Two Halves

Chapter 33

To say Hinata was frightened of Naruto would have completely missed the point. Being frightened was hardly an uncommon state for her. She was frightened of disappointing her father, of fighting Neji, of anything over a C class mission, of ever becoming head of her clan, of the Kaze, and of the Akatsuki. Of course she was frightened, but that was an emotion she had come to deal with over the years. What she saw now did more than frighten her; it shook her to the core. Where Naruto had been standing a few seconds before there was now a raging, swirling mass of deep, blood-red chakra. It extended in long, flailing limbs, destroying everything it landed on. The body of chakra moved in and out as if it was breathing, the surface rippling with a strange life. It was horrible and inhuman and terrifying. But the worst part was that through all of it she could still see Naruto. He was there, his cheeks gashed with jagged whisker-like stripes, his eyes wild and yellow, his body bent into an animal crouch.

She watched as the strange blend of Naruto’s image and demonic chakra launched itself towards Kisame. It suddenly occurred to Hinata that he seemed to either have no concept of how big he had become, or had forgotten that she and Miki were there. As he flew through the air aimed between her and Kisame, she just barely managed to turn and run in time to get out of the range of his tails before he landed.

Naruto hit the ground with a roar and threw himself directly at Kisame, Rasengan extended out in front of him. His opponent responded by raising his sword and cutting the ball of chakra in two. He clearly expected it to keep going right through to cut Naruto’s hand apart, but instead Naruto neatly caught the sword in his chakra hand. The sword started to suck up the chakra and the hand shriveled, the arm becoming like a thin rope. Baring down on the hand, Kisame forced Naruto’s weakened palm back.

Kisame’s eyes widened in shock as Naruto grinned at him and his tails came flying around his body towards the man. Bending his knees, the missing-nin leapt in the air, his coat rippling in the wind. A few quick seals and a barrage of water came crashing down on top of Naruto. He snarled and whipped around, sending waves of water everywhere.

Hinata hugged Miki tighter into her body as one of the waves crashed into them, leaving her drenched from head to toe. Pushing her wet bangs out of her face, she grimaced as the tails whipped though the air, creating an odd thwapping sound as they snapped through the tops of the rice plants. She watched as Naruto bent his legs and jumped up towards the now descending Kisame.

Naruto brought his hands together; not the chakra-covered ones, but his actual flesh and blood hands, and began to rapidly seal. Seconds later, a massive burst of red and purple flames exploded in front of him, engulfing Kisame.

Hinata couldn’t see what was going on inside the ball of flame, but the two men must have hit each other, because the next thing she knew, they were flying through the air in opposite directions. Kisame, his coat still on fire, landed on the roof of the house. The flames seemed to be sucked into his sword as it ate the chakra that fueled them, but not before some escaped onto the thatched roof of the house. They shot across the roof, catching on the dry grasses. He stood up, ripping off the charred remains of his coat.

Naruto turned and snarled, running on all fours back towards the house. “Yes! Destroy him!” a voice shouted roughly in his head. Everything seemed to be moving too fast for him, things happening before he was even able to think about them. He was doing things, executing jutsus, throwing strikes, without even knowing what he was doing. He was used to the idea that the chakra would guide him towards his purpose, but this was different. This wasn’t some vague otherworldly feeling that guided him. This was a strange, alien identity that had taken over completely.

From Naruto’s center, a burst of deep red chakra pulsed through his chakra shell. It rippled and morphed, the tails becoming jagged and sharp along one side. He crouched and then propelled himself under Kisame’s uplifted arm and turned behind him.

Kisame screamed as all nine tails racked across his body, leaving behind huge bloody gashes.

The tails shot out again, this time to wrap around Kisame’s sword arm. The deep red color pulsed through the chakra body again and then the tails retracted, taking with them Kisame’s arm, ripped out at the socket. Kisame screamed in pain, his opposite hand reaching up to hold the bloody stump. Naruto flung the arm away, sending it and the sword flying into a nearby field.

