Chapter 9

The further we walked in the underground tunnels, the faster my heart beat in my chest. The small glass vile that held the one and only Gosei plant we have was in the front pocket of my jeans. My hand kept reaching down to feel for its shape against my upper thigh, terrified it'd somehow fall out and all hope would be lost.

Naruto was up near Sasuke, doing his best to annoy the Uchiha man in an attempt to keep him distracted from the fact that Sakura was very much in danger. He, and the others who'd witnessed her fighting to keep control of her own body, said she'd muttered threats against herself, meaning the thing inside her intended to dish out punishment for what she'd done.

I personally hadn't gotten a look at her since she was long gone by the time we found Sasuke and the others, but Ino couldn't seem to stop herself from worrying aloud. "Kiba said she threatened to kill herself if they tried to make her hurt us. You don't think she'd actually do it, do you?" Every time I got a grip on my overwhelming emotions, she'd say something like that and I'd return to trying not to burst into concerned tears.

My very first female friend could very well die in the next few hours, especially if they immediately enacted their retaliation for her disobedience. The thought lit a fire under my steps and I'm sure the others were thinking the same thing because our pace was gradually increasing despite no one saying anything.

Nearly an hour passed before we came to a stop under a metal ladder that led up to the surface. Sasuke immediately grabbed onto the first bar and I hissed just loudly enough that my voice would carry to his ears as I carefully made my way past everyone in between us, "Stop, let me look first!" A sharp intake of breath shot past my lips as I activated my Byakugan and looked up at the tall ceiling. No one made a sound as I searched the area.

A handful of inhabited humans were traveling in a group further down the block, but they were headed in the opposite direction of where the sewer grate was so as long as we were quiet, they wouldn't turn around to look at us. I relayed this information to the group before gesturing for Sasuke to lead the way.

We're going to need every single advantage we can get during this mission, so I kept my eyes' skill activated. All those headaches and short-term blindness scares were worth it in the long run because it's become incredibly easy for me to use my Byakugan for long periods of time.

No one needed to say anything when we got to the surface. Our weapons were drawn and at the ready as we traveled low and slow through the back alleyways toward the center of town.

I wordlessly joined Sasuke and Kankuro at the front so I could scout ahead for the group. Naruto and Kiba were right behind us, followed by those that'd come here with us from the haven in Konoha. Ino, Tenten, Neji, and Sai brought up the rear.

It took nearly an entire additional hour for the town hall to come into my enhanced vision. The crowd of inhabited human beings surrounding the building was much larger than I anticipated. I guess I couldn't really believe Shukaku's warning until I saw it with my own eyes. If there weren't a thousand of them, it had to at least be close to it.

We were crouched behind an abandoned semi-truck as I tried to find the safest route. After a few moments of desperately searching the area, I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked back to see Kiba point in the direction north of the town hall. We were standing southeast of it. My eyes darted to where he was pointing and I had to cover the lower half of my face to muffle the gasp of shock that escaped.

At the very furthest point of my vision I could see the rest of the reinforcements from Konoha swiftly making their way toward the center of the city. Heart pumping wildly in my chest, I formed a plan, eyes darting around to make sure I knew where everything and everyone was.

The adrenaline in my blood froze when the unmistakable sound of someone sucking in a shocked breath right beside me broke my focus. I looked over to see Sasuke's eyes had zoned out completely. The expression on his face was terrified as though he was looking the grim reaper right in the eye. I immediately realized he was sensing Sakura's emotions. It was like watching a horror movie. His chest began to move more quickly as he started to panic and then the dazed look in his eye faded and his head snapped in the direction of the government building.

Before I could figure out what to say, a gunshot sounded in the far distance and Kiba shoved past me and the Uchiha man with a gut-wrenching look of disbelief. He didn't need to say anything for us to understand why he seemed about to be sick. The bullet was intended for our pink-haired friend and almost certainly hit its target.

His head snapped to the North in the next moment and then the sound of gunshots and fighting slowly began to arise. The reinforcements had headed into battle.

I took a calming breath, fingers flexing around the grip of my gun, and motioned for everyone to follow me as I crept forward at a steady pace. A majority of the giant crowd of enemies was hurrying to join the fight, leaving us a very slim chance to slip into the town hall without having to fight hundreds of people.

Kiba spoke under his breath as we sped through the street as close to the ground as possible without it hindering our movements, "Sasuke, follow me once we're inside. Sakura needs help."

I didn't look behind me, but added quietly, "We'll keep them off you." Naruto was suddenly at my side and we shared a look before refocusing on our approach.

While we were lucky that we didn't have to face an army, there were still a few dozen stragglers that noticed us once we shot out from behind our cover and began sprinting toward the steps of the building.

