Peace for Traitors

It is no wonder that jinchuuriki inevitably establish a position of control in whatever community they are born. Revered as kings, generals or even gods, the creatures stand above by sheer dint of their nature and the expectations that come to be placed upon them. They ascend to a position of authority in many ways, both as saviors and as tyrants, but few have ever managed to live a life of anonymity amongst their human counterparts. Though the creatures are mostly human in regards to the overall makeup of their flesh, the demon can be passed from one individual to another and are rarely, if ever, lost. Even though the vessels are viewed with both repugnance and loathing by many, their power is undeniable and will either be harnessed or incensed by the human societies in which the jinchuuriki flourish. Like the elemental demons bound within their spirits, jinchuuriki can either nurture life or destroy it, but regardless of their purpose the beings ultimately cannot be overcome without erasing an essential influence from the planet. Such is the natural order of things and much as mankind might despise it, the truth of a jinchuuriki is that power of the kind they wield obeys no master save itself.
-Koumyuo Sanzo, Lives and Habits of Far Eastern Demons
Sasuke struggled, launching himself farther into the air and then diving again only to be met by the same volley of Hyuuga energy techniques as before. The attacking ninja weren't stupid and they only launched the jutsu as soon as he reached the treetops, within the range that made their attacks maximally effective. He dodged, gritting his teeth as more precious clones were extinguished in the rain of chakra powered missiles, none making it to the ground where Neji was still gracefully holding off the main body of the Hyuuga force. The genius was a fine warrior, one of the best Sasuke had ever seen, but even he would be unable to hold back an entire army of talented ninja forever. Already, Neji's focus was being badly taxed and Hiashi's forces were using that fact to their advantage. They swarmed around him, attacking from every direction and multiple positions, trying to confound the Byukugan and Sasuke knew eventually they would succeed.
The Hyuuga vanguard had concentrated its forces, throwing every asset into attacking Sakura or thwarting her rescue, and even Sai was meeting a strong arm of organized resistance on his approach from the main house. The artist was bulldozing his way through the attackers like a one man war engine, but he was still too far away to help them and expending astounding amounts energy just to get through. The precious thrall, the preternatural energy which bolstered them all, was not enough to sustain the kind of attacks everyone was using without Naruto to direct the energy. They were all running out of time. Sasuke grit his teeth and spun, hacking frantically with his sword as a mass of Hyuuga shadow clones flung themselves into his path. The clones were weak, dissipating easily, but Sasuke could not risk spitting flame so close to Sakura's position. Instead, he was forced to tear his way through them until ramming into the steel teeth of the Hyuuga operatives organizing the offensive from below. With an inhuman shriek of frustration, Sasuke snatched one of the soldiers in his claws and roared back up into the smokey sky, tearing the screaming Hyuuga apart with his claws.
The carnage of it only incensed him more, the bloodlust roaring in his ears and clouding the direction of his own clones. The clones lost their purpose for a moment, flying in circles and engaging with random Hyuuga warriors instead of using an organized battle formation. Sasuke cursed and retreated a fraction until he could coordinate them again. The Seal was battering at him with every failed attack, the insistent weight of the madness slowly growing and requiring ever more energy to control. Sasuke screamed, calling for lightning and sending sizzling arches of energy into the ever shifting Hyuuga battle lines in the trees. The forest echoed with screams and the electric snap of Chidori, but the Hyuuga forces regrouped easily, their pattern tight and impenetrable. Sasuke gnashed his teeth, enraged, and dove again, spinning with the naked blade in his hands. The maneuver generated a deadly maelstrom of slashing steel and claws, but too many of his clones expired as the technique stole his attention.
Sasuke fumed, alighting in a tree and engaging one of the Hyuuga commanders in furious hand to hand combat, hoping to buy enough time for the few remaining clones to reach the ground. He slashed and leapt, easily avoiding the man's Gentle Fist, but missing with his own parry as the swooshing energy of the somatic attack glanced off his right shoulder. Snarling Sasuke struck with the sword, catching only air as his opponent spun in a flawless pirouette out of his reach. Without a hint of hesitation, the Hyuuga threw himself low, sweeping his feet out and locking his ankles around Sasuke's left knee. The subordinate slithered his way out of the hold and planted his sword with a sickening squelch into the man's left eye. Blood gushed from the wound even as the Hyuuga sputtered and died. Sasuke giggled.
He was losing control of the Seal and he had to reach Sakura soon before the darkness took him completely. Sasuke leapt for the ground only to be pushed back again by the combined efforts of the Hyuuga clan's most talented defensive nin, rerouted away from his family. Snarling, the subordinate turned and tried to dart around the spinning formation, reaching for the ground and the precious woman huddling beneath the smoke and confusion in the snowy boughs of their forest. Again he was repulsed and the tearing pain of rage that seared him was nearly enough to break Sasuke's sanity. The clones were milling around him, unorganized as their master fought to hold onto his own equilibrium, batting at the Hyuuga line uselessly.
They were losing ground and soon the position would be unrecoverable! Sasuke flipped himself in midair and launched backwards through the air with his feet against the trunk of a tree, engaging the threat with renewed ferocity and tearing through the Hyuuga soldiers like a spinning saw-wheel. He grabbed the nearest foot soldier by the chains on his armor and sank his teeth viciously into the man's neck, tearing his windpipe away with a sickening jerk. The taste of it, of the hot blood spurting against his tongue, was amazing and the agonized groan of the ninja dying in his hands even more enticing. He threw the body away and lunged again, pushing the ecstatic temptation of the experience out of his mind and moving for Sakura. Again, the Hyuuga forces rallied and blocked him. Sasuke howled, flapping madly, jaws snapping with rage. He was slipping, dipping too deeply into the Seal's power and still unable to reach her! The Seal of Heaven changed the hurt of fear and frustration into pure, white hot anger, an emotion which Sasuke was steadily losing control over. The more anger, the greater the violence and the more he tore the Hyuugas apart, the more hate seeped into his heart following the scorching rage. The chill of it, of the cloying loathing, was sinking closer to his own sense of self with every slash and blow, blurring the lines between his mind and the monster buried in his heart.
The death, the swirling brutality of it felt so good, the blackness of the Seal absorbing the bloody rush of battle and converting the feeling into ever more power for him to relish in, a positive feedback cycle gaining momentum with each new kill. He dove, concentrating on the center of the weaving Hyuuga line, the clones once again synchronized to his intentions and flying in tight pattern in a sweeping blade of death. Sasuke used the last of his forces like a sickle blade, allowing the clones to feed from one another's momentum, less flying than plummeting towards the ground in a swinging chain of razor sharp claws. The Sharingan was requiring too much focus and Sasuke abandoned the technique in favor of Chidori, bouncing the electric charge from one clone to the next in a crackling circuit of deadly energy. The lightning swung from the end of his formation like a whip, slashing the very molecules from the air and rending the flesh from Hyuuga bones, the screams of injured men lost in the roaring of the electricity.
Hiashi's forces changed their formation as the edge of his attack reached them, moving like water and escaping the worst of the impact. They shifted like spirits, roiling away from him, and suddenly Sasuke was on the other side of their formation. He looked into the gloom of the forest only to discover that without the Sharingan to guide him, the clever bastards had rerouted him away from Sakura again and that he was west of her position. Sasuke roared, electricity still snapping between his clones, the last vestiges of a wasted technique and one that had cost him dearly. Damn Hiashi, damn them all! He had to get through, he had to save Sakura, and Neji for that matter! The frustration of it, the feeling of despair, of failure was almost too strong for him to escape. Naruto needed him, everyone did, and he was in the wrong place! Sasuke raged and turned, slashing his sword against the fleeing edge of the Hyuuga battle line. They were pulling back, moving into a tighter circle around Sakura, but Sasuke pressed them for every inch.
He tore at the soldiers in maddened fury, fighting with sword and claw and even his teeth as the steaming geysers of their blood flooded his senses. Sasuke touched and his opponents died. The snow was soggy and melting with the hot blood of his fallen enemies, the forest floor slowly changing into a mucky swamp beneath their feet as more and more fell. For a moment, Sasuke forgot about Sakura and Neji, forgot about everything except the luscious flood of fresh blood and the melodious snapping of bones. He reveled in the pain and the blood and the perfect destruction for a bare heartbeat and then it was already too late. The darkness surged and overcame him, bubbling out of his raw throat in maddened laughter. He wanted to kill, destroy, erase. The urge to undo, to dismantle bodies and lives and even the very fabric of every living existence within his reach was intoxicating, too wretchedly sweet to resist. The madness pulled away his logic and Sasuke was free to simply bask in the death he wrought, numb to anything except of the velvet blackness of his own evil and the unholy pain it brought.