With a vicious grin, Naruto brought the Kyuubi’s tails back around and crashed them back into Kisame’s side. There was no way that the man could escape, no way that he would be able to survive having so much of his body ripped to shreds.

He didn’t make a sound as he fell backwards off of the roof. No groan, no scream; nothing. Just a dull, sickening thud as he hit the ground, remaining limbs twisted at odd angles.

Naruto let out a howl and leapt off of the roof, chakra claws fully extended. He landed in a crouch directly on top of Kisame, claws digging into the man’s torso. They ripped apart his body, slicing through layers of flesh and bone. Naruto howled as he continues to shred the man, tearing him to pieces.

Hinata gagged and fought the urge to throw up. It was a horrible, brutal thing to do, a far cry from the normally clever and unique style Naruto usually used to fight his battles. This was monstrous.

She wanted to be able to say that he didn’t frighten her. She wanted to be able to love all of him, and had honestly thought that she had accepted everything that he was. But the truth of the matter was that at that moment she was horribly frightened of him.

And just like that, it was over. One of the seven swordsmen of Mist, one of the strongest men in the west, had been killed by a monster, torn into pieces by an inhuman monster. Endlessly brutal, it was a small glimpse of what it must have been like when the Kyuubi had roamed free of all constraints, in his own body.

It was impossible to fight. Even for one of the Akatsuki.

Hinata swallowed hard as Naruto slowly backed away from what used to be Kisame. Now all that was left was a bloody heap of flesh.

The principle of destruction. The Kyuubi had completely destroyed Kisame.

And so, the intention completed and Kisame destroyed, control over the chakra should have switched back to Naruto. The principles only took over for so long as the original intention was in place, and then dissolved, their task fulfilled.

But just as Naruto could start to feel the principle fading away, a low voice rumbled in his head.

“Have you forgotten Itachi?” the voice asked.

Itachi. Yes; in his focus on Kisame, he had forgotten Itachi. Where had the man gone?

He turned to see Itachi standing in front of his sister. He seemed to do nothing, but all of a sudden, she doubled over in and fell to her knees.

Itachi had to be the single most indecipherable person that Sora had ever met. She had spent years getting inside the head of the klesha, those who had gone so crazy that they were a danger to society. She had met people who had been so completely gone that she thought she was able to get inside anyone’s head.

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to get inside Itachi’s mind. It was like he simply existed separate from the rest of the world; not engaging, just existing. Something had to be driving him, something had to make him massacre his family and join the Akatsuki. But she was completely unable to find it.

They stood opposite each other, Sora’s eyes fixed on Itachi’s center, both waiting for the other to move. The Sharingan was a weapon generally used in reaction to things that an opponent would do. It was based on knowing what the person was going to do next, catching their eyes, and turning their own moves against them. If she waited, forced him to make some sort of move, chances were it would give her the best opening she could hope for from the man.

But when his strike came it was not in the form that Sora had expected.

“The Ranmyaku were poisoned by the man who raised you, correct?” he said, and she froze. How the hell did he know that? A cold chill ran up her spine as she watched the man, unable to say anything. She simply continued to stare at his center, not moving, not saying a word.

“So you are Teishi.” It was like a punch to the stomach. She had never told anyone that; not Naruto or Hinata or Yasu. The only person who had ever known was Nanashi and there was no way she would have let the secret out. Was this some ability of the Sharingan that she hadn’t heard about?

She shook, but said nothing, being careful not to look directly at him. She couldn’t figure this guy out. It was as if he was a rapt, but dispassionate observer to everything around him. She felt like she was being examined under a microscope, and the man doing the examining was ready to squash her between the slides.

“I wonder what people would do if they knew you were alive.” It wasn’t a threat or a taunt; it was simply a statement, as if he was simply wondering what those who knew of her heritage would do if they found out she was not dead. But it sounded like it didn’t really matter one way or another to him; it was just worth thinking about. And it was one of the most chilling things Sora had ever heard.

