My mind was a mush of rage and juxtaposing clarity that seemed to want to fight but also run away. I wanted nothing more than to give up to the impulses of the Kyūbi’s Chakra, but the still sensible parts of me reminded me of the eleven Anbu still watching Itachi and I.

With my current skill and strength, I was fairly confident in taking one or two Jōnin with a fair bit of trouble. I could try to use my knife and try to make my specter physical again, but there were too many unknowns to let that thing take control of my actions again. That meant I now only had a limited number of things I could theoretically do in this situation.

In the building silence, my eyes automatically fell to Itachi. His swirling red eyes were transfixed to the enemies surrounding us, but, for a second, I felt his gaze land on me.

Honestly, besides understanding him to be some type of overprotective brother, I knew little about the Uchiha named Itachi. I didn’t even know Sasuke had a brother until I saw the small boy clinging to Itachi’s back, but that mattered little in the grand scheme of things. The only things on my mind were: where’s Hinata, what the hell is even going on and how do I get out of this?

However, in the brief window that Itachi’s eyes landed on me, I knew exactly what he was going to do. And, while I would probably do similar in his position, I absolutely hated him for it.

“Uzumaki-san, take my brother and-”

“Shut up,” I growled, sending a glare over to the Anbu that held Hinata’s Nuibari. “You’re not going to get rid of me before explaining whatever the hell is going on.”

“What’s this, Itachi? Are you seriously asking for help from some unknown child?” The Anbu who first spoke sneered once more. I had to forcibly restrain the small flash of irrational anger that spread through my system before I could listen to him speak again. “Oh how the mighty have fallen! First that traitor, Shisui, and now you; both regarded as geniuses of the Uchiha clan, but now are just weaklings!”

“Don’t call him that!” Itachi yelled, startling both me and the Anbu at the sudden emotions that twisted on the teen’s face. It was the second time I saw him so emotional besides when he promised to tell me everything.

I could practically taste the anger and sorrow that beld off the older Uchiha, and I could only assume that whoever this Shisui was, he meant quite a bit to Itachi. And that something had definitely happened to this guy as well. However, this information meant little to me in the way of understanding my situation.

They kept talking about the Uchiha, but what about the Hyūga’s? Where did they fit into all this conspiracy? Were they allied with the red-eyed clan, or were they a separate problem?

No, I knew that Hinata’s family were definitely connected to whatever was happening. With even the Anbu after the small Sasuke, that meant something had happened that made them directly opposed to the Hokage. The bodies of the Anbu at the Hyūga villas also made it seem that whatever happened to the Uchiha’s probably coincided with the Hyūga’s.

With my mind halfway on trying to understand what was going on, I didn’t even notice as a small weight settle in my arms. My knees buckled slightly at the unexpected happenings, and I was forced to huff loudly as the weight thrashed in my arms for a second.

“Big brother!” The weight cried, and I felt my heart leap into my throat.

When had they moved? My eyes widened as I stared at the small Sasuke trying to worm his way back into Itachi’s arms. By reflex I had unknowingly wrapped the small boy tighter into my arms as if to keep him safe. I blamed Itsuki somehow.

I glared over at Itachi who stood in front of me, his face somehow finding the muscles to give me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry Uzumaki-san, fighting while trying to protect Sasuke would be hard, so please run away while I take care of these guys, okay?”

“You…” My face curled into impotent anger, and, while I could hate him, I could do nothing but respect someone willing to protect someone special. “Fine… but when you get back, I want to know what’s going on.”

Keeping up my frown, I noticed that none of the Shinobi had even begun to follow our conversation, nor had even noticed that Itachi had moved from his original spot. All their eyes were locked on the spot that he was supposed to be in.

Giving the older Uchiha one last glare, he smiled once more and held a finger in from of his pursed lips in the signal for silence. I already knew Genjutsu was some form of bullshit, but this guy really wanted me truly up the technique into some new kind of special. Though, he also made me trust him even less with his proficient display of illusions.

Still, the faster I got Sasuke out of the fight, the sooner I could come back and beat some answers out of the guy holding Nuibari no matter if Itachi won or not. I knew Itachi was strong, but I disliked not having answers of my own.

However, being surrounded wasn’t the best option for my abilities. I knew I had a talent for ambush tactics with my teleportation trick, but with that many enemies I was just asking to be stabbed before I could pull off more than one or two attacks. There was no way of truly relying on the Kyūbi’s Chakra whenever I couldn’t split, either. The power it gave me was a huge multiplier on my abilities, but my current abilities were still too low for the effect to let me overwhelm the numbers presented to me.

So, I ran as fast as I could out of there with the intent of coming back later. My legs carried the two of us out of the area as fast as possible, darting past houses and burning establishments with ease. I kept one eye peeled for any enemy who could have found us, but, for the most part, we were enemy free.

The mind-numbing anger that had been building up early was slipping away, too. I half expected the flaring irrationality to be the work of the Kyūbi, and as we slowly gained ground, I realized that I was right. Though there was still an undercurrent of pure rage at Hinata’s situation, it was manageable behind the rationality that I should be careful.

I knew that I had only taken care of those two Jōnin level Shinobi by catching them off guard or some exploit that I took advantage of. They were weak enough to finish off for my toddler body, but now I couldn’t really rely on that many exploits to be had on so many enemies without serious injury.

As such, it wasn’t that I was running away. This was just a tactical retreat, and as long as Sasuke didn’t get in the way we could be just fine.

“Let me go!” If it wasn’t for the fact that Sasuke was currently thrashing around in my arms, and forcing me to use some extra Chakra to keep him from running away I would already be rushing back to fight.