Yes, blood and death and more blood! He shrieked in delight, tearing a man's head from his body so that the gore splattered into the air like rain, bathing his face in steaming sweetness even before the man's scream faded from the air. The world ran with crimson blood and hate and rage and Sasuke was reaching for another body before the heartbeat even ceased in ravaged shell of the last. The tiny silver bell of Sakura's voice in his head seemed so distant, almost like a dream, and too easy to ignore amongst the hellish harmony of the screams. Sasuke laughed again and spat a roaring blanket of flame into the trees.
OoOoOoO
Neji felt something in his own awareness snap the instant Sasuke lost himself to the Seal of Heaven. Like a tendon breaking in a cold joint, the support of the subordinate was suddenly and profoundly no longer there, leaving Neji momentarily startled and off-balance. The feeling of Sasuke, of his frustration and fear faded and Neji was left gasping as a fresh surge of icy hatred washed over his mind instead. He almost screamed to feel it, the potent madness, but the preternatural sensation served as a timely warning. Neji knew without knowing, felt in a place deep in his spirit, that Sasuke would use fire and he ignored his cousin's attacks for the few precious moments it took to create a defense. He nearly lost control of their precarious position trying to erect a barrier strong enough to withstand the scorching onslaught of the Uchiha's flame, but a moment later and the fires would have killed them all.
Sasuke spat reckless fire through the narrow break in the trees, manipulating the flames in a broad sheet of molten energy, incinerating everything not protected by a jutsu shield. The flames danced and roared, a thousand colors of death and Neji was screaming along with his kinsmen as those unable to respond quickly enough were caught up in the fire. The heat of it was incredible, searing his face even from behind the shield he'd managed to construct, cracking the roots of the tree against his back. Sakura was shaking, huddled behind him and trembling like an oak leave in the rain, but Neji did not know if it was in fear or frustration at being so powerless. The Hyuuga forces rallied at the last instant, but barely managed to hold against the terrible power Sasuke had unleashed against them, erecting barriers with frantic determination as their clothing began to ignite. The soldiers were screaming in terror even as they mobilized, voices Neji knew and recognized, crying out in agony before becoming suddenly silent. Sakura was screaming too, tears streaming down her face and hands pressed against her ears as if she could shut her husband's evil out along with the sounds of battle and death.
Sasuke laughed like a demon as the Hyuuga forces turned as one, moving the energy like water, redirecting the furious energy of his flames back into his maddened face. With a sneer, the black haired devil snapped his fingers and extinguished the energy of their assault as if it were nothing. Neji gasped at the monstrous display of unholy power and pressed his back closer to where Sakura huddled, unable to block the sudden shock of terror seeing the creature's uncaged face stirred within him. His concentration was frayed already and watching Sasuke that way, soaked black with blood and leering at him with dark intent, was enough to overwhelm Neji completely. The feel of those talons against his flesh was too new and for a few awful heartbeats Neji was crippled by the memory. Sasuke, the Sasuke he and Sakura loved at least, was no longer with them and Neji had no idea if the beast wearing his lover's body was acting as a friend, a foe or merely a wanton agent of destruction.
Flapping it's hideous wings, the monster launched itself back up into the sky, screaming with fury and a sick kind of joy. Neji swallowed and firmed his stance in the scorching breath before his kinsmen attacked again. The Hyuuga forces turned against him like some kind of machine, a thousand synchronized gears whirring, pounding Neji with one perfectly executed somatic attack after another. He held, but only barely and the shield required too much focus to maintain. Panting, the brunette allowed the barrier to drop just as his kinsmen turned back against him with renewed determination, blocking their attacks hand to hand. Combat was easier to manage than a chakra jutsu and combat, but Neji managed to block the strikes only mere moments before they connected. He was tiring and they were getting far too close!
"Fall back, closer to the tree!" The girl hissed.
"If we lose ground, we can't regain it." Neji argued.
"We can't hold this way, we need a different position!" She snarled, neatly breaking an opponent's hand with a savage little flick of her wrist.
Neji wanted to argue further, but she was right. Neji was moving too slowly, frazzled by the additional threat of Sasuke's unpredictable behavior, and now that some of the snow had melted they did have enough space to retreat a fraction. Sakura pressed herself against his back, darting out with a small dagger anytime his kinsmen managed to find a hole in his defense and drawing blood every time, her aim both true and vicious. Even so, even with all their combined strength it wasn't enough and Neji knew it. With Sasuke stalking overhead, ready to dive and fry them all into nothingness at any moment, could not maintain the iron control over his own senses that he had before. There were too many variables to account for and every moment they spent strategizing his family was slowly gaining dangerous ground on his otherfamily, grinding away his resistance like stone against a mason's wheel. Motioning for Sakura to follow, he sunk back a few inches against the tree, using the minute retreat to achieve better stability in his stance.
The Hyuuga forces leapt upon the small show of withdrawal like rabid wolves, striking hard and fast, all attempt at martial organization or battle discipline gone. Swallowing hard, Neji gathered his strength and answered the ferocious volley of chakra powered fists and piercing somatic energy with a swirling counterattack. His hands churned like a cyclone, moving almost without his will, working to redirect the strikes into nothingness or other attacking bodies. Even using the other nin's blows against them, Neji felt pressed. His kinsmen were now driven not only by Hiashi's orders, but the promise of a grim and horrible death, and they fought with the determination of the truly desperate. Any hesitation the Hyuuga clan might have clung to before was gone and they attacked him like any other enemy, moving for any weakness like sharks driven mad by blood.
A snaking fist wormed through his guard and in to strike the chakra pathways in Neji's left shoulder, sending a shocking heave of numbness rippling down his arm. He grunted with pain, but managed to turn enough to escape the full impact of the block and save his chakra channels from being disrupted completely. Neji reversed his grip on the sticky kunai he still held and drove it into the man's face, trying hard not to decipher who he was killing under the armored war mask. One fell, but many more took his place and the chakra meridians in his arm were too bruised to react fast enough to halt them. The next soldier to dart into his reach nearly struck past his defenses to Sakura, parried aside at the last minute by the woman's excellent dagger block.
Electricity snapped through the trees above them and the harsh scent of ozone blended with the potent scent of winter as the world was illuminated in garish flashes of blue lightning. The Hyuuga ninja pressing him fell back, working together to erect another barrier against Sasuke's unhinged violence before the next firestorm could descend upon them. Hissing Neji fell hurriedly to one knee, using the momentary reprieve to activate a more powerful attack. The barrier he had drawn before was dimmed, but not erased completely, and he could use it as a framework to refract the jutsu he desired. The effect would be devastating, something he had never dared to actually do, a theory created late at night and never revisited because of the sheer ugliness it promised. He had tried everything to avoid using the technique, especially combined with an array, but Neji wasn't saving any lives by hesitating. He was rapidly approaching his limits and he had nothing left to use against them, nothing left to do if he wanted to protect Sakura and breaking their morale would be crucial.
Taking a breath, he formed the jutsu in a flurry of carefully precise gestures, releasing Sixty Four Palms into the array still smoldering from the barrier created before instead of into the enemy lines. Wind surrounded his hands, howling eagerly. Energies swirled and gathered at his fingers, the searing light a shade whiter than the snow, moving almost as if alive in its own right. With one last breath, Neji completed the attack, forming the last symbol and locking the energy into the bounds of the array. With a shout, Neji slammed his hands against the glowing jutsu, watching as the glittering attack spun within the framework of his earlier weave.
The chakra erupted with light, pulsing in arching waves of pure white energy across the snow, freezing every living thing caught in its path. The power crawled into the chakra of every living body it touched, stilling the life-force there with perfect focus, but not blocking it. The very idea was an abomination, but Neji knew that breaking his clansmen's determination and forcing them back into Sasuke's fiery jaws was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He was a terrible person. The white glow, like a star dying, cast everything into stark shadow for a single, horrible moment. The Hyuuga soldiers unable to climb into the trees and escape the impact were rendered motionless, their bodies as still as statues, unnaturally rigid in the flickering light of Sasuke's fires.