“It’s been twenty years; I’ve been forgotten,” she said, and it was partially true. Her father would have moved on. He had simply written her off as another failed experiment and moved on. But there were probably others who would recognize the name Ranmyaku even if they didn’t recognize her specifically.

Itachi just stared at her, thoughts obviously circling though his head in a way that she couldn’t begin to understand.

“You might be useful if you are able to put all of the pieces of what happened together,” he said.

“I put all the pieces together. Why do you think I did what I did?” she asked, still careful to keep her eyes focused down on his stomach, rather than his face.

He was silent for a second, staring at her. She breathed in and out deeply. He had shaken her, but she was holding her own and she refused to give in.

“I was his second choice, after you. I killed him.”

It felt like the world had dropped out from underneath her. Unbidden, her eyes shifted up to look at his face.

He caught her in the Tsukuyomi.

Her world was tinted red and then started to swirl around her. Her breath caught in her throat as she took a step backwards, trying to break eye contact, but she couldn’t look away. The red deepened and darkened as it seemed to seep into her skin, permeating her body. It felt like it was pullling her in tighter and tighter, sucking her into herself.

And then like a balloon bursting, everything rushed out again and she wasn’t standing in the fields any longer. She was down on her knees on a tatami-covered floor in a large open room. She was small, a child again, hands clenched together in her lap. There were people around her, partially blocking out the light coming through the rice paper screens, but she couldn’t see their faces. Hands reached for her and hauled her to her feet, twisting her arms behind her back and preventing her from moving. Someone pulled on her hair forcing her to look up at the crowd.

A few of the faceless beings parted, and her father stepped into view. He smiled at her, eyes wide and slightly crazed. She shook and the hand in her hair pulled back more. Her father advanced towards her, his steps smooth, his eyes focused on hers. He reached out with one hand to stroke over the top of her hair and down the side of her face. She wanted desperately to look away, but she couldn’t, entranced by his eyes.

And then a searing pain like a pair of hot needles shot through her neck. They tugged slightly, pulling at her flesh and forming into a tightly coiled circle at the base of where her neck joined her shoulder. A tendril shot out, traveling up into her head and then down along her spine. She whimpered. Then the pain started to spread with a sickening, crawling sensation, like a living creature. It slowly overtook her shoulder and started working its way down her back and chest. She lay limp in the arms of her captors, staring into the eyes of her father as she felt the seal take over her body.

She was going back to being his, and this time she had no ability to fight it.

It happened again. And again. The process took forever, and she had lost count of the number of times it had played through, the pain never dulling, the time never seeming to pass any quicker. Then things went red again and started to swirl.

Sora found herself once again standing in the rice fields, staring at Itachi. Nothing had changed around her. Less than an instant had passed her by. She fell forward onto her knees, catching herself on her hands. Her head hung limply down as she attempted to breath. She tried to grab at the grass between her fingers, but they slipped and she ended up flat against the ground. It was taking all the energy she had to maintain conscious.

Itachi stared at the woman lying at the ground.

He had made a gross miscalculation. The timeline had somehow gotten thrown way off; the three of them had arrived in time to help their friends, which should have been impossible. They should have been too drained to do anything but run, let alone do such a huge summoning. And yet, somehow, they had done it and managed to have enough chakra to still fight.

Itachi didn’t know how the Fourth had sealed the demon inside of the boy, but however he had done it, it was creating an interesting, yet unpredictable blend of chakra. It wasn’t a question of releasing the demon, or even just siphoning off his energy. There was a more complicated relationship between the boy and his demon. Now the boy was setting his sights on him, no doubt intending to enact the exact same fate on him as he had on Kisame.

