Disclaimer: Roses are red, violets are blue; I do not own, so please don't sue.

Chapter Eight
Berserker

"Just a little bit more," I said, finishing the last swirl of the Storage Seal on Hinata's wrist. "There. We're done, Hinata-chan."

I, Hinata, and Sasuke were waiting outside the Konoha's gates for Kakashi and Tazuna. They had asked me about why I wasn't carrying a backpack and, as I explained about Storage Seals, I had the idea of writing one on their wrists.

Sasuke had already stored his items on his by the time I finished hers.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun," Hinata gave my leg a grateful squeeze and we got back to our feet. "So, I just need to think about what I want to summon and it will appear?"

I nodded and she held her wrist up, studying the intricate design with a smile as, before her eyes, the swirls and symbols moved and condensed into a single kanji for "store". She made a cute sound of surprise.

"Impressive!"

"He is an Uzumaki, Hinata-chan" we turned to see Kakashi coming from the gates, with Tazuna lumbering by his side. "It's in his blood. He could've been half dead on the ground and still be able to make something like that."

I ignored him and put the sealing ink and brush back to my pocket,

Kakashi circled me with a raised eyebrow, taking note of my posture and the look I had on my face. "And if you ask me, he kind of is dead on his feet. Did you sleep last night?"

"Just a bit," I lied.

"A bit, he says," I heard Sasuke scoffing on the rock he was sitting. "I went to his house in the morning to meet him and he looked like he had been put in an IV of caffeine, to say the least."

I rolled my eyes and turned to the road, but Kakashi held my arm.

"Are you sure you don't need to sleep?"

"I am fine," I said with a fake smile. "Uzumaki stamina, I can keep going for days at no end."

"Sure you can," Kakashi looked at me, serious, for a few seconds more. He then turned for the rest of the team just as Hinata had stored her supplies. "Before we go, I need to check up if you all did bring the things we need. Take this as a surprise test. Sasuke?"

"I have two standard packs of kunais and shurikens, a bunch of ninja wires, exploding tags, a barrack for one and the regulation kit to survive in the wilderness," he counted on his fingers, then tilted his head to the side and gave me a look. "Also, Naruto gave me something he said would be useful. From someone called Anko."

Kakashi planted his face firmly on his palm.

"Did he, now?" he turned to me. "From Anko, Naruto? Really?"

I shrugged. "Anko-chan can make useful things."

"Your Anko-chan eats the souls of the damned for breakfast," Kakashi said under his breath and shook his head, turning to Hinata. "You? I need a measure of sanity here, please."

Hinata put a finger under her lower lip. "The same things that Sasuke-kun brought plus my homemade ointment," she fidgeted a bit. "Could be useful, I think. It's not all that much, but useful."

"Sure it is," Kakashi gave her a thumbs up. "I will regret this, but—"

"Two-hundred kunais, three-hundred shurikens, ten Smokescreen Tags, fifty Exploding Tags, thirty of them directional and full of steel bearings, three remote detonators, a roll of ninja wire, a length of barbed wire, a bunch of knives, that interrogation kit Ibiki gives to everyone who looks at him funny," I listed and then, as an afterthought, I completed. "Also, three Doomballs."

Everyone looked at me with varying levels of disbelief and shock. Sure, it looked a bit much, but come on—I spent the last night creating these seals just to be sure that I would be ready for anything. Literally anything.

"Doomballs?" Kakashi finally asked. "What the hell is a Doomball?"

"Three hundred supercharged Exploding Tags glued with a bunch of Storage Seals, which are holding a kilogram of rusty nails and metal pellets. The seals are linked together to function almost in unison when the chakra combination activates it, with a space of zero point three seconds between the release of the Storage Seals and the explosion," I explained.

They still had that dumbfounded look in his eyes, like I had been speaking in a language they didn't know. I sighed and gestured exuberantly. "A ball of paper. You put chakra. It goes kaboom. Big explosion. Things die. Naruto happy."

They took a collective step away from me.

"I want you so much now," Natsumi declared.

Tazuna coughed. "Now that the blonde psychopath is ready to the mission and, it seems, ready to take down a country while he is at it, can we get going? I want to reach the boat before the night."

"Sure," Kakashi said, still giving me a last cautious look before he turned to the road and made a gesture for us to follow him. "Onward, my cute little minions."

As we walked at a civilian pace, Sasuke approached me and elbowed my ribs to draw my attention. "Were you talking seriously? About that… that Doomball thing?"

"Of course," I raised an eyebrow. "Why? Are you scared?"

"Fuck no," Sasuke said and I stopped to look at him. He seemed to have activated the Sharingan instinctively and, even then, it had nothing to do with the vicious glint in his eyes and the eagerness in his voice. This time, I took a step away from him. "I want some of that."

The road to the border of the Land of Fire was kind of peaceful. It was a good day, just warm enough to make someone feel good as the sun shone above us. Sasuke and Hinata were gobsmacked, of course—they had never left Konohagakure before that day, and everything even slightly different on our way made them awestruck.

I wasn't. I was simmering, like a pan put in a low fire—thinking about the mission. About that billionaire and his activities. Natsumi, knowing my state, let me be in silence.

The first problem on the mission happened when we saw the puddle.

You noticed? I asked Kakashi in ANBU sign language.

Of course. Enemies?

Two inside. Kill?

Wait. Kakashi ordered and went back to make small talk to Tazuna. Sasuke and Hinata looked at us—Kakashi had drilled them into these signals on the course of their apprenticeship and they knew what it meant, but did their best to act like nothing was wrong.

At least until the enemies appeared.

"Get away!" Kakashi shouted, shoving Tazuna away just as a barbed chain wrapped around his body. The two cloaked men who jumped out of the puddle pulled the chain and, with an ease that bellied the sharpness of it, cut Kakashi in three pieces.

Sensei deserved a prize for his acting.

"One down!" the taller one yelled, turning to Tazuna and pulling back the chain. The team was fast to act, Hinata jumping in the front of Tazuna to protect him, her eyes hardened and she already fell into a Gentle Fist stance. Sasuke took a kunai from his pocket. "Now the bridge builder!"

Sasuke's eyes met mine and I nodded.

We acted before they could attack. With the enhanced precision that only a Sharingan could give him, Sasuke nailed their chain down and jumped against the smaller dude, meeting him with a kick in the gut. I sprung in the direction of the other and ducked under the swing of his gauntlet.

