Peace for Traitors

Hanyou are commonly thought to be both loathsome and relatively fragile creatures, dying easily in childhood of illness, starvation or general abuse far more often than persisting into adulthood to realize the full extent of their powers. The hybrid creatures are more prone to illness than their fully demon counterparts and require far more food than human children, these characteristics detract from their survivability and are reasonably well established. However, there is so little information in existence concerning the physiology of hanyou as mature adults that any judgment about the viability of such individuals is impossible to make. The same high intake requirements, which hamper an immature half-demon, may indicate the potential for greater chakra reserve and attack capability in the adult form as it does in full demons. The propensity for illness early in life may, by the same reasoning, serve as a mechanism for immune resilience during full development as it does in humans. While many argue, I among them, that hanyou are best considered to be an aberration of nature rather than any true or distinct species, the argument for their overall inferiority is wholly unsupported given the general paucity of evidence on the subject. So few hanyou survive past the first tremulous years of life that the question of both the character and extent of their abilities has remained largely unanswered and does, of course, vary tremendously upon the lineage of the individual in question. Some demons, such as dog demons, develop incredible stamina and several hanyou offspring have indicated that this is a trait passed on in the human-hybrid condition as well. The attributes of other demons, however, may be infinitely more subtle and difficult to assess. Certain snake demons can excrete poison that simply muddle a victim's awareness instead of causing death or any kind of permanent impairment. Ink demons, at least from little is contained in the reports written before the extinction of the species, indicate that the creatures were imbued with the ability to bend their form to accommodate any environmental challenge. Subtle features such as these may escape notice in a hanyou for years and, given the vanishing rarity of the creatures, it is not unreasonable to assume that the half-breed itself may be ignorant of its own, unique, adaptations.
-Koumyuo Sanzo, Lives and Habits of Far Eastern Demons
Hiashi watched as the trees began to fall in the distance and the sky darkened above them, spinning in an ever condensing maelstrom and filled with sporadic forks of blue lightning, the distant screams of his own soldiers almost lost in the roaring air. The reports coming from the main offensive were largely favorable, indicating that the oni female had been found and cornered with only a single subordinate protecting her in a sub-optimal position. The scouts also mentioned, however, that the lone subordinate happened to be Neji and that his powerful nephew was heavily compelled by the thrall, fighting with every ounce of spirit and genius he possessed. Hiashi received the report, but knew immediately that the information was no longer current, that something else had happened on his battle front to shift the meager advantage he spent lost so many lives to gain. The change in wind and the shadowy foreboding creeping over his skin was more than reason enough to change strategy, Hiashi listened to his instincts, but the problem was finding a strategy that was still viable given the heavy losses the Hyuuga warriors already endured. The Hyuuga leader grit his teeth and tried to wait patiently for the next report, which was already well over-due, without allowing his mind to consider the many ways in his scout might be being dismembered.
The other subordinates, at least thus far, were being contained and Hiashi was reasonably confident that they could be put down or at least managed until he could find an opening and kill the alpha female. Neji said that with her all the others would fall, that her life was bonded to Naruto as his was to the others, that Sakura was the key to destroying Naruto and the unnatural infestation he brought to Konoha. Granted, slaying the surgeon almost certainly meant killing Neji too, but sometimes even the greatest weapon was forged only to be tossed aside in favor of securing overall victory, the ever changing field of battle often called for sacrifices. To kill Naruto, Hiashi would give up any weapon, any pawn, any price Kami-sama demanded and more if it meant never looking into the familiar blue of the Jinchuuriki's eyes over the bargaining table or dreaming of Kushina again. Hiashi could cry over the loss of his nephew later, after he had managed to kill the demon and its hell-spawn mates, but for now the objective remained unchanged.
Even under ideal conditions, Neji could only hold a position for so long hampered as he was by Sakura's general immobility, and with the careful maneuvering of Hiashi's soldiers the oni female would be quickly overcome. The question remaining in his and everyone's mind was the significance of Naruto's rather shocking absence on the field. Hiashi fervently hoped that the jinchuuriki was too badly taxed from fucking the pale painter to fight, to even stand, but Naruto's weakness after mating was certainly not a certitude he could trust. Madara might have been an ageless corpse lord spat up from the most noxious corner of hell, but the man had been intelligent and there was much to be learned from his failed efforts to take Kyuubi three years ago. Hiashi remembered the undead Uchiha's insight into how the bonding weakened a jinchuuriki tremendously, how the task of mating made the creature vulnerable to attack and ultimately destruction. Now, however, Hiashi thought the advantage was perhaps less impressive than the Uchiha abomination had one implied given that whatever strength the demon itself lost seemed to be imbued upon its thrice damned subordinates.
The three captive males were practically destroying his army on their own, crushing every formation sent against them without their master even setting foot onto the field, and the battle dragging on far longer than he had originally intended. Even without communication, without any kind of discernable organization, the three men complimented one another in battle almost subconsciously. Hiashi knew his own people could not last much longer. They needed to kill the female and it was the universe's own irony that Neji, the greatest warrior clan Hyuuga had produced in a generation or more, was the subordinate enthralled to protect Sakura. Hiashi's meticulous nephew was surely the most dangerous of all Naruto's whores and also the one Hiashi had put directly into the jinchuuriki's hands as a means to gather information and destabilize the Uzumaki clan as a whole. He sighed. The gods were cruel.
The scout Hiashi sent out almost an hour before finally made his way out of the forest, clutching what looked like a very serious burn on his left arm and walking like a man deep into his cups and nearing collapse. The man's clothing was still smoking sluggishly, and the stench of charred hide washed over Hiashi's nose in the swirling wind, but the soldier's skin was so thoroughly stained with ash that the Hyuuga leader could not discern if it was burning armor or flesh he smelled. Hiashi grimaced, but felt a small beat of satisfaction that his operative had managed to survive at all. The scout walked tentatively and eventually succeeded in limping close enough to the battle line Hiashi was still holding in reserve that the other nin were able to catch him without breaking ranks as he collapsed. His senior nin gasped in shock as the scout's headgear was removed and Hiashi knew that his hardened veterans would only behave that way if the injury was very ugly. He cursed loudly as the call went up for a medical nin and the medics began pushing their way through the ranks. Hopefully the damn scout would at least live long enough to relay what he'd seen.
"Scout! Report!" Hiashi bellowed as he strode purposefully towards where a cluster of his best soldiers were milling around their fallen cousin like frightened children.
"My lord, the man is badly injured, I'm not sure he should be made to speak…" One of the veterans muttered as he stood, eyes shuttered and expression guarded.
"Speaking is his purpose, dammit, now move." Hiashi hissed, pushing the man aside.
The scout looked up at him from the ground, pale face coated thickly with blood still gushing generously from an appalling head wound, the ghostly fragments of fractured skull clinging to his hair and torn skin. Hiashi swallowed hard against the rising pressure in his stomach and narrowly avoided being ill on the spot. War was ugly and he chided himself for even being surprised.
"Hiashi…sama…" The scout gasped, voice like dry leaves stirred in the wind.
"Report." Hiashi ordered, more quietly, as someone turned away and began vomiting behind his right shoulder.
"Naruto…the Oni…he is coming…"
"Is he weakened as we expected?" Hiashi asked, wishing vainly that he could remember the man's name as it would certainly help him to focus.
"No…not weak…" The scout muttered, lapsing into unconsciousness.
"Shit…" The patriarch snarled.
"My lord, please…" Someone's hand tugged on his shoulder, but Hiashi shrugged it off.
"Scout! Report! What is his position?!" Hiashi snarled, shaking the dying man.
The scout's eyes fluttered open at the noise and he whimpered a little, but the pupil of the man's right eye was already completely dilated, an early herald of massive damage in his brain and impending death. Hiashi cursed, snapping his fingers in front of the scout's bleary face, ignoring how his senior nin bit their lips and looked away in obvious discomfort. Now was not the time for delicacy and the others could judge him as they dared.