It only took Itachi a split second to weigh his options. Kisame was dead and thinking that he was only going to have to take care of one person, Itachi had mistakenly used the Tsukuyomi on the man. Using it on the woman at his feet had been, he was sure, the best option, putting her in place for future plans. But unfortunately that left him rather drained, and with the boy now a mass of very volatile chakra. It was too risky to try to take him on his own; he was going to have to recover and come back to retrieve the boy later. The rest of the Akatsuki could wait for the demon; it made no difference to him. If the others could not keep up their responsibilities, then it was not his duty to clean up their mistakes. He would come back and get him later.

And with that Itachi vanished. He was simply there one moment and gone the next.

Sora stared at the ground where Itachi had been standing. She had the horrible feeling that they were now in even bigger trouble than they had been earlier. Suddenly a rush of horrible chakra rushed past her head from the house behind her. Her eyes grew wide as she watched her brother, coated in red chakra and snarling like an animal, shoot past her into the fields. He twisted his head from side to side, clearly looking for Itachi.

It was exactly as she had feared. The combination of advanced principles and Kyuubi’s chakra has given the fox demon an opening to come out. She cursed harshly under her breath. Damn thing had probably been lying in wait for an opportunity like this, a battle with emotions running out of control and the risks extremely high. Naruto was willing to go to almost any lengths to protect those he cared about and so the Kyuubi would be able to tempt Naruto into letting him take more and more control until he broke clear through the seal.

Naruto had to fight the Kyuubi, to calm down and push him back inside himself. Using every bit of strength she had, she rolled herself over onto her back and looked towards the house. Hinata was standing next to Yasu, Miki still in her arms. She looked like she was in shock.

Well, at least she was standing.

“Hinata!” she yelled. The girl looked up, slightly startled through her daze, and then started moving towards Sora. When she got there, Sora could see the panic in her eyes, and when she spoke her voice was nearly distraught.

“Onee-chan, Naruto, he’s-“

Sora cut her off “Here, give me Miki. I need you to go get Naruto,” she said.

Hinata stared at her for a second and then looked out into the field where Naruto was standing, tails whipping around in all directions.

“But, but I can’t!”

Sora’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a choice! You’re the only one that can do it. Now give me Miki and go calm him down.”

Hinata bit her lower lip and looked out into the countryside. Huge swipes of red chakra painted the sky, moving in arching swirls. Whatever was out there, it couldn’t be her Naruto. Not her sweetheart. Not the man she loved.

“Onee-chan, I, I, he’s…” she sputtered nervously.

Sora’s temper snapped. “Look Hinata, I’m still conscious here. I don’t think Itachi meant to kill me, but I don’t think he meant to leave me awake either. He’s drained, but he’s not going to give up at this point. They need Naruto for something and I don’t think killing one of them is going to sway them all that much. He’s probably out there right now regrouping. Maybe there are more of them around. I don’t know, and we can’t afford the risk. We need to get up the mountain NOW. And that means you need to go get that boy and bring him back here!”

Hinata gulped and nodded, kneeling down to lay Miki on Sora’s chest. She smiled weakly and managed to put one arm around the sleeping girl. “You’ve just got to get him to fight it. He can still take control, but he needs to fight back. I’m not sure that right now he’s thinking straight enough for him to realize that.”

Standing above her, Hinata bit her lip and nodded. She forced her heart to stop beating so fast and took a few deep breaths. She couldn’t afford to be frightened. All she could do was go in there and calm Naruto down.

She took one more deep breath and then headed out across the fields.

Sora closed her eyes and prayed she hadn’t just sent the girl to her death. Surely Hinata would be able to get through to him.

But the Kyuubi had almost completely taken over.

“You are weak without me, little one,” the Kyuubi whispered, and Naruto was willing to believe him. The need to get Itachi consumed him, magnified by a primal rage to destroy everything that might get in his way. He was barely able to think, let alone reason.