I caught the chain and the heat of my hand melted the metal, then I swung it and threw the dude against the bark of a tree five, ten meters away from us.

He slammed his back with a pained yell and I was all over him before he could even raise his guard. I punched his ribs repeatedly against the three, making the thing shake with the strength of my attack. I kicked his inner thigh and he fell to a knee, then to the ground as my right hook slammed on his temple—causing a concussion, probably.

"Tell the devil I will be sending many more," I whispered in his ear as I put a knee on his back and wrapped my hands around his head. I broke his neck with a sharp twist and he stopped moving instantly.

"Brother!" I turned to see who was shouting and saw Sasuke on his feet, his enemy having a clearly broken leg and tied with ninja wire to the ground. I gave him a thumbs up as the man on the ground shouted. "You killed my brother! I will fucking kill you!"

"You will do no such thing," Kakashi walked slowly to us, giving the tied enemy a stone-cold stare. Tazuna was bewildered for seeing him alive, at least until Hinata poked his side and pointed to the remains of a log on the ground. "Matter of factly, you will be silent now," Kakashi ordered and kicked the ninja's head.

When our sensei turned to Tazuna, I almost felt sorry for him.

"I let them attack to see whoever they were targeting, Tazuna-san, and it seems their target was you," Kakashi declared as Tazuna became paler and paler. "If we hadn't been briefed before about the current state of the Land of Waves, I would take this as you endangering my team. An offense I take very, very personally."

I couldn't fault Tazuna for shivering, Kakashi was inches from his face and I seldom saw him that angry. For such a laid back individual, sensei could be scary as fuck when he wanted to.

"You will tell us everything. With your words," He glared at Tazuna. When he didn't answer, Kakashi punched the tree next to him and broke it in two. "Now!"

A vein pulsed on Tazuna's forehead as he heard Kakashi's order. He took his time, rummaged on his backpack and took a bottle of sake, then walked to a rock and sat here. I leaned on a tree, arms crossed, as he took a gulp and gave each one of us a hard look.

"I am not from the Land of Waves originally, Hatake," Tazuna tiredly rubbed his eyes. "My dad came from Kirigakure a whole lotta' of years ago. He was a hard man, my dad, a man I wanted to be an equal—a good architect. Then, a day, he went to his work in the ninja Academy. Just after the graduation ceremony. You lot know about that, don't you?"

Everyone knew. They Bloody Mist had a reputation and it wasn't for nothing—their graduation is a ceremony where they prepared you for ninja life with the single biggest lesson anyone could teach a young shinobi. The lesson that someone needed to understand to be a ninja, at least as they though on their fucked up head.

Never trust someone. Not even your comrades.

For the first time, I was glad for Konoha's focus on teamwork. That kind of shit would never happen in my home. I saw Hinata looking away with a troubled look on her face and Sasuke balling his hands into fists.

"Dad went to the Academy and there was this thing all around. Blood. Blood of children, young enough to be his own, splattered on the floor and walls and goddamn everywhere. Dad talked to the man in charge, said he couldn't work in a place like that. The man turned to him," Tazuna took a long swing of his cheap sake and shook his head. "I will never forget the look on dad's face when he told me the story. The man smiled and said—relax, it's nothing, after they finish it, it will be pristine. Like nothing had happened at all. All a day's work."

Tazuna got up and began pacing around. "All a fuckin' day's work. These words broke dad. They were children, for crying out loud, how the fuck could they just clean that and forgot about it? Like it had never even happened?" he asked. Don't know if he was asking us, though. "So dad's got the hell out there to a place that doesn't reek of blood and where lives had at least some meaning."

Tazuna scoffed. "Didn't work all that much for me."

He swung his bottle around. "So I had my family, my wife—who is watching me from the heavens now. All was nice. Until that bastard Gatou came, bringing with him all dad had run from. Death, pain, misery. I looked at it. I looked at my people suffering, and something snapped on me too. Like dad."

Kakashi rubbed his chin. "The Hokage didn't say good things about Gatou."

"Not good things, indeed. After all that, I find that I can do something. I can build a bridge. I can break his chokehold on us. Looking deep inside me—I am not a great man. I am not a bloody hero. But I decided right here and now, I wouldn't abide by that," Tazuna had a steely look on his eyes for the first time since I knew him. And I knew that look. He was a man on a mission he didn't expect to be alive to see the end. "So, Hatake Kakashi, if I have to lie, to do anything to finish this fucking bridge? I will do it. And don't you fucking dare judging me for doing that."

He hung his head low with no more wind under his sails. "I am tired of just washing the blood away and lying to myself that it will not matter after all of it was gone. That nothing would change," he threw his bottle away. "That life meant nothing."

Nobody dared to say anything. Deep inside me, I felt an ember, a spark, of respect for Tazuna—he saw something wrong and did his level best to work to make it better. I could understand that, hell, I could even respect that.

"I see," Kakashi paced around Tazuna, measuring him up and down with his eyes, then turned back to us. "Get up. We need to get to the border before the sun is set down."

Tazuna snapped his head up. "What? Are you still going to do it?"

"Of course we are. The Hokage briefed us on the situation before we got out of Konoha, and we have a mission to do," Kakashi said and crossed his arms. "Do you really think you could lie to a shinobi, Tazuna?"

"No, probably not," Tazuna chuckled, a hollow sound before he turned to the man on the ground who began waking up. "What are you doing with him? We can't let him go back and give his report to Gato."

Kakashi shook his head. "We can't. What I am going to do, Tazuna, is making he say everything I want to know. After that, I will be sure that he isn't going back to Gatou."

"Are you going to—"

"Don't ask what you don't want to know," Kakashi warned him, walking back to our prisoner and hoisting him up to his shoulder. "Sasuke, Hinata, I want you to make sure that Tazuna is fine. Take your time to drink some water and eat some rations, you have thirty minutes."

My teammates did as they were ordered and Kakashi looked at me.

"You saw exactly what I did on the file, didn't you?"

"Yes," I sustained his stare and clenched my jaw. "I did."

"Good," Kakashi said, walking away and making a gesture for me to follow him. I felt that familiar anger inside of me again, yearning for me to exact my pound of flesh of that men. He is working with them, I said to myself, he has information about them. "You can help me with his interrogatory, then."

Kakashi knew better than anyone how I felt.

The man heard it and went pale as chalk. He told everything we wanted to know about Gatou and his business long, long, before we began to really work on him.

Then he just screamed.

