An irrevocable choice

"Everyone... dodge!" I yelled after looking around and realizing that there was no cover in sight, forcing us to do nothing but dodge as the masked Shinobi tried to kill us.

However, as I prepared to dodge with only one leg, a goal I realistically had no way of succeeding at, a wall of earth rose up to block the senbon, and the others ran behind it and each took a direction to look out for with practiced ease.

"I only missed a year of the academy, how are you this much better than I am?" I muttered lowly.

"Training picked up in the last year after everyone who couldn't be trusted were sifted out" Shikamaru said, making me put on a false hurt expression.

"You aren't allowed to be affronted over that when you rallied almost all the clan heirs in our class into treason" Sasuke said while still looking in his direction

"None of this is important right now, we need to get away" Shikamaru hissed as his eyes scanned all around us for some solution.

"Why can't we fight him?" Naruto asked.

"Because he's clearly hunter-nin from Kiri, he must be here because some moron decided to gather all the clan heirs of Konoha into a place far away from prying eyes" Shikamaru said, clearly wanting to glare at me but refusing to look away from his direction.

He was right about that, I should have known that they would be after me, why in the world did I relax just because I was inside Konoha once again?

"Shino, how many of those walls can you make?" Sakura asked.

"Not many more, why? Because I only learned this to keep foes at bay briefly until my team could aid me in a taijutsu battle" Shino said.

My eyes narrowed as a suspicion crept into my mind before I opened my mouth to speak with a slightly raised voice "you know, I honestly think we should just make a run for it" before I hurriedly stepped to the right from where I stood, and immediately getting my suspicions affirmed when a thin string of water cut through the exact part of the wall where I stood.

Shikamaru's eyes flicked to the spot before he spoke "you're right, Anno, we need to do something, we can't stand still when we're up against a jonin" he said, before rolling out of the way, yet nothing came for him.

"No need to roll around like that Shikamaru, I am very sure that I'm the real target here" I said before jumping to the left of the water strings path as it was clearly able to cut any of us in half.

"But why?" Kiba asked, dodging out of the way of the hypothetical attack even with my assurances.

"Long story, but I don't think we can keep ignoring the structural integrity of this wall forev-" I stopped mid-sentence when I heard multiple solid thuds from the other side of the wall, the exact sound a kunai made when it hit something, making me turn towards the wall. I looked to my left and right, only to see I stood between the two cuts that had been made. "Oh no" were the last words I said before an explosion went off on the other side of the wall and rocketed the loose piece of wall into me in what I could only imagine was a fine simulation of a point-blank earth jutsu.

The next minutes of the fight were rather unclear from my side, exceptionally limited by the ringing in my ears and blurriness of my vision. However, even with those limitations, it was clear that a figure was slowly making its way toward me as my friends tried to stop it, however ineffective they were.

"Anno? Anno I need you to listen to me" - I suddenly noticed that someone was shaking my body, and my eyes focused when I finally gained a point to focus on - "Anno we need to do something, even if we don't know why this man is after you, and you need to get up, and at the very least do something to avoid getting killed" Sakura said as she stared into my eyes with something near desperation.

"it's almost funny that you treat me with more care right now than you do when you wake me up, but fine, I'll get to my foot and hobble away on my crutches as fast as I can" - I took a quick look around myself, only to see one of my crutches shattered - "I'll hobble away as fast as I can on my crutch" I said while taking a quick look at the battle.

The most eye-catching part of the battle was the flood of Naruto's all attacking the masked shinobi. however, it was clear that some of the Naruto's were actually other members of our group, transformed into him to gain even a moment of surprise from our attacker. The problem with that, however, was that any clan style is rather different from Naruto's standard academy style, and thus easily picked out, especially styles like the gentle fist style Hinata used, and Kiba's style, which involved attacking on all fours. Choji in particular stood out from the other Naruto's, as his style involved parts of his body swelling to incredible proportions and slamming his enemy with his newfound mass. However, the only thing all of them managed to achieve was slowing him down, his strength and skill far beyond what Naruto's clones could defeat using only numbers, and his speed too great for any of the other's attacks to land.

Meanwhile, Sasuke, Shikamaru and Ino were trying to land any form of attack on the attacker, throwing both kunai and shuriken at him, attempting to trap him with almost invisible wires attached to those same objects, yet having so success, and throwing in ninjutsu whenever they saw even a small chance to hit. Shino was the only one achieving some success as his bugs flew after the shinobi, and while he was fast enough to avoid most of them, some still managed to bite into his flesh, draining the chakra from him.

"You wouldn't happen to have the perfect plan up your sleeve, would you?" I asked.