"Naruto…he is very powerful, very angry, very big…"
"You aren't making any sense! His POSITION dammit! What is it!?" Hiashi hissed.
"Position?" The scout giggled a bit madly, "He's…so vast…he's everywhere. Position…everywhere…sir."
"What fuck does that mean?!" Hiashi railed, but the scout was already dead and limp in his hands.
"My lord, the man was dying. He didn't know what he was saying." One of the veteran nin whispered, closing the corpse's eyes gently with a trembling hand.
"I'm not so sure," Hiashi said tightly, looking at the gathering storm.
"Lord, what would you have us do?" Someone asked, softly, as if the words were shameful.
Hiashi ground his teeth, silent and uncertain. He still had no real information, no way to make an appropriate decision or gauge relative merits of one strategy over another, and the body slowly cooling on the ground in front of them was the only scout he had left. Sasuke was still alive, Hiashi could hear the metal-rending shriek of the black haired devil occasionally, the sound louder and even more gut-wrenching than the roaring winds. The subordinate's presence could only mean that Sakura was alive as well and, with Naruto finally joining the fray, the Hyuuga forces would be hard pressed to eliminate her. They'd sustained heavy losses already and, if the semi-coherent scout was to be believed in any capacity, the jinchuuriki was not weakened or drained as Hiashi had initially hoped. The situation was collapsing and victory might be impossible to achieve without Hiashi joining the battle front personally, along with every living ninja house Hyuuga still possessed, and even then the chance was small. Too small.
"Retreat." The Hyuuga clan-head whispered, dragging the command through his teeth.
"My lord?" His commander asked, eyes wide with shock.
"I said retreat. Now." Hiashi hissed and the call went out.
OoOoOoO
The creature Sasuke had become felt gorged, maddened, drunk on blood and manic with the roaring violence echoing through the desert of his mind. The shattering pain of Sai's loss still rang through his chakra as well, a feeling even deeper than malice and ten times as complex, something the Seal had no ability to understand. The rage pulsed through his being, more pure and terrible than any anger he had ever of his own, more dark and seething than even the most desolate parts of his own soul. Naruto had succumbed. Naruto hated. Naruto was destroying, tearing life away with glorious cruelty, and Sasuke could not resist the temptation of so much wanton obliteration. To resist and then be consumed, the magnetism of the feeling too much to bear, such was the order of his life and the monster laughed at the sheer irony of it. The Seal loved only darkness and pain, but now there was more than it could contain, more than even its own passionate host had ever wielded.
Chidori sparked and snapped from his hands, the lightning almost moving with a will of its own, master to nothing except the almighty rage and the void beyond. He writhed in the air, slamming into the unyielding trunk of a ghost-like pine, the rage filling every part of the seal and pushing for more room in his tormented soul. Sasuke laughed and then screamed, buffeted by the winds, spinning helplessly in the maelstrom. He was falling, the Seal Of Heaven glutted and bursting with too much, too much vehemence, the blackness seeping and drowning him…Drowning them…Oh, Kami, which was it?! He screamed or perhaps laughed, body heaving too violently in the tearing air to be certain which, all sense of space and gravity lost in the tilting darkness sweeping over his vision. Within it all, something small and broken shivered in the blackness and wept and called for Sai, someone much beloved and irreplaceable. The Seal could not understand…
There was a tortured breath, a preparation for another shriek, and then suddenly everything was still and quiet, the roaring hurricane replaced by a balmy sort of buoyancy in the air and golden light. The air beneath his wings was warm, gentle and a little humid like a spring morning with the promise of rain, the scent of it sweet and nourishing. He was no longer falling, or even actively flying for that matter, but held in a caressing blanket of wind and swirling, white mist. Sasuke stirred and twitched as the blackness within spun and fought against the bands of feeling slowly caging it, stifling it, forcing it back so he could finally breathe. He gasped and sobbed a little.
"Shhh…sleep, baby…sleep…" The voice was vast, thick and resonant like thunder.
"Naruto?" Sasuke whimpered.
The air was lifting him, and Sasuke slowly opened his eyes to see the vast amber gaze lingering above him, the gargantuan creature surveying him with a familiar kind of exasperation. Sasuke felt the Seal slowly release his mind, its poison drawn away with the force of the thrall like venom sucked expertly from a fresh wound, his psyche raw, but clean. He groaned as his body began the painful transformation, wings slowly melting back into his back and claws sinking into his fingers, the pain of a thousand tiny injuries a slow herald to the true agony yet to come. Sasuke moaned with the pain, but the monster within was finally locked safely back into its prison and being free of its poison was worth all the suffering in the world. Naruto pulled him close, his trembling body cloistered in an isolated pocket of air, wounds soothed and mind filled with nothing except brightness and affection.
"Naruto…Oh…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry!" Sasuke sobbed, lying on his back in the cavity of wind Naruto had built for him and too exhausted to even turn away.
"Don't apologize, my Teme. Sleep now." Naruto's thunder-voice purred as the vast eyes filled his vision.
"Sai…" Sasuke struggled, reaching up to the glowing eyes.
"Shhh…our vengeance will come, love. It will come…" Naruto promised and the chilly tone of his voice frightened Sasuke far more than the fact that his alpha had turned into a storm god.
"No…" Sasuke pleaded, reaching, "Please no…"
Naruto shushed him again, the sound coming from everywhere and filling his bones with the gentle thrumming, the resonating suggestion to sleep and forget. Sasuke cried softly as the jinchuuriki pulled his trembling body into the swirling winds of its own form, holding him like Sakura held their unborn baby, protected and lulled. Darkness fell and he fought it, trying to stay awake, trying to make Naruto understand that vengeance was not the way, but the effort was futile. Sasuke slept and dreamt of nothing.
OoOoOoO
Sakura watched as the air surged and roared with unholy ferocity, gathering more mass and momentum with each passing moment, tearing the oxygen from her very lungs with every heave of maddened air that swept past them. The clouds darkened and spun above the naked branches of the winter forest, the hurricane hurling snow in stinging needles against the naked skin of the woman's face, as the Hyuuga troops slowly began to rally for a retreat. Naruto's presence sang in her body almost like when they were making love, but now the melody was filled with darkness and anger, wrath, instead of the glowing passion she usually felt. He was on the warpath, like a cyclone tearing its way through Grass country, and feeling the full might of the jinchuuriki turned wholly to destruction made her very bone marrow quake. Sakura felt him, felt him move closer with each passing heartbeat, vast as a tidal wave and a thousand times more destructive. The kunoichi pressed a quivering palm against her own distended belly, feeling the press of her daughter's tiny hand against her own, the touch of the little life so persistent inside her. Sakura bit her lip. She was safe, she and the baby both, but what about all the other babies? What about all the sons and fathers already lying dead in the snow?
There was no word for what Naruto was feeling, no single name to name the roaring in his soul, but even the echoes of the emotion were enough to send aching spears of borrowed violence and hatred ricocheting through Sakura's belly. Naruto was out of control and he would destroy everything, everyone, unless she acted to stop him and even then all her efforts might not be enough. The Fox had returned in all its godlike fury to Konoha and with Naruto synchronized to the powerful demon, bonded as they were now, there was no force man possessed that would stop them. The terrible risk she'd taken with Sasuke, a delicate demonstration of trust and love, was the only kind of sacrifice that had any chance of appease him. The deadly gamble would have to be made again, but this time Sakura would not be playing for her own life. No, all the lives of Konoha and maybe even the surrounding provinces, maybe even every city within a thousand miles, every baby and every mother, every person who lived under the raging sky rested in her hands. Sakura firmed her jaw and moved to stand.
"Sakura! What are you DOING woman!?" Neji shrieked, pulling at her, but unwilling to release Sai's corpse.
"Naruto! It's enough! NARUTO!" Sakura screamed.
The wind tore at her and the girl stumbled, caught only by the solid strength of Neji's hand. The Hyuuga's fingers were bruising against her arm, but the silver-eyed nin was warm and still in a world suddenly gone mad with motion and with horrible noise. The roaring storm was too loud to discern one sound from another, but Sakura filled her lungs and cried out again, pushing her voice louder than before.