"Sixty Four Death Palm." Neji said simply, naming the technique even as the shame of what he had done began to condense.
For a moment there was only silence and the crackling of burning wood. Dozens of ninja stood around them, locked into grim postures of shock and horror, eyes wide and mouths open in silent screams. They were frozen like renderings carved from stone, familiar faces still flushed with color, but inexplicably still. Arrows were held half-drawn, kunai still gripped in whitened fingers, gazes still locked upon Neji's face in confusion and disbelief, disbelief that one of their own could ever unleash something so gruesome. He didn't begrudge them the sentiment. Neji was the only person who had ever combined Sixty Four Palms was a defensive jutsu and managed to perform the technique without being caught up in it. The worst part was the inescapable knowledge that the men were still alive, trapped in their own bodies more completely than they would have been in chains, locked helplessly in their own frozen flesh.
With a half-choked sob, Neji looked away, trying to ignore the terrible spectacle of his kinsmen slowly dying of asphyxiation. The true horror of Sixty Four Palms was not in the destructive force the technique wrought when used as an offensive maneuver, but in the broad disruption it caused to living bodies when bound to an array. When the technique was performed within the framework of a barrier spell such as the one he had used, it did not kill its targets, but instead trapped their bodies in a kind of motionless chakra spasm. The victims could not move to attack or to pump blood through their bodies, they could not breathe or even to cry for help. Soon, the forest was filled with the quiet, ugly sound of people drowning on their own saliva, smothering slowly in their own flesh.
"Kami! Neji! What have you done?!" Sakura whispered, looking at the frozen soldiers in horror.
"Stay down." He snapped, trying not to listen as his family members gagged and died around them.
"Kami! Stop it! They're dying!" Someone shouted.
"For Kami's sake Neji! At least let them live!"
"Stop it! Please."
"I can't," Neji said, his voice only trembling a little, "You must leave this place…"
"Traitor!" Someone screamed from the trees above.
"Traitor!" Another echoed the curse.
"Neji! How could you?!" Another kinsmen wailed.
"Traitor!"
"Traitor!"
"This…this is too ugly!" Sakura wailed, closing her eyes.
"Ugliness is necessary. They won't attack us that way again." Neji whispered.
"But...They…You love them…" She sobbed.
"Neji's a traitor!"
"TRAITOR!"
A whoosh of air heralded another scalding ball of flame as Sasuke spat roaring chakra at the shocked Hyuuga forces from above, his fires close and reckless enough to make Sakura scream as the edge of her robes caught ablaze. With a grunt, Neji tackled her, beating the flames out into the snow and cursing the careless monster Sasuke had become. The subordinate cackled madly and proceeded to tear one of the Hyuuga ninja out of the trees, rending the man into pieces in mid-air like some kind of psychotic hawk with a hapless rabbit. Neji swallowed and pressed a shaky kiss to Sakura's neck as he stood again and forced his foolish muscles to adopt a solid fighting stance. The Seal of Heaven made Sasuke stronger, but at the cost of destroying his entire purpose in the assault and Neji knew Sasuke was no longer distinguishing ally from assailant. He had to consider the navy haired monster as an additional enemy until he came back to his senses. Sakura had almost been burned for his carelessness!
"Oooh yessss, very nice! A pretty sssstatue garden to go along with my firesss!" Sasuke cackled, perching on a branch above them.
"Sasuke!" Sakura screamed, reaching towards him, "Come back to us!"
"He can't hear you." Neji whispered.
"He can," Sakura cried, "I know it! Sasuke! Please!"
"Shhhh…Not yet, darling. We'll play later," Sasuke said, licking his gory lips, "For now…letsss just watch…"
Neji could barely stand to look at him, at the hideous monster wearing his lover's skin, even though he certainly had no right to pass judgment over Sasuke's fall. He had fallen too. They had both succumbed to evil in their own ways. The monster's glowing yellow eyes surveyed the spectacle with a perverse kind of appreciation, scouring each dying soldier's body with obvious delight and approval as they twitched and strangled. Neji felt sick, but managed to ignore his own pain in favor of blocking a whistling storm of arrows. Sakura was still weeping as if her heart were broken and even Sasuke shuddered to hear it behind his maddened smile, but the Hyuuga soldiers continued to die regardless. Neji grit his teeth against the heavy sadness, the pain of his own betrayal. If the product of his ruthlessness occupied Sasuke's attention for a few precious moments, if he could focus on one threat at a time, then at least the atrocity was not in vain.
OoOoOoO
Sai unrolled his scroll, drawing yet another battalion of Fu-dogs and snarling dragons with an almost effortless flourish of his brush. The ink beasts leapt from the page, their forms somehow more substantial and infinitely more vicious than any he had summoned before, jaws snapping and tails lashing with agitation. The ink was different today, more alive, and it practically jumped from the parchment and into the physical world in ready obedience to his will, glistening with unmatched vigor and just the barest glimmer of electric blue. Sai whispered to the ink creatures beneath his breath and they tore into the startled Hyuuga troops like a cyclone, tearing limbs from bodies even before he had finished freeing them from the paper. The ink jutsu was perfectly suited for battle against the Hyuuga forces since the enemy ninja relied so heavily upon somatic chakra techniques and general manipulation of body energy, jutsu designed to incapacitate a human target and weak against obstacles. His opponents' strategy was deadly against living opponents, but almost worthless against paintings manifested purely through Sai's own will, beings not alive in their own right and yet still composed of enough organized matter to get in the way. His creatures surged forward in a chaotic tangle, fracturing the already wavering Hyuuga battle formations and preventing the invading forces from organizing for another push. The paintings borrowed Sai's own chakra to exist, but he could organize their meridians in whatever way suited him, which was an advantage. The ink nin drew the chakra into his jutsu in odd alignment to their limbs, something that confounded the Hyuuga attackers and made the beasts particularly resistant to the invader's techniques.
Nonetheless, the enemy was slowing him and Sai knew that the others would not be able to hold their position for long. The ink flew from the scroll as another line of Hyuuga archers drew and fired against him from their perches in the trees. Sai dodged the volley neatly in a perfectly executed flip, rolling up into the very center of a half-formed iron jawgear formation, a moving ring of slashing soldiers alternating simple stepping maneuvers with full spinning kicks. A difficult formation to achieve among the trees, it was still very dangerous once the participants managed to sync completely with one another and Sai had no intention of allowing them to getting the jawgear moving smoothly.
The artist crouched low and kicked out, snapping his deadly steel guarded feet against the unprotected knees of the Hyuuga soldiers even as the ink beasts tore into the formation from the other side. People fell and clones dissipated as their chakra sputtered into plumes of smoky vapor. Though being caught in such a formation was disorienting, Sai knew that the best place to attack it from was the center and he resisted the temptation to find a more protected position. The artist held his ground despite the pain as a multitude of razor edged daggers bit savagely into his shoulders and unprotected back with the Hyuuga counterattack. The formation was still spinning around him in endless rings of striking hands and weapons, but the momentum the attackers had managed before was broken and the Hyuuga strategy was quickly becoming more of a vulnerability than an asset. Sai's injuries were inconvenient, but superficial and a worthwhile sacrifice for the superior position he had achieved by holding the center.
The Hyuuga ninja were exquisitely trained and the jawgear formation dissipated as smoothly as rainwater hitting a tiled roof as soon as the tactic failed to serve their purposes. Sai grunted and moved back into an offensive fighting posture, thrusting forward with a low kick and slashing with long sweeps of his tanto, gaining ground as his paintings massed against the enemy's left flank. He feinted low to the right as the Hyuuga nin attacked, blocking their strikes gracefully with his tanto, always moving forward and finishing another painting just in time to shred their defenses apart. Sparks flew from his steel as the artist gripped the paintbrush in his teeth and freed his drawing hand to block the spear snaking forward for his unprotected hip. Sai directed the beasts into a spearhead formation, opening the path to where Neji still struggled to protect Sakura from his invading kinsmen.
The strategy gained him a bit of ground, but the ink monsters were destroyed almost instantaneously by a storm of chakra driven arrows as the Hyuuga lines closed again with the cover of their archers. Sai panted. He had only managed to hold the meddling soldiers at bay for a few heartbeats, gaining bare yards of distance before they closed again. This was how the Hyuuga were fighting, forming one wall of bodies after another between Sai and his lovers, trying to keeping him from joining the front. The artist calmly drew as set of throwing kunai from his vest and hurled the weapons against the waiting archers, following his own projectiles in a spinning hurtle over the still milling Hyuuga foot soldiers even as an ink crane moved to catch him. The beast was destroyed mere moments after he settled onto it's back, but Sai continued moving forward regardless.
