by the man in question who leaned forward and murmured to one of the chunin. A quiet murmur back, and the man bit his lip before looking up at Naruto and also nodding. Naruto took a moment to assess the group to be sure they were all on board before giving them a small, determined smile and turning around once more to survey the small area ahead of them.

Together they ghosted across the street, making their way to the entrance and the tunnels below. Forewarned as he was, Naruto didn't make a sound when he found the first body - a young teen girl with dark hair splayed around her like a pool of blood, her arms and half a leg missing as once-dark eyes stared up at the moon above. Her name had been Kiku, and she'd been one of the few Ne recruits who were in the process of killing her heart when Danzo had fallen. She'd still had had a shred of humanity in her and had been determined to help her fellow Ne members to retake their hearts from the void into which they'd plunged them during their training.

Naruto took a shaky breath, promising himself to burn some incense for her spirit after they were safe, before looking away from her face and focussing on the task at hand. A shocked intake of breath from the civilian was the only sound from the group behind him as he lowered himself through the uncovered grate that led into the tunnels below.

The smell of death, blood and body matter was stronger in the closed-in area and one of the chunin gagged slightly as they made their way through the viscera and bodies that were carelessly carpetting the ground within. The darkness of the tunnels helped hide the identities of the bodies through which they stepped, though it did make it hard to avoid stumbling at times when limbs were strewn haphazardly in the path. Eventually they turned in to a tunnel that was lit with a small brazier, a door hanging off it's hinges and the sound of meat being eaten from within. Naruto recognised it as one of the small rooms used by guards to rest when waiting for a signal of danger.

Asumi gestured to herself then slipped into the room, followed by one of the chunin. There was a sound of a sword biting into flesh, and cry of dismay and then silence before she and the boy slipped back out. The boy's hands shook as he gripped his kunai, but his face was set in grim lines as he stepped back into position. Asumi wiped her sword on her leg, wincing when she banged it on her wound.

They continued to creep forward through the tunnel system, dealing with straggling clones gorging themselves on the fallen, grips on weapons tightening when they came across a scene of violence, dead bodies thrown around like playthings, missing pieces that had been gnawed off and taken further in.

Soon the stonework became rocky tunnels, rooms branching off from the main tunnels filled with the stench of death and blood. In one room they found two genin crouched over the body of their sensei, trying desperately to bind his wounds as he bled out beneath their hands. In another they found a young civilian girl who had been passed over by the clones due to her mothers' forethought of shoving her in a cabinet drawer.

Slowly more survivors joined the small group as they made their way to the centre of the mountain caves - the heart of the shinobi alliance where the Kage and top officials stayed. As they did they found more signs of resistance - bodies of dead clones piled into corners, fire-scorched tunnels, blockages of earth and in one case, lava. A very distinctive wound on a clone nearby showing that Kakashi-sensei was still alive and fighting, his chidori leaving scorching marks across the walls and on the bodies of the fallen clones lining the tunnels ahead.

Soon, the sound of battle reached them and Naruto moved the group into a small storeroom, ordering the civilians and Iwa-nin to stay and hide.
The small group handed off a small hunting knife to the civilian man and a precious pouch of kunai and senbon that they'd collected on their treck through the tunnels to the Iwa-nin, who took them gratefully.

"Take care of them." Naruto murmured to the injured shinobi, who grunted his agreement, eyes flicking to the young civilian girl curled up on a blanket that they'd found. Next to her lay another child - the younger brother of a genin that had joined the group along the way - and an old man who was having trouble breathing.

They left the room and the red-haired Jonin formed a stone wall around the outside of the door, blending it in to the tunnel and hiding it from easy detection. The group paused a moment, feeling the loss of the extra bodies, before moving forward once more, towards the sounds of battle that echoed in the distance.

It didn't take long before they reached one of the large caverns that were set out for communal interactions - and the fight that was taking place within. A fork of lightning blew into a crowd of clones who pushed against a stone wall in the centre of the room as kunai and shuriken flew at the pale-bodied beings who shrieked their displeasure. A large man with dark skin crackled with energy, throwing his hands forward to arc more lightning and the creatures while a woman with grey hair blocked a kunai that nearly hit him, reflecting it back into the mob at the base of the wall. A snarling jaguar leapt into the fray, a small-boned man with matted green hair sitting on it's back, twin swords flashing as a girl who looked like she could be his twin threw wind-enhanced senbon in his wake.