"NARUTO! STOP! PLEASE!" She wailed.
"Sakura! Sit down!" Neji pleaded.
"No! We have to stop him!" She shouted.
"We can't! He's unstoppable, Sakura! He'll destroy everything and…It's…It's FATE!" Neji cried, the wind whipping the tears from his eyes.
"FUCK fate, Neji!" Sakura roared, "What if this…what if THIS is your fate?"
The Hyuuga turned away, expression stricken. Sakura tried to still the trembling in her jaw, the quivering ache of too much adrenaline making her muscles feel tight and strained with just the effort of standing in Naruto's gale. Around them, Hyuuga soldiers were being torn from the ground and the trees, sucked into the swirling vortex approaching from the main house, their terrified cries made mute in the cacophony of Naruto's rage. As strong at the wind felt, she and Neji were actually in the eye of the jinchuuriki's unnatural storm, protected from any real danger.
"Baby PLEASE! Don't hurt your people! They're YOUR PEOPLE!" Sakura cried.
"He can't hear you! He can't hear anything!" Neji shouted, shielding Sai's dead face from the gruesome spectacle.
Sakura was trying to find enough air to scream out for him again when suddenly everything around them went perfectly, shockingly, terrifyingly still. The leaves still spinning in the air drifted sluggishly for a few more circles and then fell to the ground, as soft and benign as summer raindrops against her chapped skin. Sakura gasped, startled, trying to regain her bearings. The air was warm and a little humid as the snow began to melt and fall in a gentle mist, blanketing the world in a sheer film of white fog. Shaking, Sakura raised her eyes up above the trees, meeting the huge, glowing yellow gaze of her husband burning through the flashing clouds far above them. She recognized him immediately and smiled. Despite the titanic being he had become, despite the surreal way the white mist curled into the pattern of whiskers on his face, the monstrous creature was still Naruto and Naruto loved her. The corners of the immense, burning eyes turned up in an alien show of affection and Sakura reached up to him with instinctual need, the tears hot on her cheeks and heart aching. He was her's, herhusband, and she was not afraid.
"Oh…Naruto…" She whispered and suddenly they were floating.
"Shit!" Neji shrieked, gripping Sai's empty shell like it would be torn away from him as the Hyuuga's long hair was blown up away from his face.
"Shhh, it's okay….it's okay! It's Naruto." Sakura said, feeling the unreasonable urge to giggle like a crazy person.
"Naruto?" Neji asked, looking up, his expression tight with terror.
Soft currents of air, warm and loving, surged up beneath them, pulling Sakura's weight up from the ground and suspending her above the ground. The kunoichi's long hair whipped around her face as the bubble of wind condensed and became firm, holding her body comfortably and protecting her from everything except the warm light of Naruto's eyes. Neji was pulled into an orb of air as well, slowly drawn away from Sai's body inch, by minute inch, with a force as inexorable as gravity until the Hyuuga's white fingers slipped away from the artist's smoldering clothes. Neji struggled, fighting the pull, reaching for Sai like one possessed. Sakura could see Neji screaming, sobbing, beating his fists helplessly against the cloistered pocket of air Naruto had made for him, but she couldn't hear his cries. Everything was silent in the tiny sanctuary where Naruto held her, held her like she held the baby in her own womb, secluded and protected. Neji rammed the Gentle Fist into the wall of wind, but the energy barely causes a ripple in the thick airstream. Sakura could almost feel his frustration and pressed a hand up against the wall of air, hoping the gesture would soothe the Hyuuga.
Neji raised his hand as well, still sobbing so hard that his shoulders trembled. Sakura wished that Naruto had chosen to hold them together, that she could hold Neji in her arms and run her fingers through his hair. As it was, they knelt together in the floating cups of air, hands pressed in mimicry, filling the space between with aching emotion. They were completely separated, though only a hand's breadth away, each held like a bee in its honeycomb. Sai's body was lifted as well, a tiny, crumpled heap of smoke blackened flesh and dark clothing slowly ascending up and past their own position, eventually past the limits Sakura's vision too. Naruto pulled him up, above the swirling white of the mist, and for the first time she could not deny that Sai was gone. Neji wept, the heel of his free hand pressed hard against his own eyes, hair damp with tears. Sakura bit off a wail of her own at the sight.
Naruto was inspecting him, she knew it, knew that the jinchuuriki was still in denial that their beloved one could be dead. Naruto would look and he would see, just as Neji had, that the artist was well and truly gone and then…then everyone in Konoha would die. She swallowed hard and felt her mouth go dry, the grief an endless well drawing her down even as Naruto pulled her up into the skies. They ascended a bit more, enough for the light of the waning moon to penetrate the clouds and suddenly Neji was on his feet, eyes fixed out into the upper boughs of the forest. Sakura felt her heart stutter at the shock of emotion radiating from the Hyuuga. A few feet away, Neji screamed, all the color drawn out of his face. Sakura waved, trying to get his attention, but it was like the Hyuuga could not see her. Neji was tearing at his hair and clawing bleeding gauges in his cheeks as he wailed, body quaking and unsteady, but he was no longer looking up and after Sai's body. Instead, the Hyuuga's gaze was fixed out into the trees and his face was a mask of horror and remorse.
An unbearable swell of shame rose up within her like a tsunami of blood and crashed through Sakura's awareness, the feeling worse than pain, worse than any other feeling she had ever known, and for a terrible moment she only wanted to die. Gasping, Sakura followed Neji's gaze out into the smoky ambiguity of the trees, almost knowing what she would see and dreading the terrible spectacle even before her eyes alighted on the first victim. The dark arms of the trees seemed menacing the miasma of smoke, snow and mist wrought by Naruto's storm, their black branches like clawed fingers. For a long moment, Sakura's mind refused to allow her to interpret the sight and then…Kami…A sob wracked her as she finally understood what Neji was seeing and a heartbeat or more passed before Sakura's burning lungs managed to breathe again.
The kunoichi looked and the horror only grew as she managed to make out the other balls, each like her own and occupied by a single Hyuuga ninja writhing in agony. Hundreds of spheres of isolated air filled the forest, all constructed like her own, but instead of warmth and comfort Naruto filled the floating chambers of the captured soldiers with pain. Naruto was torturing them, tormenting each soldier individually and yet simultaneously, hurting them in ways that would have made even the most brutal ANBU officer weep. She tried to look away, but Sakura couldn't seem to close her eyes, the image burned onto the lids like the after-image of lightning.
The kunoichi had always known that Sasuke was capable of shocking brutality, but Naruto…Naruto was never supposed to be this way. She shook her head. Perhaps she should have known that Naruto was as mighty in his vengeance, in his wrath, as he was in his affection. He was drawing the air out of some of the cells, leaving a slow vacuum to tear at the vulnerable blood vessels of his victim's eyes and lungs, their blood weirdly suspended in the artificial antigravity. Others he battered with wind, shattering them with tiny bullets of air until the surface of the bubble was smeared with blood and splinters of bone. Some he merely asphyxiated only to grant them a single breath before pulling the oxygen away again and others he poisoned by slowing concentrating nitrogen or some other gas, others he froze. All suffered. All would die. Sakura screamed, but her grief was silent except to her own ears. Everything was silent.
OoOoOoO
Hinata drummed her fingers against the smooth wood of the ancient, blackwood tea table, the grain of it nearly memorized after so many days in seclusion. She took a breath and gave into the temptation, sneaking a furtive glance at the small clock ticking maddeningly in the corner of the room, but only a few more moments had passed since when she last looked. Very little usable information was offered to her voluntarily, but Hinata managed to keep well informed despite her father's intentions and she knew that even now both he and Kiba might be dead. Her spies had managed to convey the basic strategy behind the assault and the Hyuuga princess already knew that the maneuver would fail, the only question was how many lives would be lost for the sake of her father's pride. Hinata felt the impotent rage flare again and bit her lip in a subtle show of emotion.