When we finally reached the border of the Land of Fire, Tazuna guided us to the harbor he used to come here from the Land of the Waves. It was an enormous place, full of containers and bustling with the sounds of the longshoremen working—the perfect place to be when you wanted no one to take notice of you.

"Let me do the talking, my friend is waiting for us here," Tazuna hurried us through the maze of containers until we caught to a blonde man. For the first time, I saw Tazuna honestly smiling. "Shiro! How are you doing, my man?"

The man, Shiro, smiled to Tazuna and pulled him into a brotherly hug. He had sweat on his forehead and, even as he smiled, he was looking at all sides nervously. "Tazuna, the boat is prepared but we need to go now. Follow me."

Shiro guided us back to the harbor, next to the water.

I couldn't tell what exactly had been wrong, but I was nervous. I was alert. Something on Shiro told me that he was hiding something and, if there's something I hate, it's secrets.

I studied the place we were, two long corridors between the containers and the open view to the ocean, boxes of metal all around us from both sides.

"Shiro, where's the boat?" Tazuna asked him as the man took a step back, his smile now strained as his eyes were still flying from direction to direction. "Shiro? You said the boat was prepared. Where it is?"

It suddenly made sense to me.

We were into a chokepoint—a fucking kill zone.

"Naruto!" Kakashi yelled and his hand shot to catch the arrow going from my head. "We were betrayed! Get away from here!"

Hinata, Byakugan activated, deflected the other arrows and Kakashi shoved us in the direction of the next container. Then he flew through hand signs, then slammed his hands on the ground and a wall of earth and stone was erected around us.

We knew it wouldn't hold. That hit had been planned.

Shiro was here with us, as Sasuke had shoved him inside. Kakashi caught him by the neck and his voice just sounded lethal, then. "Are you working for Gato? You will tell us now if you don't want to suffer a long, painful death."

Just as he was beginning to answer, we heard a voice sounding over all the harbor. Probably the loudspeaker system. "We have you surrounded! We have two boats closing the exit to the ocean and our men are on the tower aiming two kunai launchers to your direction! We have men with bows and arrows! There are Exploding Tags on the kunais! Get away from the walls with your hands raised!"

"Fuck!" Sasuke cursed and punched the container, denting the metal. "Kakashi, what the hell we are going to do? We are surrounded here."

Kakashi punched Shiro in the gut, his hand brushing a second or two more than the enough on his chest, and let him drop to the ground. "Let me think," he said, turning to me. "I want an assessment of whoever is here. Now."

I closed my eyes and focused on my senses, on their scent, the sound they were making and the heat of their bodies. "Shit. There are twenty men on that tower overseeing the harbor and at least a hundred on the ground, fifty on the other side. Two boats crewed fully."

"I can see the kunai launchers too, in the towers and the boats, "Hinata said, her eyes wide. "They are pointed right at us. They aren't joking here, sensei."

I turned to Tazuna. "Let us meet a friend," I mocked him. "He will take us away from here," I picked Shiro, who probably had some ribs broken by Kakashi's punch, and held him against the stone wall. "Why the fuck did you do that?"

"I have a family," he gasped, his voice sounding raspy as he coughed with every breath. "Gatou… threatened me. Said I needed to help him catch you. Promised me money," he turned to Tazuna. "Do you remember how the situation in the Wave is? We don't have money, Tazuna! You need to understand me. Please!"

Tazuna glared at him, anger and sadness in his eyes.

"We don't have money, Shiro," he said, slowly, "but I wouldn't betray a friend. All we have is our dignity."

"Dignity?" Shiro tried to laugh, probably, but it devolved into a fit of coughing. "Dignity is nothing if there isn't bread on the table, Tazuna, dignity is—"

I punched him in the face.

"Something you don't have," I spat, turning back to my teammates. Sasuke was sitting on the ground, his hands on his face, and Kakashi had his eyes closed, deep in thought, with his hands moving in the ANBU sign language—the language all of us understood. Hinata had a worried expression on her face as she rubbed her hands together. "What we do now?"

Sasuke took the lead. "We plan. And I think I have one."

The effect was instantaneous. Kakashi's eyes snapped open we huddled together, talking with muffled voices as Kakashi took our ideas and, with the experience that only a ninja of his caliber could have, ironed them into the terms of plausible, if risky, plan. It wasn't much, but it was enough for us.

"You have one minute!" the amplified voice sounded again, a barrage of kunais slamming on the wall as a threat. "Counting from now! Get out of there with your hands behind your heads!"

Kakashi took a deep breath. "Shiro, do you know something about poisons?"

Shiro, still nursing his cheek, looked up to Kakashi, like he hadn't understood what we were talking about. I made a small gesture to Sasuke and he passed two syringes to me behind my back.

"Poisons are funny things. There is always something new. Our buddy here, Naruto," he gestured to me, "has a friend in our village who is quite the specialist. Anko, her name is, and she is always happy in letting him try the different poisons she comes with," Kakashi talked as I surreptitiously brushed my hand on the container next to us to melt an opening on it.

"There's one, particularly, who is very, very expensive. Made from a rare snake, with a bunch of alterations made to it with chakra. I don't know exactly how, but I know enough."

Kakashi gave him a look. "It's said that a drop of it can eat through the flesh of a man, turning the meat into a deadly mist who can poison everyone around him in less than ten seconds. She gave some of it to her buddy Naruto, here."

"Thirty seconds!" The voice sounded again.

"So, Shiro, if one drop can do that… can you imagine what three syringes can do?" Kakashi said, making a gesture to me.

"You'll see." I snarled, then sprung into Shiro's direction and slammed all three syringes in his belly, injecting him with the venom and making his eyes bulge on their sockets. Then I slapped my hand on his back, still holding him.

"Shiro!" Tazuna shouted.

"You shouldn't have betrayed us," I whispered on his ear, then picked him by his leg and, with a mighty swing, threw him on the general direction of the tower overseeing us like a rocket shooting through the sky. Then I turned to Kakashi. "Do you think it worked?"

"Dunno," he answered, ushering Hinata and Tazuna inside the container. Hinata's job was to be the last line of defense, as she couldn't do anything on long distance fights. Yet. She hesitated a bit and turned to me.

"Don't die," she whispered, kissing my cheek and dragging Tazuna inside by his hand. I put my hand over the place she kissed and smiled. It's kind of nice to see that good things could happen even in the shittiest of the situations.

"Ten seconds!"

"What was that venom, really?"