With a shout Naruto formed two groups of clones and sent them into the fray, pincering the clones between two sides. Asumi took up guard position, ready to attack any foe that came towards the group as the genin fell back to provide long-range support with what few throwing weapons they had. The strawberry-blonde Jonin - introduced in the small storeroom as Hajiro Hayaki - created a defensive wall around the group and then began cutting off exits for the clones, penning them to make a killing room. One of the chunin threw out small bursts of flame while another sent bolstering waves of wind to enhance their partner's jutsu.

It didn't take long before the clones fell to the combined forces and the two groups came together over the last of the dying bodies, carefully making sure that each was fully decapitated before approaching each other. Hand signals were sent back and forth between the groups before Naruto led his team across the room to be accepted and absorbed into the larger group there.

"It's good to see you safe, Naruto-kun," a woman said as he stepped up to the large dark-skinned man's side. The small kunoichi that spoke stood next to the man, her blonde hair tied back into a ponytail, purple clothes hiding a lot of the blood and grime that covered her.

"Ino-chan, you're okay!" Naruto grinned wide in welcome before reaching forward and hugging the woman tightly as she laughed into his shoulder. Behind her a black-haired man with dark eyes coughed awkwardly before also stepping forward, arms out-stretched for a hug.

"Sai, I'm not-"

"You're safe, dickless. Kakashi-sensei was worried when you weren't back before sunset. You kept us waiting."

Sighing, Naruto gave in to the hug for a few seconds before pushing the man back roughly and turning to face the leader of the group who wore a slight mocking grin.

"A-sama. How is everyone? We found the tunnels in the west-sector breached and assumed the worst. Is ba-chan okay? Sakura? How about-?"

A hard hand thumped down on his shoulder and squeezed tightly, stopping the blonde from talking as the man in front of him sighed.

"It's estimated that we've lost a good third of our forces, though names are yet to be known. We seem to have been hit from two sides - both from the west. This side is secure for the moment, though we'll be working on breaking down some of the tunnels for protection and trapping others through the night. I've not heard back from the other side yet, but they have Tsunade and Terumi there, so they should be fine. I sent a group with your sensei as leader to support them about an hour ago."

"Forehead has yet to report back." Ino broke in, impatiently. "She was with Tenten and Shino, last we heard, but they should have been back by now."

"Do not worry, Beautiful. Ugly also has Dogbreath and Boring with her. They will be safe."

She turned towards Sai, opening her mouth to reply before frowning lightly, letting out a strained sigh. A cough from behind the small group found Asumi standing to attention next to Hayaki, one on either side of Naruto. Smiling, he turned to address them.

"Asumi-san, you should get a medic to check your leg. Hayaki-san, we'll need to find the group we left behind. Maybe you could gather a few volunteers to get them? We seem to be safe for the moment and I'd rather we were all together just in case."

Both saluted and turned away, headed in different directions.

"What was that, Naruto?" Ino asked when they were far enough away to not hear her question. Laughing awkwardly, Naruto rubbed the back of his head and tried to change the subject.

"We need to make sure this area is fully secure before we start trapping and bringing down tunnels. It would be good to make sure we don't leave any of our allies outside too. Do we have any sensors?"

A eyed the blonde before his eyes moved to track Asumi as she stalked across the room looking for a medic. He took a step forward, towering over Naruto threateningly, eyes narrowing in a glare as the smaller man gulped nervously, Ino and Sai tensing as they watched.

"Don't go stealing my people, Uzumaki." he growled out, before suddenly turning away, striding off towards the grey-haired woman he'd been fighting along-side earlier. Wide-eyed, Naruto wiped his forehead and sighed in relief as his friends grabbed him and dragged him off to a knot of nervous-looking Konoha-nin who'd been watching from nearby. He groaned as he was bombarded with questions, the both of them intent on interrorgating him over what just happened.