She loved her father, he was the only father she had, and there had been a time not so long ago when his opinion had meant everything to her, when Hiashi's approval would have been enough to satisfy her. Still, she was a logical person and the general paucity of evidence that Hiashi loved her, that he even thought of her as anything more than another weapon in his armory eventually had to be considered. Hinata had originally hoped that bearing her children, indisputable heirs to prove the validity of her marriage to Kiba, would have been enough to wrest control of the house, but the possibility of a peaceful solution was fading. She was a logical person and she knew that if Hiashi continued on the course laid before them that no one in house Hyuuga would survive.
The guards glanced at her with suspicious eyes, far too glad for the opportunity to bully a member of the royal house and always willing to dole out more ingenious punishments if she gave them an opportunity. Hinata smiled at them blandly, feeling a minute surge of satisfaction as they shifted their feet in discomfort. Even the most jaded branch house foot soldier would not dare to chastise her for something as simple as staring and Hinata took her revenge in whatever way she could. Patience was essential, but the princess knew should would not have to wait long. Hanabi was never slow about anything. She just prayed that her little sister's brash violence would be enough to save them all from her father's waxing insanity.
The door to the out chamber slammed open with a resounding crack that sent a shudder through the tea table and made both guards jump and ready their weapons. Hinata smirked. Her sister was indeed swift. Hanabi stomped through the reception area and shoved the guards aside, not even pausing to remove her shoes before kneeling before Hinata still dressed in the armor and battle-mask of a Hyuuga common scout.
"What the hell!?" One of her guards shouted, pulling a long knife from his hip.
"Cocky bitch…" The other snarled, grabbing her cowl.
"Back to watching, watchdog!" Hanabi snapped, jerking her mask down to reveal her face in all it's soot-stained glory.
"Hanabi-sama!" The guard shouted in shock.
"My lady! Why are you here, and dressed so..so unlike yourself…so dirty?" The other asked, retracting his hand as if burned.
"My business, not yours! Stand outside." Hanabi hissed.
"But, Hiashi-sama has ordered…" The guard hesitated, looking panicked.
"You deny your princess? How dare you…" Hanabi snarled, raising her hand in a gesture that threatened the use of the Curse Mark.
Hinata winced, but bit her tongue on the chastisement she would have normally levelled on her sibling. The guards cried out in terror and threw themselves into groveling bows at Hanabi's blood smeared feet, but the girl only sneered at them. Hanabi was always a bit too ready with cruelty, ambitious in a way that reminded the Hyuuga heiress uncomfortably of their father and his violent pride, but Hanabi would notbecome a mirror image of that tyrant if she had any say in the matter. Hinata allowed a few more moments of terrified silence, before standing.
"Leave as your lady commands and have no fear." Hinata whispered.
The guards turned widened eyes up to her in thanks and extricated themselves from the room with very little noise and swiftness born of sheer terror. Hinata allowed herself a long sigh and a silent look of reproach for the slender girl standing before her. Hanabi rolled her eyes, settling with a loud thump onto the cushions on the other side of the tea table, the fine tremor in her blackened fingers belying the younger girl's bravado. Hinata took a breath, trying not to rush her sister, but anxious for the news she brought.
"It's bad, Sissy." Hinata whispered, eyes cast down.
"We knew it would be." Hinata replied, giving her little sister's hand a squeeze.
"Almost eighty percent of Father's vanguard forces have been decimated, though he's still holding the veterans in reserve as an honor guard. Sasuke is tearing them apart and Cousin is very deeply under the thrall, fighting like I've never seen him fight and using…using horribletechniques that no one even thought he knew…" Hanabi gasped, her voice catching a little.
"Neji does what he must. He's protecting his family." Hinata whispered gently.
"But we're his family Sissy!" Hanabi snapped, striking her fist against the ancient wood of the table.
"You'll understand someday." Hinata said gently, managing a smile for the girl, "What else?"
"Naruto has taken the field and he's mad, really mad, because…because Sai was killed." Hanabi reported, biting her lip.
"Kiba," Hinata finally hissed, jaw shaking, "What about Kiba?"
"Sissy…" Hanabi sighed, looking away.
"Please! I have to know!" Hinata cried.
Hanabi looked at her sadly, the tension obvious in the tightness around the girl's eyes and the unhappy way she pressed her lips together. Hinata closed her eyes, trying to regain control, trying not to break into a fit of worthless crying in front of her sister. She had to be strong, Kiba would want that no matter what the circumstances were, and there was still much to be done. Hinata mastered her emotions and leaned back a little, waiting and counting her breathing carefully.
"Kiba fled the battlefield in the first engagement and took the squad of green soldiers Father gave him too, but no one knows if they managed to desert or if Sasuke killed them at the river. The last anyone saw them was at the edge of the forest by the Chosokabe river and then some kind of battle took place, the river is changed, no one knows who survived…" Hanabi said, reaching out to tug gently at Hinata's sleeve in the same way she used to as a young child.
"I'm sure they're alright." Hinata said pushing the emotion back and trying to think.
"Sissy…I think Father's going to lose…" Hanabi whispered, lip quivering with stifled tears.
"I expected that as well and there might not be any way to save him. I'll save us though, I have a plan, so don't worry. Go now and make the preparations I told you about. Everyone must be prepared." Hinata ordered softly.
"Okay…" Hanabi said, voice raw.
Hinata stood and walked to her sister in the padded house slippers she was forced to wear, soundlessly pulling her up from the floor and into her arms. The girl's hair smelled of smoke and lightning and something worse, a scent Hinata had only experienced during times of war, the smell of death and fear. She shivered and Hanabi shivered too. There was no weeping for the tremendous loss of loved ones or crying for those still lost in the chaos of battle, just a quiet moment of comfort and trembling which conveyed more feeling than a thousand wailing mourners ever could. Many had died and many still would, but there were things to be done, loyalties to be dissolved and favors to be called upon. The time for her coup had finally come and soon everything would be brutally simple, only those who chose to stand with her and those who would die in Naruto's claws when his retribution came. Unfortunately, that was the only future she had left to offer.
OoOoOoO
Blackness, the darkest part of the night, rushing past like the wind brushing his face and there were no ever-hungry stars in the fluid darkness of the empty sky. The tempest rose and crested, moving with the heaving force of both mass and gravity, before sinking again to the brink as the water felt its weight once more. The ground fell away completely, leaving only the dark and a sense of weightlessness, floating almost comfortably. He remembered, but the memory hurt and so he fled. He moved eagerly into the enveloping embrace of the chilly waves, dove deep and was numbed, everything slowing in the cold to a more manageable pace. The shadowy water was enough to calm the awful screaming. He dove, pushing deeper and ignoring the burn for air, moving away from the calling voices and on towards the center. The one alone would sleep. The memory was only red and tearing agony and he simply could not bear it, so to sleep dreamless in the cold, alone and forgotten, was better. Better than the pain. He embraced the chill and became still, dormant and quiet as the rest of the world bled on and raged in the storm above, the crying only a shallow ache. People were dying and he did care, there was the desire to rise and answer the tugging call pulling hooks at his soul, but the waters were deep and the chaos did not penetrate.
OoOoOoO
"Naruto, you have to stop this now love, this isn't the way…" Sakura sobbed, the words thrust out between chattering teeth.
Neji was still crying hysterically as Naruto pulled them both within himself, the darkened clouds of the gargantuan spirit-beast slowly blotting the appalling scene from their eyes, a curtain drawn over a drama that Sakura knew would replay itself in her nightmares forever. The light of her husband's eyes dimmed as they moved into the heart of his tempest, but Sakura could sense the others almost as if she could still see them. She felt Sasuke's sleeping form close with her in the warm dark and sensed when Naruto chose to pull Neji into oblivion as well, though she had no idea how such a thing was possible without the thrall. She shivered, feeling suddenly isolated, the only one left alive, awake and marginally sane.
"Naruto," She whispered, "Please listen. I know you can hear me."
"I can." The voice was huge, deep and with the resonance of thunder, but unmistakeably his.
"Now is not the time, we're hurt, we're bleeding…" She pleaded.