Delay was an appropriate tactic for a situation of this kind and one his enemies were using well; he had no choice except to keep ramming he way through, gaining ground in precious yards instead of miles, but their resources were not inexhaustible either. Sai plowed into the lines of invaders again, hurtling his way through the bodies more like a war engine than a lone nin, pausing only when the Hyuuga soldiers managed to reform their line into a firm formation. There was no point feeling frustration as the emotion added nothing to his strategy and Sai was having a difficult enough time as it was holding himself back from the roaring rage the thrall was funneling to him from Sasuke. Sai could not allow himself to be swayed by the feelings, as powerful as they were, not now when his control was already in jeopardy and everything depended upon remaining strategic in his approach.
The artist knew they were trying to slow him, and succeeding for the most part, but the Hyuuga forces were simply losing too many people to sustain this mode of defense. It was a weakness he could use. Blinking the sweat and blood out of his eyes, Sai relaxed into one of the dueling exercises he had learned in Root, stabbing two-handed into any vital area without regard for his own defense. The fighting posture was built for rapid strikes and relatively closed, hands drawn tight into a mid-level front guard and one foot raised for kicking. Sai could kick and follow with his hands, allowing him to steadily step through the group without losing ground. Danzo had taught them the technique in an effort to train his soldiers to ignore their own bodily injuries in favor of achieving greater destruction when outnumbered.
Originally, the exercise had been designed to condition Root's ninja for ready acceptance of slow and agonizing suicide, but Sai had no such intentions. The thrall healed his body almost as quickly as the Hyuuga could injure him and the fighting position at least offered reasonable protection to his vital organs. Shielded by the power of Naruto's love, Sai was unstoppable and he moved through the enemy ranks with deadly purpose, killing with every careful step. He ignored the bite of steel into his sides and thighs in favor of greater momentum, moving forward with steadily increasing speed just as Danzo had taught them so many years ago.
Sai was practically soaking in his own blood scant moments after adopting the strategy, but the thrall bolstered him and the pain was meaningless. Pain was an illusion, but the feeling of Sakura's fear inside his head was real. His family was being threatened, his miraculous woman, his fierce clan-mates, their unborn baby and with them everything he had ever loved in the world. Danzo had always said that the beauty of battle was in its simplicity and Sai thought that, perhaps, on that one point his old sensei might have truly understood something of the world. Sai would reach them and those in his path would die. Battle was very simple.
OoOoOoO
Naruto waited, unable to reach out of the darkness, still oddly disconnected even though Sai was no longer pushing his energy into his meridians. The place was quiet, muffled like a snowy forest and empty save for the fiery Kyuubi sitting patiently on his haunches at his side. The emptiness was startling, the darkness so profound that Naruto wondered if the Nothing surrounding them might actually be weirdly solid. Kyuubi yawned and licked at the ugly rent in his body. The old Fox had been injured during the claiming, a long and ragged tear in his shimmering coat, but they both knew the wound was not fatal so talking about it was unnecessary. Naruto wondered vaguely how the demon had managed to escape his cage, but the time to ask was probably long past and the Fox's answer would not change their circumstances. Instead, Naruto sighed and leaned back, gazing up into the Nothing as his mind spun.
"Where are we?" Naruto asked at last.
"Your mind, or perhaps mine…" The Fox answered thoughtfully.
"How come your mind is so empty?" Naruto asked, gazing out into the pressing darkness.
"What makes you think this isn't your mind?" The demon asked tartly.
"No way my brain would be so dark or empty." Naruto huffed.
"There are those who might dispute that."
"What about you? Is your mind ever like this? Filled with just…Nothing…"
"At times it is or better to say it can be…when I despair." Kyuubi shrugged.
"Wow, your despair is way worse than mine." Naruto whispered, turning to face the Fox.
"I have had longer to grieve than you ever will, kit."
They sat in silence awhile and Naruto could feel the distant pounding of the others' emotions, their pain and rage reaching him like flute music carried on the night wind from a camp hundreds of miles away. His mates were fighting for their lives and he was helpless, paralyzed in the darkness, unable to move back into his own awareness while his singed chakra tried to achieve balance with Sai's. The feeling hurt and Naruto thought for a moment that he might know a bit of the despair Kyuubi described, the sadness of being unable to reach his own flesh, separated by impossible barriers from his loved ones.
"Is it your body that you miss?" Naruto asked gently.
"Partly, having one's self destroyed and one's soul imprisoned in a cage of flesh continually dying around it is a depressing situation…" Kyuubi sighed, its tone sarcastic, but laced with pain.
"Yeah. I never thought about it that way I guess." Naruto admitted.
"It is depressing, but truly I miss Her the most." Kyuubi whispered.
"Her? Your mate? What was her name?" Naruto breathed, staring at Kyuubi.
The fiery demon shimmered a bit in his vision, moving like light under water. To Naruto, the movement seemed almost like tears, like weeping done with the entire soul instead of simply the eyes. Naruto felt his own spirit swell with sympathy and he wept too in the quiet, unable to separate himself from the emotion, the Nothing close and deep around him. The Fox watched and its expression softened into a kind of impatient fondness before the mighty demon moved to settle itself a bit closer to him, for once simply there instead of in conflict with Naruto's own sense of self. The terrible sadness crested and waned a bit before the Kitsune spoke again.
"My love had no name, silly kit. A name is a human construct and even my own was given to me by the men who chained me. Before the time of man, when demons ruled, we had not need for such paltry things. To me She was and to her I was and that simple truth was enough for us." Kyuubi sighed.
"What happened to her?" Naruto asked.
"She was killed slowly by those of your race. Her being torn apart piece by piece to light their fires or heat their stoves, her fires stolen away until she finally succumbed to an unnatural death."
"How awful!" Naruto gasped, feeling the sorrow gather again.
"Humans have no respect for their world. They take and take, but give nothing in return. They believed that her fire was inexhaustible, that her sounds of pain merely the humble keening of some mean beast, but it is not so. We are alive, even if we are not like you. We hurt and grieve even if we do not age or die as you do." Kyuubi said.
"Was that why you tried to destroy Konoha?" Naruto asked.
"No." The Fox answered simply, resting its head down onto its giant paws.
The silence stretched and the demon did not elaborate, but Naruto was too curious. The more he learned of Kyuubi, the more the Fox did not seem like the kind of creature to visit wanton destruction upon anything. Kyuubi was old and his perspective was strange, but Naruto knew the demon was capable of a profound level of love and appreciation for the frailty of life. It seemed too weird for something that loved so deeply to simply destroy a city for no reason.
"Then why?" He pushed after a while, hoping the Fox didn't become too angry.
"I felt like it."
"Please tell me, I want to know the truth." Naruto asked, shuffling closer.
The Fox flattened its ears, clearly unwilling to discuss the incident, but Naruto just crossed his arms and waited stubbornly. Kyuubi had no right to keep this secret. He of all people deserved to know the truth about what happened during the attack, especially because he was the one who'd suffered the most because of it. Naruto had been forced to live with the consequences of that night all his life and none of it was easy. He'd been beaten, humiliated and starved because of the lives Kyuubi took and he had always just thought the demon had done all of it out of spite. If there was more, if the Fox had attacked Konoha with some other purpose, he deserved to know. Naruto poked the Fox's shoulder insistently.
"I burned your filthy city because…" Kyuubi snarled, baring its teeth at him.
"Because…?" Naruto prodded, unafraid.
"Because for the first time in many millennia, I was gifted with a host whom I had grown to love and the petty human politics of one tiny kingdom took her from me as well. Even one of their own kind and they still killed her…" The Fox hissed.
"My mother?" Naruto breathed, eyes widening.
"Your mother," Kyuubi sighed, "Was special."
"How?" Naruto asked, more eagerly than he would have liked, "Was she kind? Was she strong?"
"Oh yes, kind and strong and sincere. Many of my hosts have had those qualities, but Kushina was humble in a way I had never known a human had the capacity to be. She respected life and took it with great dignity and gratitude instead of simple callous wanting." The Fox chuckled, staring at Naruto quizzically.