"No" Sakura said as her eyes continued to rove the battle in search of any opportunity to strike.

"How about just a loose idea for how we could go about this battle" I asked

"Not even in the slightest, you?" she asked.

"I suppose I have THE slightest, most loose idea imaginable, though I wouldn't trust it to not get everyone but me killed" I begrudgingly admitted.

"Why everyone but you? Aren't you his target?"

"I'm not saying that it makes sense, I'm just saying it seems to be the ongoing trend when it comes to my plans" I said, before telling her my plan.

"I guess that could work" she said.

"don't say that, every time someone actually trusts in my plans it is a sure sign that something will go horribly wrong" I said.

"Fine, what do you want me to do in order to try your plan which will definitely fail" she asked.

"For now, tell the others when you have the chance, I'll get into position between him and the wall, oh, and give these to Sasuke" I said, handing over three senbon.

I started to slowly hobble in a circle around the battle until I was in position, however, he constantly came closer, and his advancement only increased in speed as the others grew more tired from the prolonged fight.

But as I finally came into position, the status quo changed as my plan was enacted, Naruto made a cross with his fingers, and in a torrential use of chakra created more clones in a single second than he had in the entire fight. In the confusion created by the flood of Narutos, everyone else made use of a henge to turn into exact copies of Naruto as well, using the opportunity to flood him with so many attacks from the same person that there was no meaning to paying attention to who was where, only attacks.

However, even that was only enough to momentarily stop him in his tracks as he expertly fought the many opponents after him by simply allowing the weaker punches to hit him as he focused on dealing with the strong ones, even managing to hit Sasuke and Choji with such force that they crashed into the wall several meters away.

Meanwhile, as the others tried to overwhelm the masked ninja, Shikamaru and Ino dropped to the ground, paying no heed to getting stepped on as they activated their specialty jutsus simultaneously, sending a shadow to creep along the ground and a slow wave of mental energy towards him. When they reached him, the only thing they could do was slow him down enough for our attacks to land instead of stopping him completely, but that would have to be enough.

Instead of attacking, we focused on debilitating him and setting him up for the next step of the plan. As, even if we tried our hardest to kill him, it would only be enough to injure him, so instead, Kiba, Hinata, and Shino got to work. Shino unleashed as many bugs as he could fuel to rip the Chakra from the man as fast as possible, burning through his chakra faster than even Naruto, except he could only hold out seconds at that pace instead of minutes. Kiba and Akamaru grabbed the left arm of the weakened Shinobi, desperately clinging to it as they tried to restrain him, only succeeding due to Shikamaru and Ino's restraints. Hinata made use of his to hit as many chakra points in his hand as possible, trying to prevent him from using any Jutsu. As all of that was happening, all of Naruto's clones cleared a path from me to him, and I pulled my whip from the storage seals in my gloves, before whipping his armored west.

Then he fought back.

He kicked Akamaru in the stomach with his left leg, causing him to release his hold on the arm and fly into the air, where he was grabbed by his right hand and hurled towards Ino. Akamaru crashed into the practically comatose Ino, breaking her concentration and releasing him from one of his restraints, and with only Shikamaru to bind him, he quickly overpowered Shikamaru's restrictions and moved once more at full capacity. He dragged Kiba by moving his left hand to the right, punching down simultaneously with his right to pull Kiba into his punch, breaking both his hold on his arm and his jaw as he was smashed into the ground. Then he backhanded Hinata face-first into the ground and stomped down on her back.

Then he stood straight and looked straight at me down the rope of leather connecting his chest to my hand.

"Well, it's been fun, but I need to get going" I said, even as I desperately looked for any movement in Hinata's legs, luckily, her toes twitched.

I took a firm grip on the whip with both hands and activated the seal I had put on the ground earlier, the one which made the pillar of earth rise up beneath me, except this time, I fed it with every single scrap of chakra I had, making it launch me over the wall while I dragged the hunter-nin behind me. as I crested the wall, I saw Sasuke waiting as planned, his Sharingan activated and staring behind me, waiting for the time to strike with three senbon in his hand. Sakura stood opposite to him, her hands flashing through hand signs to her genjutsu.

I crashed into the ground, just in time to see the hunter-nin throw a kunai forwards out into thin air, although to him I was sure it was a dangerous jutsu that needed to be blocked far more than three non-lethal senbon. The exact senbon Sasuke threw at him with the deadly aim afforded to him by the Sharingan, which he had no way to dodge while flying through the air, resulting in him being hit by all of them. Of course, they were far more than normal senbon, and after burying themselves in the flesh of the hunter-nin, I finally witnessed the gruesome sight of creations performing their purpose. Countless hooked strings burst from his body as they glowed with an eerie light that reflected off his blood as it streamed from the many holes in his body, the strings then sharply pulled back, shredding all the flesh they passed, leaving only the shreds of his body to fly through the air.