"And THEY should bleed too!" He roared, the rage and madness resonated enough to practically steal the air from her lungs.
"Do not shout at me." Sakura hissed, feeling incensed and not at all intimidated.
"You should sleep Sakura, you're safe now and tired. It's for the best, believe it…" The reply was gentler, filling her senses.
"Like hell, we need to talk." The Kunoichi argued.
"There is nothing to talk about. Soon these will be dead and then…" His tone sent a shiver down her spine.
"And then WHAT, Naruto?! Then WHAT? What will you do? Kill the others…?"
"Yes." His voice colder than she had ever heard.
"And when they're dead? When EVERYONE is dead? Come to your senses! Revenge never solved anything!" Sakura bellowed, standing in her cocoon of air.
"They TOOK him from us Sakura! They STOLE him and…and he's MINE!" Naruto howled and the air spinning like a cyclone.
"All the blood in the world won't bring him back!" She cried, her voice ragged with grief as the empty were Sai used to be yawned open again like a wound.
"They deserve it!" Naruto hissed.
"Some of them are only children! Naruto, will you listen to yourself? This is insanity!" Sakura wailed.
"We agree. They must die."
"You and WHO, Naruto? You and Kyuubi agree?" Sakura asked, fisting her hands.
"We know. We have seen this before, we have lost precious mates and yet they go unpunished, it isn't fair…" The voice was odd, and Sakura recognized the Fox in it, speaking in synchrony with him.
"Baby, it isn't fair, but…" She took a breath, "But WE need you now."
"You are safe." Both of them again.
"What will you do when you get there? Kill all the elders, all the mothers huddled with their children, all the babies?" She asked, subconsciously touching her own belly.
"They would kill our baby. Humans cannot be trusted. Humans are evil, believe it." Naruto said, sounding very young, the voice of a child huddled alone to lick his wounds. She shuddered.
"I'm human, aren't I?" Sakura whispered, sobbing.
"You're different." The Fox alone.
"No, no baby I'm not. I make mistakes too, I do the wrong thing, follow the wrong orders and that's their only crime in this!" Sakura cried, pressing her hand up against the wall of her bubble.
"They killed him, Sakura…" Naruto wailed, long and low and filled with pain.
"T…They did…" She was sobbing too hard nearly to speak, the grief almost too much to speak through.
"They hurt us."
"I know, but I love you too much to let you do this. You'll suffer if you do. Suffer the way Sasuke does…" She whispered.
"What if Teme was right? What if…if Sai died because I was too weak…?" Naruto asked, voice shaking with anger.
"What if he was wrong, love?" Sakura pushed.
"Sasuke knew, he knew all along and instead of acting…instead of listening…" Naruto wept.
"Sasuke would NOT want this! He knows the price of hate and he wouldn't want that for you, none of us do! We LOVE you Naruto, PLEASE!" Sakura wailed.
"I don't know what to do. I hurt too much!" Naruto mourned and she could hear that pain in both his and the demon Kitsune's ancient voice.
"I know, honey, I know it. Me too, me too, but this will not make it better! You have to stop! Stop!" The kunoichi cried, feeling his conviction waver.
"I can't. I…I…I want them ALL…to…to just…DIE!" He snarled and she felt the feeling wash over her once again.
The all-consuming hurt, the soul-deep pain of trusting and being betrayed, the icy gushing of Sai's loss still so fresh and raw. Naruto felt the way he had as a very small child, alone and despised, bruised and hungry in the unfeeling dust of Konoha's streets when everyone else had gone home. He felt like his home had been broken and sacked, all the security gone. Sakura cried to just to feel it, all the old wounds pulled open and bleeding, the pain blending with Kyuubi's primordial sorrow. They were in harmony in a way she had never suspected that Naruto and the demon ever could be, aligned by a mutual enemy, akin in suffering.
"In all the years, the centuries Kyuubi has lived, has killing ever made it better?" She asked and suddenly there was silence.
"They take and so shall we!" They boomed.
"And when there is nothing left for anyone?" Sakura whispered, "What then?"
Naruto hesitated, his presence vast and yet eerily silent as the heartbeats pounded on in the swirling blackness of the living typhoon. Sakura felt her knees begin to tremble. The girl worried that her will would begin to weaken as she waited for his reply, the sensory deprivation playing tricks on her senses, making her doubt that there was anything that could be done to save Konoha. What if everyone was dead already? Everything was so dark, impossible to discern one direction from another, the experience surreal and disorienting as she floated alone, drifting without even the pull of gravity to center her body in the space. Hours passed or perhaps only minutes and Sakura wondered idly if Naruto was still there, if he had ever been there with her or if his voice and presence had only been a hallucination. The emotion moved in her as the clouds moved without, impossible to see and yet almost too near, peaks and valleys without any real substance to cling to. Her baby kicked, agitated by the adrenaline and the stillness. Sakura hummed to the unborn child softly, resisting the urge to pace inside the comfortable sheath of air, resisting the urge to give in to the silence.
She waited and breathed and sang and prayed and wondered if there would be anything at all remaining of the world outside when the light finally came again and Naruto's storm calmed at last or if the blackness was really all there was left. As maddening as the yawning silence was, Sakura refused to give into the irrational temptation to scream or sob just to hear her own pain, knowing that any chance of changing Naruto's mind depended on her calm and patience. She had to wait and let him doubt his actions, let him question her words and his own feelings until the jinchuuriki saw the same truth, which Sakura was confident he would. Naruto needed to come to things in his own way, on his own time, and rushing his decision would only provoke more arguments. Such was his nature and something Sakura knew well, but the silence was very, very hard. The only noise was the shrieking inside her soul and the soft, tuneless melody echoing against the invisible walls of her cocoon.
The nightmare was still being funneled to her from the others, hot and deep and painful in the spinning pattern of the thrall, and as the moments passed Sakura wondered if perhaps the torment within was the real world. The woman sang, her throat raw and burning with the effort, staring out into the nothing, wondering if anyone stared back or if she was truly alone and just as she was about to crumple…something began to change. Gradually, Sakura became aware of a light, the orange glow barely a pinprick of illumination, only as bright as the very dimmest and most distant star at the very edge of dawn. She watched and the glimmer slowly began to brighten and grow, filling the thick clouds with long rays of shining tangerine splendor, as shocking as lightning in the deepest part of the night and warm as a summer sunset. After so much darkness, her eyes burned and began to blur with tears as they tried to accommodate, but the kunoichi could not look away. She knew that color.
"Naruto…" She breathed.
He stood before her in his truest form, unmasked, both splendid and terrible to behold. Naruto was shaped like a man and nude, dressed only in the silken flames of the nine tails emerging from the base of his spine and the whirling electric blue patterns that flowed over his left arm and up to encircle his heart. His eyes burned like sky blue coals in his whiskered face, pupils white slits of even brighter light against the azure, gaze steady and as still as a serpent's. Naruto's big hands were graced by long claws and his golden hair flowed long and wild past long, pointed ears and over his shoulders, emphasizing the strange length of his spine and the keen fangs in his muzzle. He was an amalgam of both man and Fox, human and demon, but not or perhaps more…a jinchuuriki fully realized. Her husband walked towards her, treading on top of the very winds as the air cleaved to his steps, human and yet not, familiar and alien too. She raised her hand towards him, pressing against the thickened wall of her airy shell and, to her utter shock, through it as the air suddenly became soft, pliable, and suddenly Sakura was in the core of her husband's hurricane. The wind tossed her hair, shockingly cold after the cloistered warmth of her still and billowy nest, but Sakura didn't fall.
"Naruto! You have to stop!" Sakura shouted, reaching for him as she spun slowly through the rushing wind.
"Who are they to be worthy of your pity?" He asked, and the voice was vast and resonant with thunder, the Fox's dulcet timber like a current of magma beneath Naruto's own.
"They are just people, just lives, doing the best they can! People make mistakes, Naruto…!" Sakura breathed, turning in the airstream, trying to find her balance.