"But, she was a ninja!" Naruto exclaimed, shaking his head in confusion.
"She was and she killed with grace, which makes all the difference in the world, kit. Your mother would take a longer journey to spare the grass beneath her feet and go hungry instead of killing a rabbit pregnant with young. She thanked the wood in her fire for burning and the river where she bathed and all the spirits rejoiced in her presence. Kushina made me feel that, perhaps, humans might learn to see after all…" The Fox whispered, turning away, the humor gone from his voice.
"And then they killed her and you were stuck with me instead." Naruto said softly, hugging his knees.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. Believe it." He sniffed, feeling very small in all the Nothing of Kyuubi's mind.
"It was unavoidable, but I fell into great despair. I would have burned the whole world if your father had not stopped me. If your mother hadn't loved him so deeply I might have even escaped that fate as well…Love is a wonderful, terrible thing." Kyuubi sighed, flickering again.
"What could love possibly have to do with it?" Naruto asked, feeling overwhelmed as the force of the demon's sadness washed over him again.
"Everything, kit! Love is everything. Love is what saved you that night, what saved your village and perhaps even your world. Love is the one thing you and I both understand."
"But, how?" Naruto sobbed.
"Your father was a superb ninja, but even he was nothing against my true might. I could have beaten him had your mother not loved him so, but she loved him the way a lily loves rain. After bonding with Kushina for so long I had come to love him, in a way, almost as dearly as she did. I hesitated, he captured me and your vile, little city was spared. For his valor, of course your father died as well." Kyuubi sighed, voice soft with some old sadness.
"You must…hate humans very much." Naruto said, feeling ugly even by association.
"Yes, I do, but you must know something kit." Kyuubi said solemnly.
"What?" Naruto asked miserably.
"That I do not hate you, not even a little." The demon whispered, looking at him fondly, its great golden eyes unmasked for the first time Naruto could remember.
"But…you…you always say…"
"You are often foolish and very, very horribly young, but you are the best host I have ever known. You are stronger even than your mother and with the same blessed humility, the same gratitude to the world. You never destroy life wantonly, my Naruto, and I think your love has grown to be almost as deep as my own." Kyuubi went on.
"I…but you…I thought…" Naruto fumbled, shocked.
"For a being so small and so young, you manage to achieve much kindness and I have come to love you for it despite my own pride." The demon admitted.
"Love? You…you never told me…" Naruto gasped, shaking his head, "I always thought you hated me."
"No kit, even in the greatest depths of my bitterness I never hated you. It is difficult for one such as me to love one such as you and show it. Perhaps it will be enough to know that when you die, I shall grieve so terribly that I believe I may finally be able to die as well." The Fox said at last and wrapped its tails around him in an alien embrace.
OoOoOoO
Neji fought as he had never fought before. Already well beyond his limits and deep into the realm of simple instinct, he surrendered to the violence and let each movement follow the last, driven by some unfathomable current from the very core of his being. Bones shattered against his palms and his opponents wailed in agony as Neji tore their bodies apart, never pausing to reassess, the momentum of each perfect strike fueling the next in gruesome synchrony. The only still place was where Sakura pressed against his back, where her precious heartbeat still fluttered against his skin, an oasis in the burning hell. The enemy came and came, forever pushing and never retreating, eyes mad with both terror and bloodlust. Neji knew he should be planning, thinking logically and calculating the most effective approach, but he was too tired and the cries of his old kinsmen all melded into a single voiceless accusation. He was a traitor, dignity and honor traded long ago for the simple privilege of survival and the only offering he had left was one of blood.
The air was filled with sparks and smoke, roiling black against the garish firelight, thick and greasy with burning flesh. A feathery white ash fell from the fires roaring in the tops of the trees, clinging to everything and everyone until the world seemed made only of darkness and gray specters, homogeny in the monochrome chaos. Neji was struck deeply, again and again, but his wounds healed with the same supernatural swiftness with which the rest of his body moved. There was pain, terrible pain, but Neji could barely acknowledge the sting as a separate sensation from the hellish throbbing gripping his entire spirit. Ash drifted in sudden eddies as the wind shifted, mixing with the snow, and Neji felt the change so viscerally that for a moment he almost came back to his mind.
"Sai!" Sakura cried as the world suddenly stilled around them.
"Sai…?" Neji breathed and looked, out into the endless ranks of ash-clad bodies.
The artist stood before them, thoroughly soaked in blood and caked with soot, eyes burning from his sockets like demon coals coughed forth from the blackest corner of oblivion. Sai cocked his head and smiled, the expression sincere and almost childlike in its innocence, cracking the blackened obscurity of his face like a flash of moonlight through a storm. Neji coughed and tried to still his shaking hands, waiting for the Hyuuga soldiers to stop staring and renew their attack.
"Sakura! Neji! You're okay!" Sai shouted in delight.
"Where's Naruto?" Sakura asked, voice harsh and raw with both smoke and screaming.
"He sleeps," Sai said mysteriously, "And he needs you."
Far above them, Sasuke shrieked and Neji felt his heart stop at the sound, knowing the murderer was about to dive. The air above them erupted with sizzling blue lightning and Neji was forced to break his defensive posture in order to redirect Sasuke's attack away from their tree and Sakura's vulnerable body. Ninja screamed in agony as the forest came alight with the azure fury of Sasuke's power, the trees channeling the lightning down to the ground in devastating waves of tearing energy. Neji caught the lightning jutsu and pushed the shock aside, the effort of such a maneuver making his already taxed lungs burn. The Hyuuga ninja used his momentary distraction to shift their positions and suddenly Neji was overwhelmed, fighting opponents from every side even as the lightning continued to snap through the pines. His rhythm had been broken, his balance disrupted and as he stepped away to regain enough balance to strike, Neji saw the lone warrior move for Sakura.
He tried to move, to counter the blow, but he was caught around his opponent's limbs like an eel trapped in a basket for a split second too long. Sai saw the strike as well and leapt, diving through the air like a slender, black arrow. The artist landed and turned, taking the full brunt of a flawlessly executed Hyuuga Gentle Fist attack directly in the vital chakra meridians of his solar plexus as he shielded Sakura with his body.
"No!" Neji shrieked, reaching for him, but it was too late.
The damage was done, the delicate balance of life-force blocked in Sai's body, the damage obvious in Neji's Byukugan enhanced vision. The artist's chakra swirled, quivered and like a candle on a windy night, was snuffed out. Unwilling to believe the horror of what he was seeing, Neji stopped the Byukugan and gazed at the empty face of their precious artist with his naked eyes. Sai smiled and coughed softly, blood welling up in his throat and dripping from his lips, wet and shockingly warm on the bare skin of Neji's shoulder. The Hyuuga genius shook his head as tears clouded his vision, reaching for the other man and holding him, but Neji knew even as his fingers grazed Sai's cheek that he was too late. The artist pressed a single, bloody kiss to Neji's fingers, trembled once and fell lifeless in his arms.
OoOoOoO
Naruto felt it, Sai's beloved and painfully foreign presence wink out of his own awareness, present one moment and absent the next. A line grown taught and then snapping, Sai fell away from him into an abyss beyond his senses leaving behind only empty space, a sucking void that sat unfilled and aching in the very center of Naruto's chest. Like being plunged into freezing water, the loss shook Naruto from the monotony of his paralysis and suddenly the Nothing around them was filled with terrible noise and rippling pain. He and Kyuubi rose as one, the loss too stunningly profound for any response more than shocked instinct and primal noise, howling together as the visceral barrenness in the thrall rocked their spirits. Naruto gasped and reached for Sai, for the echo of his being, and touched only a mirage of reverberations from the others in the churning sea of emotions. The jinchuuriki's other mates could see Sai's body and feel his limp form, Naruto was aware of the artist's presence through them, but there was a hole in his own mind where his newest subordinate should be. The alien delicacy of Sai's soul was gone from him, gone like a limb suddenly hacked away and no longer there, like the feeling of his heart stilling to an abrupt and agonizing halt. The jinchuuriki jerked and shrieked, body searching for the link to Sai just as surely as his mind called for him through the thrall, the absence too startling to accept. Sai, Sai was…he was…Sai was not within reach…he was…even though he couldn't be…but he was dead.
"Sai!" Naruto screamed, reaching out of the blackness.