"Just a flesh decomposing one, but I put Smokescreen Tags on Shiro's back. It will distract the dudes from the tower enough," I said, grinning. "They shouldn't have put a communicator on him, these fools."

"Boys, attention," Kakashi called us. "Sasuke, I need you to keep them away from the corridor on our left. Naruto will take care of our right and the tower, and I am going for the boats. Are you two ready?"

I looked at Sasuke, who mimicked the grin I had on my face.

"I was born ready," we said in unison.

"Five seconds!"

Kakashi made a bunch of hand signs again.

"One second!"

"Go!" Kakashi yelled and we blurred into movement as. He slammed his hand to the ground and made the wall broke into pieces who shoot into the boats, stakes of stone and earth going against metal. Sasuke made his own hand signs and spat a ball of fire to our right, keeping the enemies away.

I went to the left.

"Burn!" I screamed, focusing all the power I had in a simply enormous wall of white-hot fire that slammed on everything before me, so powerful that it looked like it was solid. The men had no chance to save themselves—the fire spread before me like the wave caused by a pebble, encompassing an area many, many times wider than the small corridor between containers. "Burn, you fuckers!"

The aroma of burned meat assaulted my nose as I fell to a knee.

"Are you alright?" Natsumi asked.

"Yeah, I think," I answered, panting. That level of destruction and control wasn't something I was accustomed to—everywhere I could see, everything was blackened by the heat of burning. I turned to look over my shoulder to see Sasuke spitting fireball after fireball followed by kunais, shurikens and everything he could imagine stopping the men in their tracks. Kakashi dodged the attacks coming from the boat, he himself standing on the water, then slammed his hands down it.

Twin, simply enormous, dragons rose from the water—so big that the water level receded and made the boats shake and lose their aim. The dragons loomed above them, each one of them many times bigger than any boat. Both of them obeying Kakashi's orders.

"Need to finish here," I muttered to myself and went back to my feet.

I shook my head and went to the nearest container, a Doomball popping from my seal with a bunch of smoke. "Fuck them," I cursed, then opened the door of the containers and threw the Doomball inside. "Ambush me, will you? You see. Bloody wankers," I closed the door and squatted, putting my hands under it.

An ordinary container, empty, weights more than twenty tons.

I pumped my chakra in each cell, each particle, of my body. The ground under me cracked as I began lifting that behemoth, inch by inch, as my muscles strained and veins bulged like steel cables under my skin. The metal groaned and twisted under my grip.

Chains shoot from my back and encircled the container, spreading the pressure I was making all around it as I lifted that thing. I growled in effort, but inch by fucking inch, it rose from the ground.

Inch. By. Inch.

When it was almost on the vertical, my hands denting the metal, I focused my chakra. All of it I could muster. All of it I still had after I burned half the harbor. I focused the chakra and enhanced my strength to a level I had never reached before, a level that I wasn't ready for and, yet, I needed to reach for my friends here.

An empty container weighs more than twenty tons.

And I threw one on the tower.

The Doomball inside the container, though, was the best part.

"Get the fuck down Sasuke!" I screamed as the container shoot above him. Even Kakashi, still standing on the ocean as his water dragons ripped the boat apart, watched in awe. Hinata and Tazuna poked her eyes out of their container to look at that thing. Almost two thousand kilograms of metal with enough explosives inside to level a village block sailing through the sky like it weighted nothing.

We were all disabused of this notion as it impacted the tower and exploded.

"I think I love you," Natsumi said in a shocked voice.

The container broke through the stone and metal from the tower and exploded in a blinding flash of white and the rumble of a thunder. A crater was opened on the ground, simply enormous, and everything was thrown back—I, myself, only remaining still as my fingers gouged trenched on the ground, the sheer impact making my cheeks undulate.

Sasuke had braced himself behind a container and Hinata and Tazuna were throw just some meters back, still inside on their own. I went back to my feet, still looking at the sheer destruction as stone fell from above and smoke painted the sky black.

"I want some of that," Sasuke appeared right next to me and shook me by the collar of my shirt, madness all over his eyes and almost frothing from the mouth. "You need to give that to me! I will love you forever if you give me one, I swear."

I looked at him, dumbfounded, then heard Kakashi whistling.

I shoved the rabid Sasuke away from me, laughing, and turned back to look at the team. We were unwounded, the worse being Tazuna's head when it was slammed on the metal by the force of the explosion.

When we came next to Kakashi, he had a proud look on his face. It was subtle, but it was here—you just needed to know him to see. We were taken by surprise with an ambush. We managed to win despite that and he was grateful for it.

Good man.

"Naruto, if you please?"

"Sure," I said, taking a deep breath and stepping on the water, who held under me like it was solid ground. I sat here, cross-legged, and dipped on my chakra reserves from the third time that day.

Around me, dark-crimson matter—Adamantine—began appearing. First just a sheet under me, then it thickened and formed into a shape, a shape that everyone would recognize. I poured my concentration, my power, and all my will on it, and didn't stop until I was sweating all over and pale as a corpse.

And I was doing that on a little boat made of Adamantine.

A boat I created only with my yang chakra and resolve.

I got back to my position and sat here, looking at my friends jumping inside it while Kakashi helped Tazuna get inside. I closed my eyes to relax, but didn't take notice of Tazuna, who shook Kakashi off, walked right into my direction and shoved me to the ground while I was distracted.

"You didn't need to kill him!" he yelled, his face blotchy and red with tears of anger in his eyes. "Shiro was a good man! He just wanted to make his family safe and he said he wouldn't hurt us! You didn't need to kill him like that, like, like a pig going to the slaughter, you didn't need to—"

I had enough.

I was fucking exhausted, I hadn't had any sleep since the day before, I threw a whole container on a tower and, above all that, I was completely and absolutely livid with anger about these coward motherfuckers who tried to do us in.

"Fuck you!" I shouted and made a gesture at him. Chains shoot from the Adamantine boat under us and constrained his legs, arms, and torso, pulling him to the ground. I got up to my feet and walked to his direction. "Do you think I care about that bastard, Shiro? You say you would do anything to save your home, Tazuna, but I will do everything I can to protect my family!"

I looked right at his eyes, my voice now low and threatening. "Shiro betrayed us. He tried to hurt my team, he tried to fuck with us, and he helped them. He dies," my face was almost touching his. "Everyone who tries to hurt my team dies. Everyone who did anything to help Gatou dies. Everyone working for him dies. Everyone who hurt her dies!"