"People are evil." Naruto replied, looking away and to her shock the voice was his alone.
"You don't really believe that." Sakura said, shaking her head.
"They TOOK him, Sakura!" The creature snarled, eyes flaring huge and hot with inhuman anger.
"And he's gone, love. All the blood in the world won't change that." The kunoichi sighed, reaching for him again.
The jinchuuriki caught her lightly, his hand warm and gentle despite the long claws, the callouses of his strong palm still familiar even through flickering, spiritual flame. Sakura smiled a little and Naruto returned the expression, his face fond and a bit timid as he pulled her close, wrapping the fiery softness of his tails around her. They drifted for a while in the air, almost dancing, her cheek pressed close against the sunny warmth and familiar musculature of his chest as she listened to the steadying rhythm of his heart, sighing as the beat gradually began to decelerate. The storm raged and the others slept and people died, but for a long time Sakura forgot everything except her husband's embrace and the trancelike tempo of his breathing.
"I love you." Naruto whispered at last and the winds quieted a fraction.
"And I love you." She sighed, feeling the first scorching drops of his tears.
When Sakura finally opened her eyes and gazed up into Naruto's face, the man's blue eyes were filled with tears, the salty water dripping down his cheeks and off his chin in rivulets of silent misery. She smiled and arched up onto her toes to lick at the drops falling from his jaw, nuzzling close and feeling her own eyes moisten as they mourned together, saying nothing and communicating anyway. Naruto's arms wound more tightly around her shoulders, pressing her body close against his own so that Sakura could feel the trembling of his belly and the subtle shaking in his shoulders. The held each other close until the pain eased enough to breath without sobbing and when Sakura looked up again, Naruto was fully human once more. In the moments between one heartbeat and the next, before she could truly process the change, the winds sighed and the storm cleared, leaving only a kind of glistening clarity in the air as the first pale rays of dawn filled the sky.
OoOoOoO
Tsunade watched the spectacle of Naruto's rage dissipate in the gradually brightening morning light, the clouds suddenly fluffy and benign instead of the dark, thick, flashing storm that had gathered over Konoha in the night. People were gradually cracking their doors open, creeping into the sudden quiet with trepidation, looking up at the sky with fearful glances. She had called for an evacuation, but most of the civilians simply barricaded themselves inside their houses, while the nin silently tied their children to their backs and vanished the first moment Naruto's awakened form appeared. Tsunade sighed. From what she could tell of the battle happening on the Uchiha grounds, Hiashi had finally gotten his damn war, Kami help them all.
At least the Kyuubi was not free of it's prison, at least as far as she could tell, but whatever the gargantuan spirit beast was that had been walking through the forests, it was definitely not human. Naruto had achieved a combined form with the Kyuubi and that, Tsunade knew, could be even more dangerous than a rampaging fire kitsune. What few reports she managed to extract from Glacier when Gaara raised the kingdom to the ground indicated that he, too, could merge more synchronously with his demon into a combined form. She feared the same fate for Konoha; a city-state, an entire culture, rubbed from the map by the omnipotent rage of a jinchuuriki, but Naruto was not Gaara and so she waited for the storm to subside instead of rallying forces of her own.
There would be death enough without throwing ANBU into the mix and letting the military police turn what was, in its essence, a clan squabble into something even worse. As squabbles went, the Hokage preferred the variety that involved single, ritual combat between the offended parties instead of an all-out house war between the most powerful family in the city and an elemental demon vessel. The fighting was not over, not by far, and Tsunade wished desperately that one or both of the clans involved would reply to her summons so that she could at least know where they stood, but the two families ignored her. Whether their silence indicated grief or simply preoccupation with strategy, the Hokage could not say, but she was bound by the laws of Konoha to withhold any kind of intervention unless both parties invited her to act as a mediator. Even proud Hiashi might consider her help if he lost enough blood and Naruto certainly would if he was still marginally sane, but Tsunade had the uncomfortable suspicion that both men were neither sane nor reasonable at the moment.
Shizune emerged from her home a few doors away, holding Tonton tight to her chest with one hand over the pig's eyes as if the pet were a small child frightened of lightning. Tsunade snorted. So that was where the little pink bastard had shuffled off to in the night, hunkering down at her student's home and probably enjoying sweets while she charged about, scared senseless with worrying about the pig. Tsunade whistled and Tonton snorted excitedly. Shizune waved and jogged over.
"Is…um…is it gone?" The doctor asked timidly, looking up at the sky fearfully.
"Yes. For now." Tsunade replied, pulling Tonton from the other woman's hands as he squealed happily.
"What was that thing?" Shizune whispered, eyes glued to where thick pillars of smoke still rose from the Uchiha forests.
"Who can say, really? Perhaps a god, perhaps a demon, maybe all of them combined…" Tsunade sighed, shrugging.
"Was it Naruto?" Shizune asked, biting her lip.
"Yes. I imagine it was."
"Kami! What are we going to do!?" The woman asked, wringing her hands. The Hokage sighed as she fondled Tonton's ears.
"What can we do?" She whispered.
OoOoOoO
Neji awoke as he had every time for the past three days, body tight and rigid with panic, bedding drenched in chilly sweat and nearly screaming as the nightmare roared up from the cloying darkness and he was forced to watch Sai die once again. The artist died every time Neji closed his eyes, every time his mind wandered, every time he dared to fall asleep and every time was like the first, the hurt of it fresh and deep and terrible. Throat too dry to cry out, the Hyuuga whimpered instead and pulled his quivering knees up tight against his chest, one hand pressed with bruising force over his mouth to hold in the howling pain still ringing in his teeth and sending spears of cold sorrow through his spine. The first time he'd woken screaming and the horror of it was that no one rushed to his side, the others too engrossed in mourning to even notice that some of the screaming had managed to find its way into reality. Sasuke said that inside, in the currents of the thrall that they shared, all of them were screaming all the time anyway.
Sai was dead and the gruesome truth was not merely a dream, Neji knew it well enough by now, and even if he had somehow managed to forget, there was the silence and darkness of the house to bring the memory rushing back. The raw emptiness in his spirit filled Neji's awareness the moment he finished blinking the searing images of his nightmares away, but the fresh surge of despair at awakening to Sai's absence choked him anyway. He hurt, soul bleeding with knowing that Sai was not there, more than merely absent or out of sight, and he would never see the ink nin's energy or hear his voice again. Neji rocked and cried, weeping hysterically in the dark against his own hands, the only light coming from the eerie funeral lanterns still flickering their silent vigil from the hall. Neji was a reserved person and it felt surreal to be able grieve so openly, but no one cared about appearances, least of all him. He had too many to weep for and even an entire lifetime spent grieving would barely be enough, the sadness almost suffocating, unrelieved by the tears and inescapable.
Everyone grieved, he could hear them lamenting through the walls, but the door to his room was securely locked and only Sasuke had spoken to him since the battle. Naruto forbade any light other than the sallow glow of the candles to illuminate the house as they mourned and ordered every window draped in black muslin to blot out the very sun. In his sorrow, the jinchuuriki pulled the manor into perpetual night and all the color seemed permanently bled from the world as the bright orange tapestries and ornaments of the house were removed or covered by somber white drapes. Even as Neji wept away all the water he'd drunk the day or night, it was difficult to know, before, the Hyuuga knew that Naruto was probably suffering the most of all. His alpha vacillated between almost paralyzing grief and consuming, inhuman rage or at least so Neji had gathered from the few dry, empty conversations he'd had with Sasuke about the rest of the family.
At some point, Naruto had doubled the staff and ordered the servants to clean the house like maniacs in the dark, scrubbing every surface and sweeping away dust that was not even there. They cleaned constantly, both day and night, until Sakura had to intervene and stop them from rubbing the varnish from the floor, but Naruto let the bodies rot and molder in the woods without so much as a jutsu to keep the animals away. The bones of his kinsmen would be scattered and destroyed, a dishonor ninja rarely showed to an enemy, yet Naruto refused to acknowledge even the suggestion that the dead should be cared for. No one was eating or speaking much and the jinchuuriki had flatly refused all Tsunade's summons, ignoring the hokage as he ignored almost everything else. Their alpha, Sasuke whispered, was coping with the loss very poorly.