"Our mate has been taken, kit." Kyuubi snarled.
"No!" Naruto screamed as the world shifted and his body became his own again.
He was waking up, the pain and stiffness of flesh grown too cold and tight in his slumber stabbing through every muscle, the tingling pain of fresh blood returning to his skin washing him in soreness. Naruto's eyelids fluttered, lungs heaving, body heavy and rigid even as the chakra pounded through him like a boiling waterfall. The molten fury consumed him, the howling loss, the aching gash in his being where Sai should be and was so suddenly not. The Fox was with him and for the first time their souls were perfectly in accord, moving together in grief, writhing with the unspeakable anguish of Sai's spiritual silence. Naruto felt a dragging heaviness mixed with the fury and pushed against it, coming back into awareness, the real world raw and cold around him. The sun's warmth was long faded from the sky outside the artist's painted windows, but there was still light enough to burn his eyes, the light of fires reflected against the snowy clouds above.
Naruto awoke alone in Sai's room, still tangled in the now icy linens where he'd loved the artist seemingly moments before, the faces of the artist's portraits staring back at him and splattered with dried blood. Everything was cold, snow blowing through the open windows and piling into drifts against the floorboards, more like a long abandoned tomb than a bedroom so recently filled with love and laughter. The semen and saliva long dried on his skin cracked unpleasantly as he moved, but Naruto could barely acknowledge the feeling. The real world felt like a pale imitation of the roaring agony within, the terrible loss and quaking chakra more vivid than the darkened images Naruto's mortal eyes carried to his reeling brain.
"Ahhh! Sai! No! SAI!" Naruto roared, beating his fists against his chest.
"He is dead." The Fox howled, its fury ricocheting in screeching echoes through Naruto's soul.
"SAIII!" Naruto wailed.
"Gone!" The Fox shrieked, thrashing within him as the ache filled them both.
"No!"
Sai was dead. His energy was gone. The anger, blossoming hot and horrible in his soul heaved like an earthquake and grew, burning across his skin and scoring his still-tender vision with quivering swathes of furious red. Naruto moved like something rising from the grave, joints cracking one by one in unnatural jerks as his body struggled to respond to the cascading emotion, muscles tense with the rage. Sai was gone, gone from him and there were no boundaries anymore. The place between flesh and spirit, between love and vengeance or even thought and physical intention no longer existed. The Fox was no longer caged within him and the demon moved freely in the man's roiling psyche, a thing of fire and elemental passion, bonded completely with Naruto's own soul. The distinction between the fragile essence of the man and the potent psyche of the god faltered and blurred, their souls twined, spirits synchronized in perfect agreement of purpose. A beloved mate, a piece of self, an appendage and a friend had been taken and all that was left was the ocean of tremendous grief and the heat of the bitter rage which chased it.
Naruto knew now how Kyuubi had destroyed Konoha, how he had burned the buildings and the helpless people within with no other care than to watch everything before his eyes burn. The pain, the wrath, was so wholly consuming that it seemed everything was burning already and all Naruto could do was fall into the fury. To call the feeling, the transformation boiling from his spirit into his body, merely the desire for vengeance would have been laughable. All the hurt, the shame and the loneliness of Naruto's entire young life seemed to spin and condense into the very core of his being, stealing his breath and sanity as it ignited with of pure rage. With the rage came pounding waves of power, strength such as Naruto had never dared to embrace as a ninja, the kind of elemental force Sasuke had once destroyed himself trying to find.
The jinchuuriki threw his head back against the slashed sheets and screamed with the horror of it, of a piece of his own beloved soul rent from him, of Sai's unacceptable death and the pouring gouges left behind. His claws lengthened and grew as the joints in his fingers cracked and shifted to accommodate the weapons, his body changing to match the swirling torment within, the Fox in his flesh as it was in his mind. Fangs curved long and razor sharp in his gums as the scarlet film over Naruto's vision spread, staining the paintings in pounding crimson, drenching the lovingly rendered faces in a veil of wrath and impending destruction. Naruto opened himself to the feeling and suddenly it was as if the world moved fully into his awareness, the very molecules of the air in the room alive to his senses, the temperature and magnetism of the element palpable against his fevered skin.
He felt the tempestuous caress of the wind and draped the shifting currents about his own energy, letting Sai's loss pull the air towards his own being, shivering as the heat from Sasuke's fires echoed in its embrace. The wind stirred around him, aroused by the chaos in Naruto's will and he let it spin, let his anger become the fulcrum for the element as the Fox centered them both. Sakura's curtains were torn from the windows and Sai's brushes scattered onto the floor as the wind gathered and began to howl, revolving tightly and gathering force. The Fox moved with Naruto and the cyclone shifted, bolstered by the demon's focus as he finally stood, turning his scalding crimson vision towards where the sky was alight in the night. The boy and the demon were no longer master and slave, nor student and teacher or even keeper and kept but one as the light is with the day, single and inseparable.
Together they gasped and grew, stepping out of the broken room filled with the reverberations of Sai's innocent love and through the darkened halls, closing the sliding door with a reverent finger to hush the terrible weeping the open portal seemed to convey. The house filled with the shriek of furious air as they walked, the tapestries flapping on the walls and the chimes ringing like a death knell, but the night was ablaze with bloody radiance to their eyes. They grew as the sorrow and ire grew, waxing too large for the mansion's puny rooms or human sentiments, too large for anything made or worshipped by mortal creatures. As one being, the man and demon stepped out into the snow and darkness, eyes glowing with scarlet brilliance as everything else in the world shrank away and became laughably small. They stood, towering high above the treetops and growing vaster still as they moved out into the world and towards the panicked voices of the mates.
They walked and the very Earth trembled at their passage. The combined being moved, the rage feeding the winds howling in a spinning cyclone around them, energy and matter melded and expanding as the pain increased with each rending moment of Sai's absence. They grew and walked, gazing above the forest's horizon to where fires raged in the distance and the sounds of battle echoed, colossal in both body and purpose. Their rage was as fundamental as hope and as endless as darkness and the elements bowed as the jinchuuriki gathered the winds to its monstrous will.
"OUR MATE IS DEAD." Naruto and Kyuubi said together, pulling the air down from the coldest part of the sky to paint their sorrow.
The air currents surged and rippled against one another, hot and cold, low and high, chaotic forces held together by the almighty power of will and the ageless authority of momentum. Wind, Naruto's familiar element, bent to him as it always had and spun, but Kyuubi gave the technique mass and force as had never been in the world before. They moved and the winds shifted, they breathed and storms gathered high in the air, the fury of the boiling air howling over the land and rallying within the circle of their hands. The jinchuuriki dipped its finger into the maddened air currents, stirring almost lazily, dragging the snowy clouds down to the Earth, unperturbed by the lightning snapping in their midst. The winds obeyed, moved by something more vast than temperature and more cruel than cold, a divine intention as inexorable as time itself.
To Naruto, the technique was still Rasengan, but infinitely more pure than any he had generated before or alone. The swirling whirlwinds, dark with clouds and fierce with moisture, sprang eagerly from his hands as the true expression of sentient mastery over the elemental power of air. Wind in its original and undiluted form, long forgotten by man, came into the being once again and bent to the fury of the jinchuurki. Indeed, Rasengan was to the massive tornadoes formed by the godlike titan as a spark is to a roaring fire, a mere suggestion of the fully realized power of the element. The gales swirled as darkness came upon the forest, a night darker than any it had known in the thousand years or more, and the mortal creatures below quaked as the combined being moved towards them.
OoOoOoO
Sakura shook her head as the world crawled to a stop around her and time seemed to freeze along with the very air in her helpless lungs. Sai buckled before her eyes, body as limp and slender as a paintbrush ruined by the rain as he fell into Neji's waiting arms, silhouette black against the firelight and the pale, falling ash. A look passed between them, a glance that Sakura could not see, but almost felt through the sifting currents of the thrall, a moment of some deeper sentiment and then yawning nothingness where Sai's spirit used to be. Neji cried out, shaking Sai's lifeless body with almost naïve urgency, face painted like a mourners mask with white ash and tears. High above them in the burning obscurity of the trees, Sasuke wheeled and screamed like a falcon struck by an arrow, his voice breaking with agony at the end of the sound. Sakura knew that whatever part of Sasuke's own being remained beneath the evil wept as Sai, a part of their own being, was torn away and the realization suddenly made everything seem horribly real once again.