Hinata stood just outside of the rage of his tails and started yelling. “Naruto! Please, calm down! It’s the Kyuubi! He’s trying to break through the seal! You can’t let him win!” But her cries seemed to have no effect, as if he hadn’t been able to hear her at all. She was going to have to get in closer, do something drastic, just to get him to listen to her.

Hinata rushed in, trying to get in close enough to stop some of the flow of chakra and at least lessen the affect of the Kyuubi chakra on his system. If she could close down just a few of the chakra holes, partially shutting him down, then she stood a chance of calming him down. But trying to get through all nine of the tails without getting hit was next to impossible. If she hadn’t had her Byakugan she never would have been able to do it; only someone who could see in almost all directions would be able to see the tails sweeping in behind her.

But she couldn’t dodge all of them. She caught one across her chest, pushing her back, her feet waving helplessly in the air before she managed to maneuver herself underneath it and fall to the ground. She winced and tried desperately to inhale. She’d had the wind knocked out of her before, but it always made her freeze for just a moment, lying flat on the ground. Just long enough to see the sword that was sticking up from the dirt.

Kisame’s sword. Unfortunately with Kisame’s arm still gripping the handle, but after all that she had been through, that was hardly going to dismay Hinata. A chakra-eating sword might be just what she needed to get through to Naruto, even if it hadn’t seemed to do Kisame much good. If she could somehow find a way to distract him with it…

Crawling on her belly, Hinata made her way over to the sword. She didn’t have much chakra left, but sometimes it was a matter of subtlety over brute force. She winced as she thought about her boyfriend raging behind her. Brute force was definitely what she was going up against.

She watched the chakra flow through the sword as if it was a living being. It took her a moment, but she found the places she needed to hit in order to reverse the flow of chakra. Forming hard needles of chakra out of the tips of her two fingers, she dug under the sharkskin covering of the deadly blade and redirected the flow, causing it to run backwards, leaking chakra out into the air.

Grabbing the hilt with both hands, she shuddered as the sword began to shake under the pressure of having the chakra ripped from its internal passages. She bent her knees and heaved, throwing the weapon as far as she could. It flew through the air, its tremors becoming more and more violent until finally it exploded just before it hit the ground.

Instantly, all of the Kyuubi’s tails whipped around to the explosion, lashing out to wrap around the fragments of the sword.

It was her chance and she took it. Summoning all of her strength, she ran as fast as she could towards Naruto’s side, just hoping that she would be able to make it to his body before the tails came back. She was six feet away when one of the extensions came whipping back around and hit her on the back of the shoulder with a large chunk of Kisame’s sword. She cried out as she heard the bone in her shoulder break, but the force of the blow propelled her forward to fall at Naruto’s feet.

She looked up to find him standing over her and snarling. She swallowed and shook with fear as he drew back, face twisted. The red chakra of the Kyuubi completely filled her sight. Close up she could see that the man she knew was not the one staring out of those large yellow eyes. The demon had completely taken over. One large chakra hand pulled back and up, ready to swipe.

“Naruto!” she screamed in desperation and terror. For just a brief second, something flashed in his eyes, recognition of who she was and that he didn’t want to do this. She launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him.

Naruto staggered back, suddenly able to see what was happening again. Hinata was here holding onto him. Did that mean that Kisame was dead, his intention of destroying him fulfilled? Didn’t that mean he should be in control again? A rage rushed through him, interrupting his thoughts. “Do not think about her; focus on your prey! If you think about her, he will get away! Just get rid of her for now!”

Yes, Itachi. He still had to kill him, destroy him. But what about Hinata? He needed to make sure she was safe.

The red chakra stung Hinata’s skin as she pressed into it, but she held on, forcing her arms through until she was holding onto him and not the Kyuubi’s form. Her shoulder was screaming in pain from where it had gotten hit by the tail, but she didn’t let go. She winced and buried her face in his chest. All around her, his tails raged and the chakra pulsed, but she didn’t let go.