I didn't know when I began shouting. I shoved Tazuna away from me and put my hands on my hair, taking a deep breath trying to calm myself and almost panting after my outburst.

"Everyone who hurt her?" Hinata asked in a quiet voice.

I turned to Hinata. "Do you remember that story I told you in the Hokage's office?" she nodded in agreement. "The place I and Kakashi took down was just an outpost, an outpost to send these girls to the Land of Waves. I hadn't paid attention to that, but now, now I see. It was for Gatou," I held my wrist up with the familiar braid here. "She died because of him, Hinata-chan, Kasumi died because of him. For that, I will kill every single one of them."

"Kasumi?" Tazuna asked, looking at each one of us with confusion, shame and a little, always persistent, bit of anger still on his face. "Who is—"

"You don't speak her name!" I roared and jumped in his direction, fully intent on smashing him into pieces as the boat shook and twisted under me—at least until Kakashi appeared between us. I looked at Tazuna, who was being dragged by the back by Sasuke, my canines bared and my eyes widened as I tried to shove Kakashi out of the way. "You aren't worthy of speaking her name! You aren't—you can't say her name!"

"Naruto, sit," Kakashi ordered. "Now!"

I looked at him and took notice of his expression. Not anger, no, he couldn't feel angry to me even if he wanted, not about that. Kakashi felt sadness, the same sadness my teammates had on their own expression, and that was just enough to shake me out of my instincts of hurting Tazuna for daring to speak that name to me.

For them.

I fell on my butt, taking a deep breath to center myself.

"What the fuck—" Tazuna began saying.

"Tazuna-san," I heard Hinata's voice, low as mine and with an undercurrent of sheer resolve. "I can see inside you. I can see your chakra points, I can see all of that with my Byakugan. My spirit weeps for what you have gone through, but do not mistake me."

Her voice turned to an edge of steel. Hinata couldn't be forceful like that by herself, I noticed, but for me? She would. This realization hit me like a punch in the face. For me? For me, she would kill.

"If you don't stop speaking now, I will use every shred of knowledge I have to make sure you can't speak anymore. Please, be quiet."

Tazuna obeyed her.

I looked at my teammates and tried to appear alright, to smile. By the look on their faces, I only managed to make them feel sorry for me. I hated it.

"I am fucking tired. If someone can give me food, then by all means—I need it now," I chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "Pretty please?"

Hinata was fast to comply and took off a bento from her seal.

"That's marvelous, Naruto-kun!" she changed the subject, looking to the boat with amazement—even if her expression was slightly strained as she put a hand on my forehead. "But… you said to us, before, that Adamantine doesn't last long when it doesn't touch your body or you aren't focused on it."

I nodded in agreement.

"Then, how are you going to maintain it to the Land of the Waves?"

I took the bento in my hands, feeling my chakra already being drained by the construct. We needed to go to the Wave faster as possible, and I ordered the boat to began moving in the direction I knew the Land of the Waves was. Moving by my willpower, only.

"Naruto?" She asked again, just as Sasuke sat by my side and offered me another bento, this one made by his mother. Kakashi had shoved Tazuna into a corner and sat with us, pausing on his way to reassuringly squeeze my shoulder before he took his book out of his pocket.

"I am Uzumaki, Hinata-chan," I gave her a strained smile and looked at the horizon. "I will do it like we do everything. By being the most stubborn bastards on the face of the Elemental Nations."

And because with my friends, there's nothing I can't do.

Didn't say it out loud, though. Not that it mattered.

They already knew.

Sasuke pushed me by the collar of my shirt. "For the life of my sister Naruto, I swear I will kill you if I hear something more about ten little foxes going out!"

"It's for concentration, you wanker." I slapped his hands off me. "Try to maintain a fucking construct for one entire day and you tell me if you don't go a little mad."

"A little? A little?" Sasuke said with a strangled voice. "After a time you began talking to yourself about, and I quote, thaumic variations and their benefits to icosahedral structures of seal-making!"

"I wasn't talking to myself, I was talking to Natsumi!"

Sasuke clapped, with a smile on his face so fake it hurt. "Excellent! You weren't just talking to yourself, you were talking to the all-powerful, murderous, psychopathic chakra being which you happens to have sealed inside you about the thing that holds her there. I am really relieved!"

"Watch it," I pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Nat isn't a being!"

"That's your only bone to pick about what he said?" Tazuna said and shook his head in disbelief.

"You shut the fuck up, Tazuna!" I and Sasuke shouted in unison at him.

Hinata and Kakashi shared a look and wisely stepped away from us, both ignoring our bickering as we keep our pace in direction of Tazuna's house. All of us were really, really, tired of being in the woods already.

After the ambush in the harbor, it had taken the rest of the day and the night for us to sail to the mainland. Which, by the way, counted as one more day without sleeping for me.

On the way, we finally caught a glimpse of the bridge Tazuna was yapping about. It was, frankly, a monstrosity made of concrete and steel. Big enough for three horse carts pass side by side and unbelievingly tall. Ugly as hell, too.

Guess hope could come in all ways.

A day after, I and my team walked in the wilderness next to the village that Tazuna came from. I felt nervous, thinking about the fact that the enemies we meet before were just chunin level and nowhere near the manpower that Gatou could bring with his wealth.

The ambush on the harbor only made it worse. We came the fastest I could make the boat go, but even then, no one could be certain that they hadn't tracked us and sent Gatou's a notice about our coming. To top it all, my chakra reserve took a good beating from sustaining the boat all the night.

"Sasuke," I called him. He took a look at my face and nudged Hinata to look at the number of fingers I was showing with my hands. "Enemies."

I caught the scent. Then I heard the heartbeats.

Ten of them.

We were in a clearing, next to a river or something, maybe a little stream coming from the ocean—I wasn't, and still doesn't am, big on geography. But I knew we would have to fight there.

One was upwind, so I couldn't smell him, six of these enemies huddled together and smelling of booze—thugs and foot soldiers. The other four were another story—the two oldest had the scent of old blood and sweat, like seasoned warriors.

I tugged Kakashi's shirt. "Ten. Four dangerous."

That was all I could say before that.

"Everyone down!" Kakashi yelled and pushed Tazuna with him to the ground. We all followed him as the thing flew past our heads like a chainsaw, cutting everything in the way without slowing.