Sakura fell to her knees and for another endless moment simply stared at where Neji still held Sai's corpse, the body wilted and awkward and nothing at all like how Sai really was or should be, an empty shell. In death he looked thin and wasted instead of sinuous and graceful, his face chalky and slack instead of doll-like in its blankness. He was wrong, all wrong, his joints obdurate and strange against the soot and snow. Sakura felt her bile rise as her heart dropped, a cavernous shaking settling into her bones that seemed to reverberate deep into the hidden crevices of her soul and deeper still to gouge at the places underneath. The place within the thrall where she could touch him, the texture of the artist's spirit, was inexplicably absent and the farther she grasped to reach him, the deeper the chasm yawned.
"Sai?" She whispered.
"He's dead." Neji replied, voice dry like burning paper and face barely human beneath the soot.
"But…He can't be!" Sakura argued, shaking her head in denial.
"He is, Sakura. His heart isn't beating and his chakra isn't moving…" Neji whispered.
"But…he's under the thrall!"
"They stopped his energy and all the energy in the world counts for nothing if it can't move…" The Hyuuga murmured, almost to himself, voice empty of all inflection.
Sakura took a breath to answer him or perhaps simply scream, but the wind suddenly shifted and with it came the unmistakable flavor of Naruto's stirring awareness in her own, watching with equal disbelief and swiftly growing rage. She felt Naruto wail and reach for Sai's essence just as she did, touching only chilling space and shocked by the absence, but the primitive tremor of disbelief did not last long. The feeling, the pain and horror, seemed to condense within her husband's mind and suddenly there was more of him in the thrall than there had ever been before and all of it filled with elemental anger and searing malice. She gasped, gritting her teeth. Sai had been struck from them and Naruto meant to kill everyone and everything he set his claws upon until the artist was returned to him. The response was human in the character of Naruto's desire, but a thousand times more powerful, elemental in purity and profoundly dangerous. Sakura swallowed around her suddenly dry tongue as the wind began to build, moving towards the east and the jinchuuriki's indomitable call.
Death was coming on that wind, the air cold and sour with the destruction yet to come, a massacre like no one in Konoha had ever seen before and would never be able to forget in this lifetime or the next. Sasuke's mad laughter rang through the trees and another volley of blue lightning crackled through the snowy air as Naruto's rage stirred and gathered the air. Sakura shivered and reached for Neji's hand as the Hyuuga forces cried to one another in ever growing agitation and moved to prepare a new defense against the coming assault. Sakura could have laughed. She already knew that no barrier in the world would help them. Naruto was coming and he was bringing the kind of fury she had vainly hoped never to feel in his heart, death of the sort Gaara had once visited on his enemies, but a thousand times more potent. What would happen today would be worse than anything Gaara had ever done, worse because it was Naruto and Naruto was bonded with Kyuubi instead of Shukaku, a demon far greater and infinitely more powerful.
Nothing could bring Sai back. Nothing could restore Sai to any of them and so Naruto would destroy until the insatiable hole of his loss was filled, but there was not enough blood in the entire world to ease that kind of grief. The true power of a jinchuuriki had been unleashed and all Sakura could do was pray that Naruto still had enough compassion left in his spirit to save him from committing an atrocity he, himself, could never forgive. Neji glanced at his kinsmen, face contracted into a grimace, shoulders shaking with his still-silent sobbing. Sakura looked as well, at the frightened eyes and quivering fingers of the invaders, the murderers who were also Neji's loved ones. She firmed her jaw and managed to stand even with the awful hole in her heart and Naruto's quaking vengeance thick within her soul. Hiashi's soldiers were misguided, but their deaths and a thousand more would not return Sai to her arms and they would all die if they stayed to face the full force of Naruto's gathering wrath. She had to try.
"Sakura," Neji whispered fearfully, still gripping her hand around Sai's empty body, "What's happening?"
"Naruto is coming." She replied. Neji put a hand over his mouth.
"I…I feel like I'm hurt…" Neji winced and muttered, gasping as Naruto's fury surged through them again.
"We are all hurt," She said softly, squeezing his shoulder, "Badly hurt and Naruto will hurt back if he can..."
"Kami, no…" Neji moaned, shaking almost uncontrollably against her fingers.
"Get out of here!" She cried to the huddled Hyuuga forces, voice only cracking at the end.
"Like hell!"
"Oni bitch!" One of them spat.
"It's a trick!"
"Don't listen to her!"
"Go now or you will all be killed!" She shouted, louder.
"Yes, death! Death issss on the way! Hahaha!" Sasuke shrieked, flying over them and up into the roaring hurricane steadily gathering above them
"Please go! Go now!" Sakura yelled, her shrieking voice lost in the wind.
The air churned, like a wakening typhoon, whipping Sakura's tattered clothing in stinging slaps against her thighs and spinning the wind above them with enough force to nearly tear her feet from the ground. Sakura crouched low again, ducking out of the shrieking storm as much as possible to wrap her arms around Neji and also around Sai's lifeless shell, to hold her men as best she could as death moved closer. The wind grew, roared, and the only comfort was the strength of the brunette's arm winding around her shoulders. They held each other tightly and wept as darkness gathered and the carnage Sakura had felt in Naruto's soul came at last, the deafening wail of the furious air almost drowning out the cries of pain and terror.
OoOoOoO
Kiba Inuzuka heard the terrified shrieking of the Hyuuga forces off to the west, but forced himself to ignore the din in favor of continuing the search for his own missing and, most likely, drowned, soldiers. The course of the river had shifted substantially, it's curvature now arching dramatically to the east with the water spreading wide and shallow across what had once been a broad flood plain. The dense steam rising from the choppy surface, evidence of scalding hot-springs mixing chaotically with frigid snowmelt, was only growing thicker as the ambient temperature continued to drop and Kiba could barely see an inch beyond his own nose. Calling for the boys would have given away his position in an instant and Kiba had no intention of fighting another of Sasuke's freakishly strong clones, but the sulfur of the springs was confounding his nose. The only recourse left was to systematically search the canal piece by piece and hope to Kami that at least a few of them were still alive somewhere in the river.
Akamaru whined at his side, catching another brief whiff of the Hyuuga boys' scent, but losing the trail almost immediately as they were forced to cross yet another luke-warm puddle filled with mud, sulfur and other things Kiba didn't want to think about. The bank was littered with dead fish, caught on the bank when the river moved or simply stunned into an early demise the by destruction the fang had caused to their watery home. He hated being responsible for any needless death, but Kiba figured the stench was probably karma enough for the time being. The only bit of luck he'd had since defeating Sasuke's clone was that whatever atrocity was happening in the western woods was still keeping both Hiashi and Naruto's forces fully occupied. Nevertheless, the dog lord knew he was running out of time. The only way this total stupidity would end was with Naruto's death, giving Hiashi the freedom to hunt him down and skin him like a rabid animal, or with the utter destruction of the Hyuuga clan by a furious jinchuuriki bent on finishing off every living thing still inside his borders. In either case, he needed to get back to the Inuzuka compound with whatever number of his tough little brats managed to survive and regroup in time to save Hinata.
Clinging unhappily to Akamaru as the man and dog pulled each other from the icy mud, Kiba finally heard a sound other than the roaring of the new rapids or the wind howling through the trees. Narrowing his eyes, he pulled himself fully onto Akamaru's back with an undignified squelch and motioned for the dog to be still and quiet as he listened. The sound came again, softer than before, but unmistakably human. Akamaru's ears rose inquisitively and the dog was practically quivering with the repressed desire to bark back. Even if his own senses were muddled, Kiba trusted his dog's response too much to simply ignore the possibility that the little sound they had both heard was something important. Biting his lip, Kiba decided to gamble on the chance that his teenage warriors were still alive somewhere in the swirling steam of the river water and motioned for Akamaru to bark.
The gigantic dog rose onto his hind feet and let out a series of shout, loud, carrying barks that echoed through the trees and above the din of the heaving currents. Those barks brought a half smile to Kiba's face as he remembered the way Akamaru had used the same noise to call for him as a lost puppy so long ago, the same sound used now to hunt for the missing young of their pack. Kiba waited for what felt like a decade, so still he almost forgot to breathe, and just as he was about to turn away the sound came again. The dog lord clearly heard the sound of someone sneezing and grinned widely enough to crack the mud drying on his face. Whining with excitement, Akamaru barked again.