Shizune shouted as she and the others from the haven opened fire on our attackers and put themselves ahead of the rest of us, "We'll deal with these ones. You guys get inside!" There wasn't time to stop and thank them or make sure they were completely positive they wanted to do this so we had no choice but to trust them and continue up the massive steps.

Naruto bit the pin off of one of our four grenades and threw it with stunning accuracy at the tall double doors of the entrance. All of us crouched low to the ground in anticipation, only to jump up and begin running again once it exploded to give us access inside. Gun raised, I sensed my friends' presence behind me and entered the thick smoke.

It made my eyes water, but I forced them to stay open as I looked around and counted the number of enemies rapidly heading in our direction. If it wouldn't give away my position, I would've cursed. We were evenly matched. There were nine of us and nine of them.

I noticed a figure slumped on a chair further into the building and realized it must be Sakura because they weren't moving and seemed to be cuffed or tied to it, meaning we were correct in thinking they were immediately going to hurt her. One of the more intimidating figures was getting close and I raised my gun to point it at their legs, breaking the tense aura in the smoke-filled room by opening fire. Then the air was full of the sounds of guns going off and people fighting.

"With me, Sasuke!" Kiba's voice rang out behind me and I rushed forward to tackle the man I'd shot to the ground so he wouldn't be able to follow them.

When I lay eyes on his face, I realized why shooting his legs hadn't immobilized him in the slightest. Staring up at me with blank purple eyes was none other than Hidan. Not wanting to make the mistake of letting him take control of the fight like I had during our last encounter, I allowed him to get up before attacking him with hit after hit so he'd be forced to begin backing up.

If there was a god watching me, I wanted to thank him for not giving these things the ability to retain their host's fighting techniques and skill, otherwise I'd likely be in major trouble right now.

The smoke was beginning to clear and I noticed Sasuke and Kiba were nearing the room Sakura was in out of the corner of my eye. The distraction gave Hidan an opening and he landed a kick to my stomach that threw me to the ground a few yards away. I rolled with the fall to get back to my feet, hissing when a sting similar to the one I'd felt when he'd cracked my ribs in the past shot through my mid section. They weren't broken, though, so I was more than able to continue fighting and did.

I couldn't risk looking around at the others no matter how worried I was that any one of my friends might be getting gravely injured or even killed. Instead, I had to trust in their abilities and do my part by disabling one of the strongest enemies here. It wasn't going to be easy because of Hidan's body's regenerative properties. He came at me and I grit my teeth as I put three bullets in his left knee, making him tumble to the ground.

A small scream from nearby caught my attention and I allowed myself to look in its direction since Hidan would take at least a few seconds to heal. Ino and Sai knelt over a massive downed person. By his size alone, I could tell it was Kisame. Ino's voice was thick with panic and I could tell she was struggling to breath through it, "He just froze all of a sudden, I didn't mean to kill him! Why the fuck did he do that!"

Shock and smoke inhalation had me coughing for oxygen as her remorseful words sunk in. I was pulled from my disbelief by Hidan, who'd recovered. He tackled me to the ground and began trying to wrestle my gun from my hands while simultaneously holding me still beneath him. My eyes locked onto his and an aggravated sound of effort left my lips as I forced the gun from both of our hands. It slid across the floor, out of both of our reaches.

My hands and arms blocked hit after hit that he threw at my face as I tried to wiggle my way out from under him to no success. The back of my head hit the linoleum with each punch he threw, but it was better than taking the swings directly to my face so I just had to work through the pain.

Sweat and soot dusted my skin, tears falling down my face as my eyes burned from the smoke. The sound of fighting around me wasn't ceasing at all, meaning everyone else was lightly having just as much trouble as me.

Hidan suddenly slammed both of his fists down against my arms and my head hit the floor with a sickening crack. My Byakugan deactivated in an instant and a cry of pain passed my lips when a wave of pain and exhaustion worse than I've ever felt shot through my head in response to the technique's release. My wrists were grabbed and pinned roughly to the ground and then dull purple eyes were staring down into my wide ones. My chest was heaving as I breathed heavily, but so was his.

"Your attacks are useless, human. This host-" The monotone voice leaving Hidan's lips cut off and then his eyes were suddenly wild with emotion, his face contorted into a look of extreme focus and effort.

I stopped struggling as the man panted for breath on top of me, searching my eyes with a look of utter desperation. To say I was completely stunned was an understatement. I know it's possible to fight against their inhabiter's control because Sakura had done it when she saved Ino's life, but I never expected to witness something so unbelievable with my own eyes. If my friend had struggled so much for just a minute of freedom to heal that bullet wound, it was undoubtedly difficult to do.

My voice cracked in disbelief, "...Hidan? Is that you?"