It took all of the strength and determination that Naruto had to keep the Kyuubi from ripping off the girl who was clinging to him, from snapping her neck and throwing her away. The demon raged against the girl, screaming in Naruto’s head to kill her. “She is trying to stop you! She is trying to make you weak again! Do not let her take it away from you!”

Holding onto him with one arm, Hinata made her index and middle finger into a point and carefully began pressing the chakra holes in Naruto’s chest. Instantly, he felt the Kyuubi’s presence begin to recede as the flow of chakra was reduced to a trickle. But he was fighting, desperately trying to reopen the holes with sheer force. Hinata had to keep going back and reseal the holes again to try to keep him out.

Naruto was thrown into a world of flashing red. For a second he would have partial control, and then the Kyuubi would force his way back through the passages and everything would be red again.

“Please, sweetheart. Fight him,” Hinata whispered.

Even looking back and trying to piece everything together later, neither of them would be sure exactly what caused the Kyuubi to finally recede. They could not imagine that he had gotten tired or that he had given up. But just when Hinata though that she couldn’t try to seal him one more time, the Kyuubi stop trying to push through. Naruto stopped trying to figure out what was happening. And then the red started to fade from his view. He shook his head to clear it

“Hi-Hina-chan?” he asked, looking down at the girl with her arms wrapped around him, face buried firmly in his chest.

“Naruto?” she whispered, raising her head to look at his, her eyes and face filled with hope. The red was gone, the lines on his face once more three small marks on each cheek, and his eyes had returned to blue. He hesitantly reached up to brush a stray hair back from her face, trying to sort out what had just happened. The tender gesture was all it took for Hinata to burst into tears. She grabbed onto him tightly, again burying her face in his chest again, but this time sobbing.

He wrapped his arms around her as he shook his head again, trying to get the last of the haze cleared from his mind. Slowly, it faded away, but not before a final whisper swept through his brain.

“Remember, without me you were unable to kill your enemies. If you want to truly protect them, you are going to need my help.”

Naruto looked around at the countryside around him. The rice fields were ruined. The entire face of the fields, once neatly ordered, was now chaotic. The dirt had been pulled up in huge masses of mud mixed with the delicate stalks of the rice, now crushed and bent. He’d come crashing through the narrow paths of dirt and grace that separated the fields, digging deep trenches. It would take years for the farmers around here to rebuild.

The sun was starting to set behind the mountains, casting an odd golden light over everything. Off in the distance, he could see Nori and Yasu’s house, still burning. Silhouetted by the fire, Yasu sat on the ground next to Nori, shrieking in agony. He could make out Kisame’s maimed corpse lying in a bloody heap on the ground, and his sister lying with Miki on her chest, head tilted towards them, but her eyes closed. For a moment he was afraid she was dead, but then he was just able to make out her opening her eyes to stare at them.

His hold tightened around Hinata, who was still crying into his chest. He had done this. He had destroyed everything around him, the rice fields that he had helped plant and the house that he had lived in. He had wrecked it all.

It was his fault. If he hadn’t stepped into their lives, the Akatsuki would have never come after them. There would have been no need to track them down if they hadn’t trained him, and if he hadn’t needed to learn the Shino-Tsu-Hiko, Sora wouldn’t have had to take them off the mountain.

He had been here, he had the chance to protect them, to end it, and all he had caused was more pain. When he should have been able to step in and make everything better, he had made everything worse. He’d ruined their lives and almost killed Hinata. He looked down at her curled up in his arms, bawling.

Guilt ate at him. It was all his fault.

He had to get them back up the mountain before anything else happened. He let go of Hinata, backing up a step and rubbing her arms until she looked up at him. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

She gulped back her tears and nodded. Together they headed back towards the house. When they reached Sora, Hinata took back Miki, who was still unconscious, and Naruto helped his sister stand, his arm around her waist. They stumbled over to Yasu.

Her hair had partially fallen down from its neat bun and wisps were spread across her husband’s chest. She clutched at his clothes with white-knuckled hands, shaking him slightly. She screamed his name, her body heaving with sobs.