That weapon—a fucking giant sword—stopped just as it buried itself in a tree and someone jumped on the top of the blade. The man had bandages covering his chin and neck and wore a hitai-ate with the symbol of Kirigakure, the metal crossed, in a diagonal over his head.

The sword was legendary enough in its own right.

The Demon of the Mist, Momochi Zabuza. Shit.

The other two, though, surprised me. The older one appeared from behind the trees, a thin man with a mane of wild hair and a mask. The blade he had with him was, too, the matter of legends—the Nuibari, a weapon similar to a giant needle that was glinting dangerously on the sunlight.

The third dude was younger, a burly teenager with black hair and a katana that I didn't recognize. He was physically intimidating, but I knew better—he was nothing compared with these two.

Kakashi stood up and noticed him, "Momochi Zabuza and Kushimaru Kuriarare, ex-members of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shu and both rogues. What you're doing here?"

Kushimaru crossed his arms and pointed his head at the young fellow. "Ignoring my apprentice, our little Kato, here? Not nice. Not nice at all."

Wait, if there's only three of them here—

"If it isn't Sharingan no Kakashi!" Zabuza shouted, completely ignoring Kushimaru and then laughing uproariously. "To answer the question, I'm contracted to kill that old man here, with these two as a backup. If you can be kind and step aside…"

"No can do," Kakashi sensei said, assuming a taijutsu position and barking orders to us. "Manji position! Now! There's another ten back here and we don't know their level!"

The training that we endured the past months held true and we assumed our designated position almost by instinct.

"How quaint. Three little kids for backup and you still think that you can knock us down, Kakashi?" Kushimaru mocked. "I will let Zabuza have you by himself, not even worth a good cross."

"Don't underestimate my team, Kuriarare," Kakashi raised his hitai-ate of his Sharingan and picked a kunai of his pouch. "You would be surprised."

"Let me show you three what a real fight is, then!" Zabuza shouted, jumping out of the three and making a hand sign mid-air. "Kirigakure no Jutsu!"

Mist appeared all over the battlefield, obscuring the vision and making almost impossible to discern anything inside it. I had heard about it, the famed silent killing technique, and the next step was… that.

A monstrous amount of Killer Instinct unleashed against us, making the air heavy and suffocating.

"Eight points. Larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian artery, kidneys, heart," said a disembodied voice in the mist. "Now which I should begin with?"

Shit.

"Sasuke! Hinata!" I heard Kakashi shouting and turned to my teammate, now pale and sweating. I caught Hinata's hand on mine as she showed the same signals. "Calm down! I will protect you with my life—all of you! I wouldn't allow my comrades to die!"

"I can't see with the Byakugan," Hinata frantically said with her Doujutsu activated. "The mist is full of chakra. I can't see them."

I closed my eyes, foregoing my vision to orient myself by my hearing and sense of smell. I could hear the hearts beating faster and faster in Sasuke's and Hinata's chest, the calmly beating of Kakashi's and Tazuna laborious breathing. Then Kato's adrenaline, Kushimaru blade whistling in the air...

There. Zabuza's heartbeat.

"Kakashi-sensei! Left!" I took a bunch of Seeker Tags from the Storage Seal on my wrist and detonated them—they worked by letting out a burst of chakra and returning a ping on each body encountered.

The side-effect?

They were excellent in displacing chakra on saturated ambients.

Kakashi hadn't waited for it. He pivoted to the side and the kunai in his hand was buried in the Zabuza's belly as he attacked. There was something wrong, though—there had been no blood. It didn't even smell.

Water.

Water clone. Fuck.

"Everyone back the fuck down!" I shouted, jumping back and pushing Tazuna with me. The real Zabuza barreled out of somewhere, the giant cleaver in his hands in a deadly arc and bisecting Kakashi's in two.

"Sensei!" Sasuke yelled.

I began focusing on the well of chakra inside me, willing it to concentrate and grow. I didn't even know if it was really Kakashi, but I wouldn't be unprepared.

I was right. The real Kakashi jumped out of the earth and tried to stab the base of Zabuza's spine, which he parried with his sword.

No one should be this fast with a weapon like that.

Zabuza traded blows with Kakashi and our sensei gave as good as he got. A flurry of attacks, metal, and Taijutsu that almost, almost made me miss Kushimaru coming to help Zabuza as Kakashi managed to carve a gash on his thigh. Almost made me miss these ten thugs coming from the woods on our left and Kato running in our direction from the front.

"Protect Tazuna," I whispered to my teammates as Kakashi ducked under a thrown Nuibari and blocked Zabuza's kick aimed to his midsection. "I will deal with the apprentice. Go!"

I broke into a run to meet Kato on the battlefield. I could smell his bloodlust as he unsheathed his katana, the blade looking very, very sharp. I tried to summon anything against him. He was fast, though, and I was very tired.

They divided us, Kato coming against me with his sword poised to a blow from up down. I rolled to the side and summoned kunai after kunai from the seal on my wrist, not willing to pay the cost to use Adamantine. I hurled them all against him.

He parried all of them.

Then I made the error of looking back to my teammates and I felt more than saw the kick slamming on my chest, which made me roll back and crash into a tree.

I shook my head and, hearing his movement, crouched down as Kato, motherfucking Kato, cleaved the tree in two in a fell swoop. I couldn't see how my friends were going against their own enemies and, if I hesitated, I would lose a limb.

If I tried to overpower him with sheer firepower in these cramped space, I could end up wounding my own allies. Not Kakashi—these three were far from us and fighting close to a river faster than the naked eye could see, but Sasuke and Hinata.

I really, really needed to learn how to finely control my abilities.

"Let's get it on!" I shouted, feeling gleeful despite the situation. That feeling—the fight, the adrenaline, the delight of facing a worthy adversary, being nothing less than a drug for me. I smiled.

He came to me again and I parried the sword coming to my chest with a kunai of Adamantine. As the blades clashed, I unmade my own weapon and he stumbled due to the sudden lack of resistance.

"Got you!" I kicked his shin from under him. He stumbled to the ground but, before he could fully fall, I punched his back to the ground. He slammed there many times stronger than he would otherwise and I jumped on him, then buried a summoned kunai in the back of his head.

He exploded in water.

"Are we taking lessons from Zabuza now?" I asked Kato, who was coming from the back of a tree, with a raised eyebrow. I jumped back to my feet and began circling him

"Hey," he shrugged, "as long as it works."