Then Naruto was tackling him off of me.

He quickly returned to pull me to my feet, facing the silver-haired man as he re-approached us, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, thank you."

A familiar face stepped out of the smoke to join Hidan in facing us and I swallowed heavily, "Which one do you want?"

Naruto didn't get a chance to respond because Obito came at me while Hidan went for him. For a moment, I was relieved that my opponent wasn't pretty much invincible this time around, but quickly took back that thought when I realized that meant I could potentially really hurt the Uchiha man before me. He's innocent, despite everything, I know it. His only crime was being related to a monster like Madara.

Ino and Sai sprinted past us, in the direction of the hallway Kiba and Sasuke had gone. Things weren't nearly as loud around us at this point, even though the others were almost certainly still fighting.

Obito's red and black eye studied my movements at an unimaginable speed and he was able to block each and every hit I tried to land. I was able to block most of his as well, though, so we were pretty evenly matched unless one of us suddenly decided to begin going for a killshot rather than a disabling one.

Ino, Sai, and Kiba all three passed us as they returned to the fight. Both Naruto and I waved them along. The others might need their help more than us. We were capable of at least not dying so we wordlessly agreed to keep it up as long as possible so our friends could clean up the rest of them.

His purple eye was swirling slowly and I briefly wondered what abilities it granted him. I know the other one allows him to observe movements more quickly than the average eye since Sasuke has the same modification, but none of us received the purple one. Obito suddenly threw a punch right for my face and I brought my arm up to block it, only for his other one to grab onto my wrist and pull my arm straight so he could slam his elbow down into it.

A shockwave of pain shot up my arm as the bone in my forearm made a sickening cracking sound. I brought my other hand into a fist and landed a solid punch to his face, making him release me and take several steps away so he could shake away the dizziness it'd likely caused. Huffs of breath left my lips as I cradled my broken arm to my torso. It wasn't visibly bent or anything, but there wasn't a doubt in my mind that the bone had snapped. Luckily, it wasn't my dominant one so I could still hold my own.

"Stop!"

Naruto's panicked voice met my ears and my head shot in his direction to see Deidara and Sasori sprinting down the hall where Sasuke was likely still tending to Sakura since we hadn't seen him pass us. Neither of us could get away from our opponents to stop them.

A fist hit my face and I was thrown into a heap on the ground. My head spun as my eyes dazed over, only to snap out of it when I realized I was staring at my abandoned gun a few meters away on the floor. The moment I noticed it, the other three did too and then it was a race to get to the weapon.

My lip was busted, my arm was broken, and my body was covered with cuts and bruises, but I fought to get upright.

I wasn't fast enough.

A large hand grasped the weapon and a single shot rang through the air. The air in my lungs disappeared when I followed the shooter's arm up to their face and saw it was Hidan. Everything stood still and went silent for a moment that seemed to last forever and dread stabbed into my chest like a knife.

The sound of a body falling to the ground pulled a gut-wrenching noise of grief from my lips and I rushed over to Naruto, not caring anymore if they killed me. Everything was stark cold and my fingers were trembling so much that it was hard to roll him onto his back. A choked sob left my lips when I saw the gushing bullet wound on his chest.

I couldn't blink, I couldn't look away from his battered appearance.

My hands pressed against the wound as I frantically tried to perform the first aid we'd been taught, but the moment his warm blood met my skin I jerked them away and looked down at the deep red coating my fingers, "No…" A hand gently wrapped around one of mine and I looked past them to see his eyes were barely open.

The two men who we'd been fighting weren't interfering for some reason, but I couldn't care less. Beautiful blue eyes closed again and he didn't reopen them. I pressed my lips to Naruto's hand and clutched it between mine as sobs tore out of my chest like a demon was trying to rip me apart from the inside out.

Footsteps approached me from behind and the icy grief that'd frozen me immediately morphed into unbearable rage and I jerked my head to the side to see a large man that I didn't recognize coming my way.

There wasn't anything left in me except anger.

I was angry that Naruto was taken away from me. I was angry it was my gun that'd been used to do it. I was angry we were put through all of this to begin with.

If it meant he'd live, I'd gladly go back in time and somehow prevent The Program from ever happening. That meant we'd likely never meet or fall in love, but this wouldn't have happened to him. He'd be alive. Naruto would be alive. Why isn't Naruto alive? Why am I still breathing when he can't anymore?

I pulled my knife out of my back pocket and met the tall man's chest with it the moment he got too close to me and Naruto's body. A terrifying sound left my lips, like a wild animal angrily fighting for its life.

The man kept fighting even after being stabbed and we wrestled roughly until we hit the floor and I wrapped my arms around his neck as I sobbed loudly. My arm hurt so badly but it was the pain in my chest that had an unending stream of cries and yells passing my lips.