Hinata turned Miki’s head into her shoulder, even though the girl was unable to see or hear her mother’s wails. No one deserved to see a parent this heartbroken.

“Hinata, I need you to signal to bring the falcon back. Can you do it?” Sora said softly.

Hinata nodded; she had just enough charka left. Knowing that they might have to run, they had asked for the falcon to leave, but not go far. With any luck, a simple signal would bring her back quickly. Shifting Miki so that her hands were free, she ran through the seals and completed the jutsu. The chakra flowed out of her hands and shot up into the sky. They waited until the falcon reappeared, landing gracefully, and lowering herself so that they could climb up.

Sora tried to stand slightly more upright. “Yasu, we have to go,” she said evenly.

“NO!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, before burying her face in Nori’s chest again.

Sora’s voice was cold, almost unfeeling. “Yasu, it’s not safe here. We need to leave before they come back.”

“Let them come back! I’ll kill them all!”

“Yasu, you’re in no condition to fight them. If you stay you’ll be killed.”

“I don’t care!” she wailed, pointing her face up to the sky.

Sora’s calm broke. “Damn it, Yasu! Do you want Miki to be an orphan!”

That seemed to bring Yasu out of her shock slightly. She looked up at her daughter, resting in Hinata’s arms. “Miki…” she breathed.

“If you stay here and they come back, you will die Yasu. Even if you manage to kill them it won’t bring him back.”

“No! He can’t leave me!” she yelled.

Sora’s face softened. “He won’t. But we need you to come with us now, for Miki’s sake.”

She sniffed. “I don’t want to leave him here.”

Sora sighed. “Naruto, let me down.” Her brother frowned, but let his sister drop to her knees. “I need you to carry Nori up onto the falcon. You have enough left in you, right?” He nodded, grateful that he had enough energy left to do at least a small repentance for all he had done. He walked over and picked up the man, slinging him over his shoulder. Yasu stayed on the ground, eyes traveling upwards to her husband’s limp form.

“Yasu,” Sora said, getting the woman’s attention. “I need you to help me. I can’t make it up onto the falcon’s back on my own.” Nodding, Yasu stood and helped her back to her feet.

Sora dragged in a staggered breath. “All right. Let’s get going.”

Author’s notes: Somehow I get the feeling that a lot of people are going to hate this chapter.

Much thanks and gratitude go out to Minimerc who looked at an early version of this chapter and Courai whose pictures of Sora (especially the one with her ice cream) provided much needed moral support to get this out. They should be up on my live journal tomorrow (user name same as pen name).

Wren

Editor’s Note: HUGE apology for not being there to beta this. I’ll explain it the same way I did in Demon's Sunrise: Welcome Home. At the end of June, my motherboard fried and took my computer with it; turns out the fan hadn’t been plugged in for over 6 months, and I’d completely overheated the motherboard. It took a few weeks to get a new one, then the tools needed to install it. After that, it turned out Microsoft Office had been damaged, and I didn’t have Word, and thusly couldn’t beta. Then, trying to fix it, I lost Outlook (email) as well, and this chapter. The Disc Defragmenter wasn’t functioning either. After placing a call to Microsoft tech support (don’t ever call unless you have to; they’re skilled, but so, SO frustrating) and fixing the Chkdsk, I regained Degrag. They said Chkdsk wouldn’t have affected Office, and fixing it wouldn’t matter, and they were wrong, which completely made my day! Anyway, I’m back now, and I shouldn’t have any more problems, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Occasionally I get a message about my video card not being connected, but it is. It’s been no issue so far; I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Anyway, hope you liked this chapter. For any of those who, as Wren said, “are going to hate this chapter,” just trust that it had to happen. And besides, who DIDN’T enjoy reading about Kisame’s death? That’s one of the first things I asked about when I took this job; I’ve been waiting for that for months!

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