I smirked and, as he sprung to attack me, a chain came from the ground and darted to his back. He turned faster than I expected to deflect it, but it gave me what I needed—a opening. Opening enough for me to punch him in the ribs with all my strength as he turned his back to me.

The sound of bones cracking and the body falling to the floor would make me happy, normally, but then I heard it. The scream. The scream of a voice I knew very, very well.

Hinata.

I almost snapped my neck turning to her direction and saw a scene that made my blood run cold. Kakashi had her on his arms and a large wound on his torso while Hinata had a gash opened on her back, from her shoulder to her hip.

Knocked out thugs were on the ground and Sasuke was lying on a knee, a whole lot of senbons littering his thigh. Nothing that would hurt him so badly, but enough to make him fall.

The fourth scent.

I looked at the scene. Kakashi still holding Hinata, Tazuna taking steps back, nervously. Sasuke with a fucked up leg. Kushimaru with almost half his body charred black by electricity and Zabuza with a weeping wound on the side of his belly, smiling despite all of it.

I discovered later that Sasuke and Hinata had ended the fight with the thugs and decided to try and help Kakashi, just for the holder of the fourth scent—the one in the trees—go and fuck the plan up.

Sasuke got down before he could provide cover fire, which gave Kushimaru—who was on the bad side of a fight with Sharingan no Kakashi after Zabuza was hurt—a opportunity to force Kakashi to protect Hinata and hurt him.

Kushimaru, who was by Zabuza's side and had his blade red with blood.

I could have protected her. I could have finished my fight faster.

But I didn't. She paid the price.

I felt something ugly twisting inside me.

Rage.

"You hurt Hinata," I muttered in a hollow voice, taking a step in their direction while my head throbbed. Steam came from my mouth. It's like I was looking to a photography—Hinata, her clothes stained red and her face grimacing in agony. Something I couldn't take my eyes off. "You hurt her. You made her feel pain. You..."

I barely even felt the katana going through my right thigh and making me fall to a knee. I could hear Kato panting behind me, his breathing labored because of his broken ribs.

I didn't react. I was on a world of my own.

I looked to where Kakashi was cradling Hinata on his arms. Brought to my knees, I extended a hand to them—my mouth opening and closing without making a sound. It was too much. Too much. Old wounds, old fears, all of it spinning around my mind and I simply couldn't think. I couldn't do anything. I had failed again.

I put my hands over my eyes and grabbed tufts of my hair. I slammed my face on the ground as I shook my head trying to wipe these scene of my mind. "You hurt her," I heard myself whispering again and again with my voice muffled by the ground.

Something snapped inside me.

I turned my face to the sky and screamed.

Chakra exploded out of me. Hotter than magma, hotter than anything. Molten steel coursing through my veins, shattering everything around me in pieces and ripping a trench in the ground between my team and the others. Chunks of earth were thrown into the air by tendrils of raging chakra and everything in my vicinity was reduced to ashes.

A crater appeared under me as I screamed my throat raw in pure, absolute, agony.

Because she had been hurt.

Failure. Failed again. You can't save anyone. Failure. Failure.

Panting and trembling, I pointed a shaky finger to Kakashi as I tried to say something, but my mouth worked without a sound as I looked everywhere around me. I whimpered and fell to my hands, my fingers tearing shallow wounds on the earth as I finally managed to whisper something through the lump I felt in my throat.

Only one word came through, strangled, sounding like I was raking my voice through coals.

"Run."

I felt the metal of Kato's molten blade dripping down my leg.

Revenge. Always revenge. Make them pay.

That's all people like me are good for. Revenge.

Everything became a blur after that.

I remember myself turning to Kato faster than he could react. I grabbed him by his neck and began slamming him on the ground while shouting incoherently. He clawed at my arms and screamed in fright, his eyes wide, while I attacked him.

The ground under me cracked and flew back in chunks. I couldn't care less that he hadn't hurt Hinata directly himself nor that it had been only a shallow wound. I just didn't care.

People like me are only good for revenge.

I was tired and probably wouldn't have chakra to do anything big.

I didn't care.

I jumped on Kato and straddled his chest, steam coming from my mouth as I growled. I remember his hands slapping on my face and arms, aimlessly, and I forced my thumbs on his eye sockets as blood squirted. Centimeter by centimeter. Vitreous fluid flowed, boiling, and he gurgled in his own blood. He shook and squirmed under me.

I pushed his head closer to mine and roared. Heat and flames coming from my open mouth in a tongue of fire that burned his face and charred the grass under us. I remember his flesh peeling back and exposing the white and the bone as I burned him alive. Death should have been a mercy.

Kushimaru, I remember clearly.

Him. The devil who had hurt her. My enemy. My prey.

My victim.

Zabuza was too busy tending to his wound to help him.

I remember myself exploding in movement in a furious dash of speed to meet Kushimaru. We fought in close combat like two madmen, his experience giving him the upper hand—all I had in me to balance the scales was that overwhelming feeling. That rage.

He cut my cheek to the bone and, with a maddened cackle, jumped back to pick the distance. Then he threw Nuibari in my direction. It made sharp angles in the air like the sword had a life of its own as Kushimaru controlled it by the rope around his wrist.

Then it pierced me through my stomach.

I feel to a knee, my eyes scrunched shut in anger and pain.

"You shall be my finest crucifixion" he shouted in glee.

I didn't answer, just held the thin rope connecting him to Nuibari and rolled it around my hands. Kushimaru tried to pull it back—I remember the rope cutting my skin with the strength he put on his movements, but I didn't let it go.

I opened my eyes and, with a grunt, swung the rope. Kushimaru wasn't prepared to my strength—how could he, when even I couldn't stop myself? His body flew through the air, crashing through trees and slamming on rocks while I spun the rope.

With a mighty heave, I pulled it back to me.

He shot to my direction faster than a stray kunai and I stopped him with a punch in the face. He made almost a full turn in the air and crashed on the ground, the impact breaking everything under him.

I remember that, by then, I heard a little voice in my head saying that it wouldn't have worked if Kakashi hadn't fried half of him already. That most of his nerves were destroyed and he couldn't feel that much pain anymore.

I didn't care.

"Who—what are you?" he whispered through his broken lips.

I pounced on him. His mask had been broken, his eyes were open wide with fear and his breathing was labored. I punched him, many, many times, hard enough to break the mask and his face more. I punched him more times than I could count. Punch after punch after punch as bloody sprayed on me and he was reduced to a pulp.

I screamed in rage all the while.