The man fought like hell, hitting me anywhere he could reach while I suffocated him. A strong hand gripped my ankle as my legs wrapped around his torso so he wouldn't be able to shake me off and he pulled the knife from his own chest to stab it into my leg. A deep red hue was coating my vision. I couldn't even feel the new injury because I was so distressed.

After another minute, the man stopped moving and I released my hold, pulling the knife from my shin and tossing it haphazardly to the floor before crawling back over to Naruto's body so I could hold his hand in mine again and cry into his bloody shirt.

Obito was gone. I think he went to fight someone else because the alien within him likely assumed it'd be easy for his allies to finish me off.

I was shoved onto my back, right beside Naruto, and looked up to see Hidan pointing my own gun at my face. I didn't even bother trying to fight him because it wouldn't matter anyway. I don't stand a chance now, so I just closed my eyes and waited for all of it to end. A moment passed, and then another, and then another, and then I opened my eyes because I hadn't expected it to take so long.

The gun barrel just inches away from me was shaking like a leaf.

I looked past it to see tears in Hidan's eyes as he fought to get control of himself like he had earlier. When he noticed my staring, his trembling calmed slightly as his eyes searched mine. I could see it all, the guilt and regret of what he'd unintentionally done to Naruto, the fear of what he was about to do to me.

Shaking my head, I tried to speak, but couldn't form a single word past the panic attack stealing the breath from my body. The look in Hidan's eye changed, then. Rather than fearful, he seemed at peace as though he'd suddenly found the meaning of life or something.

"I'm sorry, Hinata."

My brow furrowed. The voice that spoke my name wasn't monotone like it was earlier, meaning he still had control of himself.

Before I could realize what he was doing, the gun was turned around and the trigger was pulled. My ears rang and my mouth was open in shock as blood sprayed in every direction before Hidan's body fell lifelessly forward, on top of me. I forced my lips together so I wouldn't swallow any of his blood, but couldn't manage to pull in a breath or move for what felt like an entire minute.

Hidan wasn't healing. He was dead. He shot himself in the head to save my life and stop himself from causing damage to the others.

Fire shot through my midsection as I fought to breathe, shakily pushing the dead body off of me so I could roll over and cuddle up to Naruto's lifeless side. Finally, a gasp of breath shook my entire body and then I was crying loudly. Everything, all of me, was falling to pieces.

I don't know how long I laid there just barely holding onto my last thread of sanity, but someone eventually knelt down on Naruto's other side and ripped his shirt open. The unbridled rage from earlier, when that large man had approached us, returned and I tried to get upright so I could fight whoever dared touch his body.

My voice was gravelly and dangerous, "Get away from him!"

Someone came up behind me and I was pulled to my feet. Whoever it was completely ignored my angry growls and weak attempts to get away. My arms were pressed against my body as the person wrapped theirs around me tight as they forced me to turn toward them.

A familiar voice broke through the veil that'd been blocking out anything and everything except my grief and rage, "I've got you, Hinata. It's alright."

My eyes snapped open and my resistance fell so I could look up and see Neji staring down at me with tears in his eyes as he tried to appear strong for my sake. That was the last straw. Gone was the anger and all that was left was the massive hole in my heart that Naruto had filled.

My brother's hand was trembling as he placed it on the back of my head to guide me to him as I broke down in his arms. In my deliria, I understood him say he was taking the Gosei vile and he handed it to someone next to us. I could tell at least some of our friends were close because I could hear multiple different people crying.

Another few moments passed before I was snapped from my hysteric daze by a familiar voice speaking nearby, "You were not being deceitful. This is not Dengen."

I turned my head so I could see past Neji's shirt and saw Matsuri standing there. She looked almost as bad as I probably did. Her skin was so pale it was almost blue and a large gash was bleeding heavily right in the center of her forehead as though she'd slammed it into something with all her might.

"My people have made a terrible mistake."

There wasn't any fighting going on indoors now, but we could still hear some of it in the distance outside.

"I will bring an end to all of this. Allow me to address my brothers and then I will willingly be removed from this body." Matsuri, or her body at least, turned and walked steadily out the massive hole where the doorway had been.

"I can't believe it…He's alive!"

My entire body jolted and I turned in Neji's arms to see Shizune and Tsunade tending to Naruto. The older of the two had her hands pressed against the giant gunshot wound on his chest, just like how Sakura does when she's healing someone.

I looked between her hands and Naruto's face a few times before realizing why Shizune had gone to her for advice after seeing Sakura's abilities. Who would be better suited to handle that type of thing but someone who has the same powers? I felt Neji's hold tighten as my legs gave out from under me and then everything went black.