No one had come to tell him anything about the Hyuugas, if any of his kinsmen were still alive or what the others were planning to do, if the war raged on or if the front had quieted. In fact, no one said much of anything and Neji was left alone in the quiet hell of his own guilt to weep and dream without even the rise and set of the sun to indicate how much time had passed. Neji was not sure how much Naruto knew about his role in the tragedy, but there were no secrets in the Uzumaki household for long and he knew that the truth would come out eventually. Naruto would know everything if he didn't already and then…and then…Neji swallowed, the tears burning his eyes. The very situation Anko had warned him about was happening now, unfolding in macabre clarity before his very eyes, and there was no way to know what the jinchuuriki's response would be.
Neji wept, the thunder in his spirit almost drowning out the sound of approaching feet treading swift and angry in the hallway outside his room, the easy authority of Naruto's footfalls almost lost as the jinchuuriki stormed through the house. Sasuke was with him, Neji could practically feel the raven's approaching presence, but they were eerily silent, not even arguing. The Hyuuga wiped his eyes and tried to put his bed and clothing into some semblance of order, teeth chattering with anxiety despite the effort he made to be still. The door to the room was unlocked noisily and shoved open with a resounding snap loud enough to make Neji jump, the flimsy wood still shaking on it's tracks as Naruto stormed into the bedroom wearing a white mourning kimono and an ugly scowl. Sasuke followed behind him, body language uncharacteristically timid and looking miserable, black eyes still swollen and red from sobbing. Neji knelt and dropped his eyes to his own quivering hands.
"No more lies, Hyuuga! I want to know why you are here, what you are really doing and why I had to put Sasuke under the fucking thrall to get him to tell me what in the hell happened out there!" Naruto roared, blue eyes feral and a little mad. Neji licked his lips.
"I was told that I was here for peace, that…" Neji began.
"Peace…" Naruto chuckled sarcastically, interrupting Neji even as the tears welled up in his blue eyes, shaking his head.
"At least let him explain…" Sasuke chided softly, crossing his arms.
"YOU shut your DAMN mouth!" Naruto snapped and Neji's eyes widened as Sasuke bit his lip and said nothing more.
Naruto and Sasuke fought often, all the time really, but Neji had never heard the jinchuuriki speak to his beloved subordinate that way before and even worse was the way Sasuke didn't even try to correct his alpha. The exchange was out of character for both of them. Neji swallowed and tried to decide if he should continue speaking or just wait for Naruto to level judgment. Seconds passed, too slowly, as Naruto cried silently and ground his teeth.
"Tell him, Hyuuga." Sasuke prompted, softly.
"Naruto, I never meant to…" Neji whispered, shaking his head.
"My Teme tells me, when I compel him, that you knew the Hyuuga's were coming because you told them when we were vulnerable. Is it true?" Naruto asked icily, eyes narrowed with suspicion even as the tears dripped down his cheeks.
"Yes, but…"
"Is it also true that you informed Hiashi that killing Sakura was the key to our destruction? I have no idea why he would have targeted her with so much focus otherwise, but I'm not the smartest person in the world…" Naruto hissed.
"I did tell him, but…I… I thought it would STOP him! I thought…" Neji shouted, voice rising with panic.
"You thought incorrectly and someone is DEAD now because of it! Believe it!" Naruto roared and Sasuke flinched a little.
"He was being manipulated…" The black haired murderer whispered.
"Oh, yeah? So are they holding some hostage against you or keeping your liver in a jar somewhere? Were you forced to do this? The truth, Hyuuga!" Naruto snarled, incensed.
Neji's jaw quivered a little as his teeth tried to chatter again, but he never even considered lying or trying to obfuscate his own involvement in the attack, though it would have been easier to make excuses. He had made a choice, a tactical decision, based upon fractured and incomplete knowledge of the situation when he might have waited or gathered intelligence of his own and someone precious died for his lack of judgment. Neji knew it was inexcusable as well as they did. Fate or not, something was lost that could not be regained and he had no pretenses left anyway.
"No." Neji said, feeling the shame of it burn in his cheeks.
"You don't understand…" Sasuke began, shaking his head.
"I don't understand because PEOPLE are keeping SECRETS from me!" Naruto shouted, practically shaking with rage.
"I didn't know, I didn't think the information was important and I just wanted to try for peace before…" Neji offered.
"Peace? PEACE?! You're the only one! Your uncle wants WAR, Neji! WAR! Now he's GOT one and I won't be satisfied until every one of your clan is DEAD…!" Naruto shrieked, teeth long and menacing.
"Moron! You don't want to do that, not really…" Sasuke argued, gripping the sleeve of Naruto's drab mourning kimono as if he could pull him away from the idea physically.
"Sai is DEAD!" Naruto railed.
"Killing them won't make him LESS dead, Naruto!" The raven shouted back giving the garment a sharp tug as if to emphasize his point.
Naruto bared his teeth and growled, but held back whatever words he had originally meant to say, settling instead for a searing glare that felt as though it pierced all the way through the room and deep into Neji's soul. The bright pain in the jinchuuriki's eyes burned in his belly like acid and the fear of being separated from him ached like a fever in his bones, but even the agony of it was barely punishment enough to soothe the roiling guilt. Neji knelt and suffered as his alpha clenched and unclenched his hands, trying and failing to wipe away the tears still seeping from his eyes. Beside him, Sasuke was shaking silently with some unspoken emotion and deeper in the house Neji could practically sense Sakura weeping inconsolably over Sai's body. He deserved this and worse, even death would barely be recompense enough.
"A day…and a night, no more." Naruto ground out at last, voice colder than frost.
"A day?" Neji asked, raising his eyes hesitantly.
"Go back, go back where you came from, Hyuuga. Go and tell your clan that I will grant them one day and night to abandon their holdings…" Naruto hissed, his eyes violet with rage and glistening fangs keen and ready for the slaughter.
"Shit! No! Naruto you can't just send him back…!" Sasuke cried.
"Silence!" Naruto roared and Sasuke's jaws closed with an audible click loud enough to make Neji flinch.
The thrall surged through them in a pounding wave, the burning pleasure almost like the euphoria that comes with near-drowning, a feeling both darker and more sensual than even Anko's keenest knives. Neji swayed, his vision swimming madly, nearly fainting as the muscles of his jaws ached and twitched in obedience to the inescapable command in the jinchuuriki's voice. He wanted to argue, to shriek and cry and mourn and beg to be allowed to stay with them even as a slave, to stay with all of them, but Neji's throat felt paralyzed just as surely as Sasuke's was. He couldn't say anything at all, even if he had deserved the privilege. Naruto swallowed hard and smoothed a shaking hand through his hair.
"A day and a night. After that every living thing, man, woman or child, within that compound will be erased…ground into the soil as ifnothing ever lived there at all and the name Hyuuga will never be spoken again. Believe it." Naruto whispered cruelly and turned away from them, his face hidden in the crawling shadows.
Neji shook his head, body feeling too numbed and heavy to do more than raise his hand, reaching towards his alpha in silent supplication. He didn't want to believe the words, to believe that Naruto was really throwing him away, but even if he could have found a way to speak around the aching tightness in his jaw there was nothing to say. The sin was unforgiveable. Please, Neji wanted to say, just kill me. Death would be better. For an infinite moment the jinchuuriki hesitated at the edge of the room, his broad back stiff and tense, as if fighting the urge to turn back towards them and allow his heart to move again. Instead, Naruto turned on his heel and marched out of the room without another word, leaving only the pressing silence in his wake. Minutes passed, but the world seemed frozen, each heartbeat a wrenching chasm in Neji's chest as he watched Sasuke finally stand and move towards him like a man lost in a dream, a nightmare. The black haired subordinate stood above him, close enough to touch, but as distant and unapproachable as a traveler on the other side of the sea. Neji felt paralyzed, unable to even raise his head up to meet Sasuke's eyes.