Directly at me.

As the slick strips of flesh ran over my body, and I felt the blood drench me to the bone, I hurriedly pushed his body off me, before stumbling to the side and throwing up, even as someone screamed behind me.

"Sakura!" I suddenly heard Sasuke call, and even through the disgusting haze of my thoughts, I managed to hear the concern in his voice.

I looked over and saw the kunai sticking out of her stomach. I realized, that for the genjutsu to be realistic, whatever the hunter-nin saw had to come from Sakura, and if he threw the kunai to intercept it, but there was nothing but air there, then it must not have stopped until it hit Sakura. I scrambled past the shredded corpse, the mask of the hunter-nin having fallen off at some point, revealing the passive, completely blank, almost bored expression underneath, even in death. Yet I paid it no mind as I crawled as fast as I could to stop another friend from bleeding out.

"Sasuke, who is the fastest here, we need to get her to Konoha hospital as soon as possible, actually, we need to get her to someone faster than us" I said, shoving the panic down.

"we're near a training ground, Kakashi sensei told us that someone he knows trains his team there" Sasuke said after a moment of thought.

"Then hurry up and hand over Sakura to Naruto, he can make clones to carry her faster, besides, I think everyone else is too hurt to carry her any real distance" I said while glancing at where Sasuke held the ribs he had broken in his clash with the wall.

Sasuke nodded and hurried to pick up Sakura, before running past our conscious and unconscious group members towards Naruto, who was staring with wide eyes.

It was hours after the attack, and everyone were gathered in the hospital, Hinata, Kiba, and Sakura were all still unconscious. Hinata's spine almost broke, Kiba's jaw did break, and Sakura almost died from blood loss after the kunai hit her kidney, Sasuke and Choji had multiple broken ribs from being thrown into the wall, while the rest of us were fine, except a couple of bruises and scratches from kunai the hunter-nin had thrown, all except Naruto, who had healed almost instantly thanks to the nine-tailed fox inside of him.

I barely noticed that the others were talking, never mind what they were talking about, even when their parents came, I mostly sat in silence. Thoughts about what happened kept running through my head, and all the ways it could have gone wrong, all the tiny missteps which could have killed my friends. Beyond that, the whole situation was my fault, Shikamaru said it best himself 'some moron decided to gather all the clan heirs of Konoha into a place far away from prying eyes' even after I saw that I couldn't be trusted to lead, that I made reckless, stupid choices and decided to never lead again, I still made the moronic choice which almost killed my friends...

I got up, and started walking out of the hospital, being allowed to by the nurses due to my light injuries, and the fact that I had no guardian to sign me out other than myself.

I slowly hobbled through the streets of Konoha to an unassuming building, and up two flights of stairs. I walked into the secret tunnel which was already open, my foggy mind paying no attention to the fact that it closed behind me. I walked into the second building, and into the strategy room, going down through the already open hole. I walked up to the finely carved door, and opened it, standing in the grand chamber with stone roots hanging from the ceiling. There were no masked shinobi on the roots this time, only a single man standing underneath the intricate carvings, of a flourishing tree with roots reaching deep into the earth.

"You have returned" Danzo said, turning to me.

"You told me that if I follow you, I won't make any more mistakes, you told me that as long as I follow you, I won't hurt everyone I care about" I said, my voice shaking.

"I did, and I was not lying" - he said - "so, why are you here?"

"I want to stop my stupid, reckless, arrogant, moronic choices from hurting anyone" - I started pacing back and forth - "it happens every time I make a choice, first in the library, I got caught and was exiled, but that was fine, it was just me" - I started to gesture manically, desperately trying to make him understand - "but no, the entire group split up because of me, I hurt everyone. And then I went to the land of water, and I made the decisions again, but this time, Kyoko died because of me" - I could feel tears start to fall from my eyes as the feelings I had been ignoring finally broke out - "and now this, I made a plan again, and all my friends could have died, three almost did!... I just- I need to stop being the reason everyone around me gets hurt" - I fell to my knees, looking at my hands - "Can you control me? can you stop me when I cannot stop myself?... can you make sure that I do not hurt anyone I care about, as long as I do as you say?" I said, looking at him with desperation.

His lips quirked into a slight smirk, something which looked like satisfaction hidden deep in his eyes.

"Yes, I can, as long as you do everything I order you to do, without question" he said.