Chapter 34: Konoha Saved

~ Ami POV ~"The White Reaper." Pain says to me after I transported in front of Kakashi, using my Shinigami mark I have on his body. I blocked the nail with my scythe that would have killed him. "You have been troublesome. Not just today, either."I smirk, pulling my necklace out of my clothes to show to him my trophies. On the necklace is the five Akatsuki rings I collected so far. "Whatever could you mean?" I ask innocently, taunting him. "Are you mad I've been destroying your precious Akatsuki, one by one?" I sneer arrogantly, then turn to a darker edge, "Or are you mad that your attack is failing now, crumbling all your hopes and dreams for world domination?""You are arrogant. Your arrogance will cause your death. Now, know pain." Deva Pain says to me, reaching his arms out. I quickly channel chakra into my feet, stopping his pull from making me go to him. "You even know this. Tell me, how is it you know my techniques." He orders monotonously, masking his frustration that his attack didn't work."I'll tell you how, just as soon as you tell me where your real body is," I say, moving in for an attack at full speed once he stops his pull, getting right up behind him in an instant, "Nagato." I growl out lowly, further taunting him that we know everything about him. I go to strike him, and also to place my marker on his body, just in case. The Naraka Pain joins in the fight as well, and it's too much for me alone, but the whole squad of Jonin are already down. We fight for several minutes, him getting the advantage in strength while I use my speed and my scythe where I can. I kept the scythe out because it is very useful for countering and blocking his physical attacks, and for keeping the Naraka Path away from me."You knowing makes no difference, you will still fall today. Your efforts are meaningless. Everything is meaningless in the face of overwhelming power." Deva Pain says, then traps me in his pull, bringing me into his grasp. He holds me by my throat and I can't move because of his technique."You'll... still lose..." I choke out to him feebly, struggling to breath. He just hands me off to the Naraka Path, who then grips me by the throat instead. I can see the weird soul eating creature behind him appearing out of the ground as the Deva Pain leaves to go towards the Hokage tower."Tell me, where is Naruto Uzumaki?" Naraka Pain asks me as he holds me by my throat and I start to choke."Go to hell." I spit out at him in rage. I start to gag more, feeling like I'm going to vomit, when suddenly my tongue enlarges impossibly and starts to stretch out of my mouth, only there's something odd about it. My tongue, no... my soul has got holes in it, and it only reaches about a foot out of my mouth instead of how it was in the show when other's had their soul's held by this Pain."Your soul... There is something wrong with it. It's like you're not even human." Naraka Pain says, the statue reaching out further to grab my short soul. "No matter, it will still be mine. Now tell me, where is Naruto Uzumaki?" I start to panic, my soul isn't complete or normal at all, I don't know what will happen to me if I get trapped in there. I try to channel any amount of chakra I can into my one free hand, the Naraka Pain gripping tightly to the other one to prevent me from attacking. I take my free hand and try to use Gentle Fist, to cut off his chakra points, but it's not working, I can't reach enough points to loosen his grip. He isn't feeling the pain from it, and technically isn't using any chakra in that arm to hold me up."Fang over Fang!" I hear the sweetest sound in the world at that moment as Kiba and Akamaru appear and attack the Naraka Pain, getting him off me before the soul tongue stealer could cut my soul away. I fall to the ground coughing and gagging as Kiba goes in to attack again, this time his mom also joining in."Kiba!" I call out in relief when I can finally breath again. "We have to kill that Pain by any means necessary!" I choke out an order to him and his mom, and they both smirk at me in reply."Leave it to us, Ami." Kiba says proudly as he and his mom attack this Pain relentlessly. It's not the strongest Pain, his strength lying more in his soul stealing abilities, so it is easy enough to defeat between the Inozuka's and the backup that arrives. The Inozuka's are fast enough to handle his speed, and as they are fighting, several ANBU appear to back them up and keep guard over the body once it's defeated."Kakashi." I breath out, making my way over to my exhausted friend. "Look, you didn't die." I say weakly with some sass to it as Katsuyu heals both him and me."You almost did just now." He counters just as weakly. We're both freaking tired, him from chakra use and me from fighting the summoning animals and then two Pain's at once."Where are the other Pain's? We have the Naraka Pain, this one must be kept dead at all costs since he can revive the other Pain's, but how are the others? I only know that the Animal Pain was killed." I ask the ANBU captain."All other Pain's have been defeated, there is only the Deva Pain left. The intelligence we had beforehand was a great help in being prepared. However, they still did a lot of damage." He says, and we look around at the smoking and crumbling