"Kiba-sama!?" The voice carried over the sound of the river, if barely.
"Boys! Ya out there?" Kiba hissed, careful not to project his voice too much since their position was anything, but safe.
"Here!" The voice was very obviously Aki's and Kiba moved towards the sound eagerly.
The stench of sulfur was heavy in the air and he was tempted to tie a bandana over his nose as Kiba urged Akamaru over a small embankment and beyond a copse of trees frosted eerily with the drifting mists. The darkness was compounded by both the smoke of Sasuke's distant attacks and the billowy steam from the river, almost too dark for vision to be of any benefit at all, but Kiba could not smell anything around the sulfur to guide them. He crept forward and nearly pitched headfirst into the small eddy pool hidden in what had probably once been a nice meadow surrounded by thick pine trees. Coughing, Kiba pulled Akamaru up short, feeling the giant dog's feet scrabbling for purchase on the slick mud beneath the water. The heat of the pool was shocking after the biting chill in the air and it billowed up through the steam, falling against Kiba's face almost like fine rain, the condensation beading onto his hair and the long fur of his cloak almost instantaneously.
"Boys?" Kiba whispered, winding his fingers more deeply into Akamaru's fur to stem the trembling anxiety that suddenly gripped him.
He had heard Aki's voice, he was certain, but the frail sound seemed so distant after the many minutes of sodden struggling and the Kiba could not keep himself from wondering if it had been the voice of a spirit instead of a living boy. He peered out into the steamy darkness, biting his lip until it bled and wondering how many of his unfortunate soldiers had died thanks to the reckless chaos of his attack, how many were lying injured and unable to call for help. What if Aki was the only one alive and Yumi and the others were torn to pieces at the bottom of the river? What if he was only chasing the echoes of their restless spirits? Kiba swallowed hard and tried to get a grip on himself. There was nothing else he could have done and it was far too early to be taking body counts anyway. Boys or bodies, he had to find them.
"Brats?!" He called again, more loudly, voice nearly cracking.
"We're here!" Aki shouted, swimming over to him in the darkness with long, silent strokes like a damn eel.
"Kiba-Sama!" Yumi's delighted voice followed him.
Kiba peered through the water as Akamaru yipped excitedly and dove into the eddy pool without an ounce of hesitation, causing a titanic splash that practically rattled his rider's teeth, legs pumping hard as he swam. The boys swam closer forming a loose ring around the dog, laughing quietly around their own chattering teeth. The water was warm, warm enough to prevent full hypothermia, but it certainly wasn't what Kiba would have called cozy and the sooner they were out of it and in Inuzuka furs the better.
"Not much time brats, who's alive and who's dead?" Kiba asked, hating the way their laughter fell eerily silent.
"Tohru's dead." Someone whispered miserably.
"I know that! What about the rest of ya?" Kiba snapped, his nerves finally finding their way into his voice.
"Sound off, quietly." Yumi ordered in a whisper.
"Aki, here."
"Kaze here."
"Sarotobi here, my leg is broken though…"
"Ayame…"
"Genjiro…"
Kiba listened to them, counting anxiously on his fingers until he heard the last name, unaware that he'd stopped breathing during the roll-call until there were spots dancing in front of his eyes. He sighed and it was almost a sob. They were all there, all alive and only a few injuries, and it was the one possibility he'd not allowed himself to hope for. Akamaru yipped happily and nuzzled the boys in the water as they swam, worrying over this fractured leg or that laceration with the kind of affection the dog normally reserved only for little Toki.
"We formed a swimming circle and clung together, just like you told us, and then when the waves came we were able to ride them for the most part." Aki reported excitedly.
"Genjiro can't swim, though, so we had to hold him up." Yumi added thoughtfully.
"I can swim, jerks!" The boys in question hissed.
"That's not swimming, cousin." Aki teased.
"Whatever keeps you above the damn water!"
"Well done, brats. We may just live through this." Kiba whispered, interrupting them and suddenly tired.
Even as he said it, the roaring wind increased in volume and one of the trees in the distance cracked across its middle and fell with a monstrous crash that sent ripples through the little eddy pool in warning. Kiba raised his nose and sniffed, the wind clearing the stench of sulfur away for a single breath of something that smelled like a storm, like the cold air that came from the highest places in the sky. The shrieking winds ceased them then, weirdly silent for a single heartbeat, and Kiba felt death itself run its rheumy claws up his spine. Urging Akamaru up and out of the water, Kiba moved back up onto the bank until he found a reasonably bulky hillock and then urged the giant dog onto his hind legs, standing himself and searching the darkness.
What Kiba saw was something the dog lord would never be able to fully describe. A figure of wind and glowing eyes, human in shape and far larger than even his own combined form, lumbered across the landscape with deadly intent, it's nine tails swishing menacingly. Dancing about the spirit-beast's feet like puppies around their master were nine fully formed tornadoes, spinning tightly with lightning crackling in their hearts. The creature walked like a man, but it's claws were long and sharp with the same tempered air Naruto hurled in Rasengan, the left arm covered in strangely glowing markings that swirled all the way up to whirl in the center of its chest. Eyes like a very mouth of hell burned in the night, a shade paler than Sasuke's fire and filled with malice. The air left Kiba's lungs in a frenzied rush and for a moment all he could do was stare uselessly at the godlike monster his childhood friend had become, a being made entirely of wind and anger.
The being, air and wind made into flesh, was like the old gods of his Grandmother's fireside tales, like a true demon, and Kiba quaked like a child to see it. Naruto walked and the trees bowed before him, the surging air ripping through their bows like a spoon through soup, setting the entire forest astir like the waves of the very ocean in a storm. The darksome creature moved its limbs, swirling air colored by smoke and leaves and the sheer density of so much power released into a single form, glowing dully against the snowy sky. The horn calling for retreat sounded from the other side of the river, blaring urgently through the forest, but Kiba knew that very few would be able to escape. Naruto's true power had finally been unveiled and it was truly monstrous to behold. The creature's eyes fell upon him for a moment, single glance of recognition, but that one burning look was enough to haunt Kiba Inuzuka's nightmares for the rest of his life. The thing Naruto had become fixed him with its glowing eyes and the very blood in Kiba's veins trembled. The man slid from Akamaru's back like one possessed, falling low to his knees in supplication, bowing low even as his dog followed suite without anything like conscious intention. They bowed, pressed to the mud, and Naruto turned his/its attention back to the fleeing Hyuuga troops.
After another heartbeat, the wind returned in earnest, blowing like the fiercest of hurricanes and Kiba barely managed to struggle to his feet. He swallowed and moved back towards the eddy pool, not even pausing to look at the elemental being lumbering towards his wife's kinsmen, and practically dove into the lukewarm water.
"What's going on?" Aki asked.
"Is a storm coming?" Yumi asked.
"Ain't no storm brats!" Kiba hollered over the wind, "When I change, get onto my back! We've just run out of time!"
"Change?" Yumi asked, but Kiba did not waste the seconds to answer him.
"Human Beast Combination!" He shouted to Akamaru and the dog barked in assent.
Akamaru was suddenly with Kiba in his mind, present in his spirit as if they had never been two creatures at all, filling him with a wellspring of strength and a powerful sense of urgency. Their bodies aligned, muscle synchronized into a single from, voices matched and resonant in their throats. Akamaru and Kiba fell into one another the way the dog lord sometimes fell into the comfort of his bed, easily and without even the hint of resistance, and with their merger came an animal understanding Kiba had somehow forgotten in his human body. They breathed as one and the awareness of what the dog perceived came to him with sudden, shocking clarity even as the two headed beast stood up and out of the eddy pool, shaking its fur as if the water was nothing greater than a puddle. Kiba knew Naruto with an instinct deeper than any he had felt before, he knew him through Akamaru, and the dog did not perceive the jinchuuriki as a man or even as a demon. To Akamaru, Naruto was the very essence of their world taken form and moving, the closest the great dog had to a god.
Kiba shivered and whined with the notion even as his Hyuuga war-puppies laughed in delight at his combined form and scrambled up onto his back. The urge to flee, to run like prey, was tremendous, but Kiba used his human logic to stay the instinct until all the boys were well seated on his and Akamaru's combined back. After they were all huddle down into hiw thick fur, however, Kiba ran as he had never run before and felt Akamaru's terror coursing through his mind for the first time.