"Goodbye, love." Sasuke whispered as he bent at the waist and cupped Neji's skull delicately in his normally brutal fingers, guiding the genius's eyes up to meet his own.
The Hyuuga stared up into the limpid pools of Sasuke's black eyes and within those inky depths an ocean of tears swam along with the warmth of Sakura's smile and the gushing pain of Naruto's weeping, a thousand emotions. A single tear fell from the murderer's eye and into his own, but Neji couldn't even move to blink it away. With a breath that was almost a sob, Sasuke gripped Neji's jaw and kissed him with a touch like the ghosting whisper of affection echoing with grief, the kind of kiss a person gave to a corpse already laid upon the fire. Neji closed his eyes and shuddered.
"When we meet again, I think one of us will die." Sasuke said softly and within another heartbeat he too was gone.
OoOoOoO
The funeral bells sounded in the sullen chill of the morning air, sudden and jarring and abrupt enough to set Sasuke's teeth on edge. Sakura wept, lying in a pale heap across Sai's body as she had for days, the white clay of the funeral paint on her face already run through with tears. Naruto's eyes, red with crying and sleeplessness, looked fiendish in the ashen mask of his own funeral paint and Sasuke knew his own probably looked the same. The grief lay upon them like a wet shroud, heavy and stifling, making the air thick and impossible to breathe. The priest chanted softly, the drone of his voice fully lost beneath the shattering clang of the brass bells and the cloying scent of the thousands of carnation blossoms filling what had once been Sai's private bedchamber. The paintings decorating the room had been carefully cleaned along with everything else, but Sasuke could still see the blood, the image of his own likeness spattered with gore fixed irrevocably into his brain.
Naruto knelt and pulled Sai's limp hand into his own, kissing the livid knuckles as he gently brushed Sakura's long tail of ash streaked hair away from her weeping face. The white carnation flowers filled the room completely, all the way up to the raised edge of Sai's funeral platform, burying the portraits on the wall nearly up to their eyes. Where they knelt, Naruto and Sakura were almost lost in the flowers, their shoulders rising above the white like two swimmers ship-wrecked in a frothy ocean. The white clay paint on his face was dry, but Sasuke felt the tears wet his cheeks all the same, and wondered if he would ever be able to go through the day without sobbing like a child.
Beside he right shoulder, Shino sniffled quietly, the insects in his stark white clothing buzzing to the cadence of the priest and his bells. The bug-loving nin was the only other person Naruto had allowed to attend the intimate house ceremony before the funeral march, though Tsunade had asked as well and kakshi was waiting up the hill at the Uchiha shrine. Even with Shino, the Uzumaki clan felt too few, too small against the threats that surrounded the house and Sasuke was reminded uncomfortably about how fragile their home truly was. Naruto was so strong, so indomitable, that he'd been lulled into a kind of false complacency and the jinchuuriki's magnetic confidence made it easy to forget that their family was a few against many.
"Sai was…he was just like a kid…he never even…" Shino sobbed, shaking his head.
"You were his friend." Sasuke said, the words hollow and bitter as ashes in his mouth.
"Some friend, I couldn't save him because he was stubborn, and because he was in love and because Hiashi..." Shino shook his head again, trembling with rage.
Sasuke did not know what to say, so he folded his hands into his sleeves and said nothing at all, the grief crushing in his bones as the bells chimed and the flowers faded and Sai lay before them as if frozen in time. Even in death, he looked as he always had, face still and flat and pale as the finest paper without the wasting or bruising that marred most of the corpses Sasuke had seen in his life. The darksome murderer kept expecting the ink nin to open his eyes, blink sleepily and yawn as if the darkness of the past days had all been nothing other than a fairytale spell cast and then broken with the magic of a kiss. Kisses made no difference, but he'd still tried. Days passed and the sorrow never waned, the tears fell, but brought no comfort. Today Sai would be buried, but Sasuke knew that the emptiness in his spirit could never be mended, that he was broken, that they all were and he could barely even remember what it felt like to be whole.
"We'll avenge him." Naruto whispered, finally standing and pulling Sakura to her feet as well.
"Would he…would he even want that?" Sakura asked, her hand quivering against Naruto's kimono.
"They need to be punished, Sakura." Naruto hissed.
"How, Naruto? There's only you and Sasuke and…and even together…and I can't lose anyone else!" The woman wailed, fisting her hands in the fabric of Naruto's robes.
"They brought the war to us, but we will bring it back to them. Believe it." Naruto snarled, grip tightening on Sai's pale hand.
"Haven't enough people died already!?" Sakura shouted and the priest glared at her from under the wide brim of his ceremonial hat. Sasuke glared back.
"We'll eliminate them. They're a threat to us." Naruto growled, his voice thick and resonant with the power of the Fox.
"They're power is broken, dobe…" Sasuke said gently, reaching for his alpha's shoulder.
"Then we'll just have to break the rest of them." Naruto said, squeezing the raven's fingers where they rested on his shoulder.
"Have you gone completely fucking CRAZY!?" Sakura cried, slapping her hand against his arm with a resonant crack.
The blow had the same effect on Naruto as a bit of dandelion fuzz blown against the trunk of an oak tree might and the jinchuuriki's only retort was to pull their woman close in an almost desperate embrace as Sakura's cries of anger slowly turned back into helpless sobbing. Sasuke moved to her, gently prying her hand from Naruto's clothing and folding her smoothly into his own arms as the girl collapsed with the gried, the tears still flowing down her face nearly soundless and the pain ringing through the thrall anyway. The priest chanted and the bell rang and after an eternity of tense silence the ceremony found its conclusion as he and Naruto hoisted Sai's empty body onto their shoulders. Dead bodies were heavy, Sasuke knew from experience, but Sai seemed to weigh practically nothing. His father and mother had been carried to their pyres using the same ebony bier and the feeling of the carved wood under his hands again was almost enough to make the once-Uchiha scream, but his body felt like it had forgotten how. Naruto's hands shook on the ancient bier's carved wooden handles, but the funeral litter was well made and the jinchuuriki managed to raise the platform smoothly enough and then they were walking in synchrony without even trying like professional mourners.
All of it felt too surreal, a terrible dream without even substance enough to be frightening, every sensation numbed and every sound muffled. Sasuke managed to remain stoic as the servants, appropriately disguised in white porcelain funeral masks, opened the doors that led towards the path he'd walked as a child after the massacre and then again as a man begging the dead for forgiveness. His eyes were dry and his bearing dignified as they walked through the gently snowing air along the path already cleared and lit with hanging lanterns, heading to the Uchiha family shrine. Sai wasn't an Uchiha, but he was family, and at any rate there was nowhere else to bury anyone. The tiny funeral party climbed the gentle hill up into the trees and Sasuke felt a chill crawl up his spine as a giant murder of crows rose from the western woods at the sounds of the priest's bells, the bodies of their enemies still lying under the sky.
The scent of incense was thick on the evening wind, Naruto had refused to bury Sai at dawn as was traditional, and none of them had the strength to argue with him. The velvet darkness of the waning sun was better anyway. Sasuke was calm and quiet as Naruto poured the sake offering over Sai's naked feet and when Sakura pulled the sheer white silk of the shroud up and over Sai's face, reciting the prayers steadily. Sakura whispered the words, but the sound slowly faded away even as her lips kept moving, her voice swallowed by the pain within. He knelt and lit the incense smoothly, helping Naruto to his knees as the jinchuuriki collapsed onto the polished stone of the shrine floor, skin pale beneath the white clay of his funeral paint. Sasuke's heart felt empty and his hands only a little weak, but when Sai's's body was finally lowered into the grave his composure finally cracked and the tears came in earnest. The grief rose up and he drowned, even the warmth of Naruto's arms around his shoulders a distant and paltry comfort. He cried with deep, heaving spasms, weeping inconsolably like a lost child with his cheek pressed to the icy granite of the shrine's smooth floor as the soil was slowly heaped in shaking handfuls over Sai's pretty, empty face.