"You hurt her," I felt his cheekbone giving in. "You hurt her. Her!" his ribs, cracked, one by one. I pulverized the infraorbital bone and his exposed eye exploded out of the socket, his tongue lolled out of his mouth as his shattered jaw couldn't hold it closed. I pushed his face against mine and headbutted his nose, splitting the cartilage and looking right into his eyes, each breath coming out of me as a cloud of steam.

"You hurt my Hinata!"

Blood was dripping from my hands and splattered all over his head—if that could be called a head anymore. I got to my feet and put a boot on his chest, then pulled his sword out of my belly with a squelching sound. Kushimaru raised his hands in defense. Maybe a pledge for mercy, even.

I stabbed him through his open mouth.

"You hurt my Hinata!" I shouted again, pulled the blade, and brought it down. Down, down, and down. One time after another. Nuibari sliced through him. Through what remained on his face and blood and the pieces of his cranium who weren't already splattered around us poured off him with each attack.

"You hurt her! My Hinata! Die! Fucking die!"

Nuibari blurred on the air, again and again.

With a roar, I brought the sword down for the last time while the metal dripped from where it had been melting under my hands. It was strong enough to bury the sword in the ground almost to its handle and make me fall on a knee. I twisted it and took it out slowly, my face close to the ruined mess of Kushimaru's head, almost touching him.

I made a primal scream and began punching him again. I never knew how many times I brought my fists down in that ruined mess that had been a ninja, but I only stopped when the only thing I feel under my hands was the ground being crushed.

The memories about Zabuza became barely a haze after that.

"You," I fixated a glare on Zabuza, who had finished dressing his wound and was holding Kubikiribocho over his shoulder in the middle of the lake. I felt the metallic scent of blood on my mouth. "You helped."

"The fuck you are talking?"

"You helped him," I growled and, with a first step that broke the ground, ran to his direction. I remember the water boiling under me, I remember his expression of shock and then, sheer defiance.

Zabuza sent clones in my direction. I didn't dodge any of their attacks, I didn't even bother to defend myself—I just ripped them apart, water turning to steam before they could even touch me.

I felt prickles on my back and turned to see a masked hunter-nin throwing senbons at my body. Like these things could stop me. I held my open palm to where it came and blasted a cone of fire many times larger than a house in that direction.

The forest did not just burn where I attacked—it was reduced to ashes.

"No!" Zabuza shouted, his eyes wide and brimming with anger. He was tired—I could see that the bandages around his midsection were stained with blood and he was panting and sweating. The blade was still steady on his hands just by the virtue his experience as a swordsman.

His eyes were glinting with hate as he looked at me.

"You fucking psychopath," I heard the real Zabuza muttering as he flew through hand signs and slammed his hands into the surface of the river. Like something enormous was moving under us, the water receded and coalesced into a shape I knew very well.

Suiryuudan.

The dragon rose from the river before me and I jumped on his direction, my hand trembling and the water around me evaporating as I focused and concentrated all my power, all my chakra, on a single punch—the punch I unleashed against the dragon as he came down on me.

The sound of the explosion was deafening.

The river was carved in two by the strength of the clash between my fist and the dragon, the riverbed being exposed as the water was blown from under me for dozens and dozens of meters.

Heat and water and kinetic energy were mixed in a deadly cocktail and detonated with the power of a thousand Exploding Tags, the steam caused by it coating half the forest in a thick layer of mist. I was thrown back, flying through the air until I met the ground and carved a trench on it with my own body, coming to a stop as my back slammed into a rock.

I had open wounds all over my body and half my internal organs had been ripped a time or two in these fights—but I couldn't stop. Not until all of them were dead. They needed to die.

They had dared to touch her.

"Zabuza!" I screamed as I shook my head and went back to my feet, trying to find him by his scent. Useless, I knew—he and his helper had already used the opportunity to get away from us, but I was too angry to just give up. "Zabuza! Come back here!"

Just as I prepared myself to ran after him, I felt someone holding my arm with a vice grip. I turned back, ready to hurt whoever did that, just to see Kakashi—which wound, thankfully, wasn't bleeding anymore. He was panting and looking right at my eyes, the red of his Sharingan and the set of his jaw bellying the seriousness of his countenance.

"Let me go," I growled, trying to push my arm off his hand. Adrenaline had already began to fade and I began feeling the exhaustion of three days going without sleep and using my chakra nonstop, but I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop. They had hurt Hinata. "I will kill them all. All of them! They hurt Hinata!"

"No. Not today," Kakashi shook his head. "The team comes first."

"What?"

He didn't answer with words, just pointed with his head to the side. Sasuke was there, looking like death warmed over, with his mouth open and helping an almost unconscious Tazuna to stay on his feet. Kakashi, himself, looked barely conscious—like he was clinging to a semblance of clarity by sheer willpower alone.

I saw that the land around us was riddled with craters, fire, and pools of boiling water as the mist dispelled. Broken trees littered the ground and blood was splattered everywhere, these then thugs the team had taken down now dead just because they were near me.

And Hinata. Hinata.

"Naruto-kun!" I heard her coming in my direction and she slammed into my chest with a bear hug. "Please Naruto-kun, it's enough," Hinata whispered and I could feel her body shaking against mine. I could feel her. She was there with me.

"You are okay," I rubbed my hands through her hair, my eyes wide as I turned her to look at her wound. Kakashi had healed it. I looked at him and back to her, trying to believe it, then held her face in my hands. "You—you are okay! You are healed!"

I pulled her in a hug an order of magnitude stronger than the one she gave me, muttering things I couldn't remember while I ran my hands on her hair and kissed the top of her head.

"Please, stop with this. I don't want to see you being hurt anymore. I don't!" Hinata said, holding me tighter and burying her head in the crook of my neck. "I am fine, Naruto-kun. Please, just stay with me. You can stop now. Please."

I could never deny something to her. I finally allowed myself to relax and let go, concentrating on her scent, the heat of her body pressed against mine and the quiet sound of her breathing. Her heart beating, without danger. The maddened fury I felt, little by little, was flushed out of my mind like my blood was pouring off my still open wounds.

All because of her.

The exhaustion I had ignored for so long took its toll. Black spots danced on my vision and I felt weak, weaker than I ever felt before. Even the Uzumaki had their limits, and I had found mine.

I couldn't care about it in the slightest, though. Hinata was safe.

She was alive.

I smiled as my world dissolved in black and I let myself fall into her arms.

I knew she would be there to hold me.

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