buildings. The summoning animals had managed to make it a fair distance away before Neji took down that Pain, also the Asura Pain's missiles did a lot of damage too."Where is the Deva Pain?" I ask, looking towards the Hokage tower with my Byakugan and not seeing him there like I thought. I look all around, until finally I see him up in the sky. "Shit!" I call out, alerting everyone's attention. They all follow my gaze to the sky. "Katsuyu, get everyone underground or out of the village, immediately!" I order to my slug, and she nods to pass on the message. I see the Deva Pain raise his arms up into the sky and I get a really bad idea."Ami, don't!" Kakashi yells out, seeing my hands form the seals, but it's too late. I could see the beginning of the Almighty Push happening, and I transport right up to Pain, high in the sky. I have only a split second before gravity starts to make me drop and I grabed him firmly by the shoulder as I see the center of the village begin to be destroyed from his attack, and I lock on to a marker I have out in the forest. I transport us both there to the forest, then I lock right back onto Neji's marker since it's the most familiar to me, getting out of there before seeing if it worked."Ami!" Neji calls out as I pant and breath heavily, falling to the ground next to him where he's with the ANBU guarding the Animal Pain."Holy crap that was terrifying." I breath out, shaking in the aftermath of basically freefalling for a moment over a city that was being destroyed. It was seriously the scariest thing I've ever done. "Neji, 2 kilometers Northeast, did it work? Is Pain there? Did it get destroyed?" I ask, too tired to use my eyes anymore.He looks at me for a moment longer in concern, then activates his Byakugan and looks where I told him too. His eyes widen in shock at what he sees. "It's all destroyed. Everything there has been leveled." He informs us all in disbelief."It worked!" I cheer half-heartedly, too tired to put any real feeling into it. I really don't have amazing stores of chakra like Naruto or even Sasuke do, I am not built for constant back to back attacks like this. "That destruction was about to happen to the village. I got him out in time. Keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't leave. Now can someone tell me where the hell Naruto is?" I ask the group in whole in irritation."His messenger toad was dispatched to get him before the attack, he should have arrived with Lord Jiraiya a while ago." The ANBU captain says to me in confusion."Did anyone see the toad actually leave to mount Myōboku?" I ask them. They all shake their heads, letting me know they were not the squad in the room when it happened. "Katsuyu, can you ask Lady Tsunade? It's imperative that Naruto gets here." I tell the slug."He just contacted the border squad, he will arrive in 30 seconds now." The slug tells me and I breath out a sigh of relief. I open a bottle of soldier pills and take one to replenish my chakra, just in case I'm needed. I shouldn't be, Naruto should have this handled from here.Naruto arrives in the village, his giant toads with him and so is Jiraiya. He's in his new sage mode and looking around for the enemy. Tsunade goes to him and tells him where the final Pain is, and Naruto sets out with his toad squad and Jiraiya to fight him in the forest. With my chakra replenished enough, I sit down and watch the fight along with my brother. Several squads are moving in to help him, but Naruto asked through Katsuyu that everyone keep his distance from the fight. It may only be the one Pain left, but he's the strongest one.Tsunade and I had a really hard time trying to secretly plan this defense. We had to only let certain ninja know the intel at all, and had to be very covert with how practice was done. We had to make sure that Danzo and his network of spies couldn't figure it out that we knew the attack was coming, therefore only about 20 ninja in total were privy to the details. Thankfully, it seemed to be enough. There were still a lot of casualties, but it's a whole lot less than the first time, and the village isn't destroyed, at least not yet. I just hope Naruto can work his speech magic and break through to Nagato, getting him to bring back those he did manage to kill today. This was a gamble that Tsunade and I debated over for a solid year. I was afraid that my interference would stop Nagato from bringing back those they killed, thus making my interference being worse than the original story. Buildings can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be brought back without Nagato.I watch as the fight goes on, though really it's a lot of talking it seems. I wish I could hear what's going on, but at least I can see it. They fight again, this time Naruto seems to tell Jiraiya to stay out of it because the pervy sage is sitting with the toads, just watching. Naruto eventually gets stabbed with the receiver rods, paralyzing him for a moment and then more talking happens. This time the talking is directed at Jiraiya, and Pain looks mad.While Pain is distracted with Jiraiya, I watch as Hinata runs to Naruto's aid. She was in the squads that had converged on Pain's location that Naruto had asked to stay back."What is she doing?!" Neji growls out, watching as Hinata is breaking the rods off of Naruto and Pain begins to attack her."She is trying to free him. She can't sit back and watch the one she loves getting hurt." I tell him, a frown on my lips as I watch her getting hit away from Pain. Jiraiya intercepts his next attack, and I take the opportunity to transport to my marker on her back."Neji, I'll get her out of there." I vow to my brother, who is about to argue with me but I am already gone. I get to Hinata's body, which is next to Naruto's still immobilized one in the ground while Jiraiya is attacking Pain."Ami! Please, get her out of here!" Naruto screams out, a tail of chakra already forming as he takes in Hinata's unconscious body. I nod to him, grabbing her and transporting her back to the village, laying her by Neji's side as a medic and a Katsuyu come to heal her. I go back to watching the fight from a distance.Naruto quickly frees himself from the rods and attacks again. This time, he starts to transform into a tailed beast, growing almost instantly to six tails, his rage consuming him for having just watched Hinata get hurt. He is destroying a lot of stuff around him, and I'm glad he's out of the village. Pain is doing the planetary destruction attack and using it on Naruto. It doesn't last long though, as he abruptly drops out of the tailed beast state. I guess he talked to his dad at the seal inside of him as the ninth tail was about to form. Naruto quickly defeats Pain after that.I watch as Naruto talks to Jiraiya some more, and then he stabs himself on purpose with the receiver rods and runs off to find Nagato's real body. Jiraiya goes to follow him a moment later, but I can tell even from here that Naruto wanted to go alone."Neji, I'll be right back." I tell my brother before transporting over to Jiraiya. I hold out my arm, stopping the Sannin in his tracks."Ami, what are you doing? I need to go after Naruto." Jiraiya says urgently to me."No." I say firmly. "From here, it's Naruto's fight only. He needs to meet with Nagato alone, this is his specialty. Have faith in your student, he will do just fine." I smile at him in the end."How do you know?" He bites back at me, "Seriously, how and what do you know?" He presses more when I don't answer. He's been suspicious of me for a while."I have faith in my friend. He will do what's right." I tell him sincerely. I gave Naruto Jiraiya's old book about a gutsy ninja months ago when I remembered about it after seeing it in the book store. I just hope Naruto read it, I remember he uses parts of the story in his speech with Nagato."I hope you're right, otherwise he just walked into his death, alone." Jiraiya says back sternly to me, sighing in defeat.We walk back to the village together in silence after he collects the Deva Pain's body, myself stealing the ring off his hand first. Jiraiya sends the giant toads back home, no longer needing them. We walk for about 10 minutes before we see glowing green orbs flying towards the village at a fast speed. Jiraiya thinks it's an attack, but I just smile happily, knowing that Naruto did it. He got Nagato to bring everyone back. We don't quite make it all the way back when suddenly and out of nowhere, paper floats down in front of us and Konan takes form from it."Lord Jiraiya, I will be taking that body back. Our fight is over now, I will lay my friends to rest back at our home." Konan says to him solumnly."Konan..." Jiraiya says in shock, then looks at the body of Yahiko, the Deva Path. "I still can't believe this all happened." He says in sorrow to her."War has many faces. This is the ugly side of it. Naruto helped Nagato in the end understand his dreams though, and he helped me as well. Please give me Yahiko so I may bury them together." She asks again pleadingly."Hide them well. Your 'Tobi' teammate will come for Nagato's eyes." I warn her, indicating for Jiraiya to hand over the body. He looks at me skeptically before he hands it over. "Stay safe, Konan." I tell her kindly, but with an edge. I don't disagree with why the Akatsuki was formed, I just disagree with the methods."He will not get through me. I will protect those I love." She says confidently, wrapping Yahiko's body in paper and disappearing."Seriously, are you ever going to explain how you know?" Jiraiya asks me, and I just smirk at him and transport to my brother's side."I'm back, Nii-san." I tell Neji simply, feeling better after having gotten to rest for a while on the walk back. "It's over now, I think.""Somehow all the dead just came back to life." Neji says to me in awe, then turns his tone to sorrow. "However... Lady Hokage is out of commission. Lady Katsuyu informed us that because she used all her chakra, she has fallen into a coma. We don't have a Hokage right now."I fight every urge to smirk in triumph. The last part of our plan, hopefully a success. Tsunade didn't use too much chakra, she is faking a coma until Danzo is appointed Hokage, thus luring him out of hiding and into the spotlight, as well as into the Kage summit. At least, I hope she's faking the coma and didn't actually use all her chakra today. I look every bit the devastated shinobi as those around me right now, and move to help start the cleanup. We still have to make sure all the injured get to the hospital and all the structures are safe for entry.