The small child really wasn’t giving up that easily even after a couple minutes of running. The only problem was the fact that his slender arms really shouldn’t contain that much strength, and I had to struggle not to accidentally drop him.

“Big brother! Help!” I felt my great patience really being strained by the child as Sasuke wasn’t making this any better.

With the black-haired boy yelling as loud as he could, I was half tempted to strangle him in the effort to be more sneaky. Him constantly giving away our position really wasn’t helping the fact that I wanted to get him to safety, and I was forced to run in the effort to shake off any would-be pursuers.

And I knew that there would be Shinobi on our tail even if I couldn’t immediately spot them. This was a village run by those superpowered assassins, so there had to be someone sneaking after us with all the yelling Sasuke was getting off. It was also around the time that I crossed another burning building that I got annoyed by the child who was making it very apparent he wasn’t going to shut up soon.

“Listen here you, shut up.” I groused, panting slightly from the exertion. “Can’t you see that your brother is trying to save you, and I can’t go back and help him if you keep yelling.”

“Liar!” Sasuke accused instantly.

It was also around this time that I felt that Sasuke was definitely a perfect hostage; the kid probably was a pain and a half to save, so agreeing to demands was probably the easier of the two options. Still, my opinions of the viability of Sasuke’s abilities as a hostage aside, I needed him to be quiet.

Mustering up the last dregs of my patience, I gave a small glare at the child hanging in my arms. His deep, black eyes met mine with a sort of innocence that I wasn’t used to seeing. “I am not a liar.”

“That’s what a liar would say!” Sasuke shot back, and I felt my hand twitch. What is this schoolhouse argument?

I sighed to myself for even getting caught up in arguing with a child. “Look, the faster you quiet down that faster we can go back to your brother, but we need to find a safe place to hide first.”

“I’m not going to listen to someone who was bullying my big brother!”

“Bullying?” I really wasn’t cut out to talk with kids. Why couldn’t everyone be like Hinata; kind, polite and a great listener. “I just punched him once!”

“Na, na, na! I’m not listening!”

“Okay, fine!” I was fed up with dealing with kids at this point. Instead I just focused running, and decided I would split to look at Itachi in a couple more minutes.

In the little fights I had been in, Shinobi fights were settled in instants at some times, but the ones that dragged on would cause the most damages. Since I was hearing a severe lack of explosions behind me, I could only guess that Itachi was being overwhelmed or was dishing out the punishment. Personally, I wasn’t sure what exactly I found to be the better option.

“No, stop that, Naruto.” I said to myself. “We need Itachi to tell us everything, yeah…”

For a few silent minutes, I let my resolve to save Itachi if need be sink in. I wasn’t confident in fighting all those Anbu, but if he actually beat them all, then I would need to tread carefully around the teen. Sasuke was also a bargaining chip that could be useful, but using a child to get Itachi to listen to me would probably make my situation worse. Still, it was an option that I would pursue so long as Hinata was in danger.

Then, as only my footfalls smacked loudly against the hard earth below, I realized that my unwilling charge had been strangely silent for the past while. In fact, he hadn’t been moving for awhile as well.

Skidding to a halt, I frowned as I looked over the boy to see if there was anything wrong with him. I noticed the small, black beetles that crawled over him immediately, and I froze as I realized that those beetles were on me as well. They were so small that I didn’t even notice as that skittered over my skin till I finally took notice.

I batted away the insects with a slightly groaning stomach. While I wasn’t scared of bugs, being swarmed like this was definitely a feeling that wasn’t pleasant. Something about the bugs didn’t sit well with me, though. It was like I was missing some important factor that was at the tip of my tongue, and I could only distract my mind by batting away another couple beetles.

Were they poisoned? It would explain why Sasuke wasn’t responding while my regeneration might have saved me from the effects. And if they were poisoned then what Shinobi used bugs to attack?

Stilling as a chill traveled down my spine as I realized that we were currently under attack, I immediately split in the hopes to find our aggressor. As the world around us opened up into clarity, I realized a couple of rather terrifying things. The beetles were somehow eating the Chakra right off of Sasuke, but since mine had disappeared they were now being drawn to the kid. Most worryingly, Sasuke was running out of Chakra fast.

My specter swirled around to find whoever was attacking us, and I hurriedly batted the beetles away with a sort of frantic fervor. I had no idea if our attacker was trying to drain the child dry, but Sasuke wasn’t getting any better as his Chakra was being eaten. Luckily, the dark-haired child was still breathing fine.

However, as it looked like the bugs were not letting up on their feeding frenzy, I grew a little panicked. My eyes darted around as my specter continued to look for this hidden attacker. Eventually, I realized that the Shinobi doing this was disturbingly hidden from my senses, and that my spectral Byakugan were not covering the amount of ground that I needed.

Then, between the scents of smoke and fire, I smelt something that was oddly similar to a sweet smelling flower mixed with the rotten wood. My specter shot in the direction of the scent before I could even imagine myself moving.

However, my physical body wasn’t being idle, either, and I ran towards the closest building that looked like a store. I found what I was looking for a couple minutes later. Frantically, I grabbed the handle, trying to pry open the clearly locked doors.

Knuckles white and panicked, I knew that the wooden door wasn’t coming open after a few more tries. My eyes shot around, falling on Sasuke for a second only for my breath to get caught in my throat. I didn’t need my spectral vision to see the fact that Sasuke was having trouble breathing now.

While it was partly my fault that the beetles had abandoned me for him, I couldn’t do anything without recalling my specter. The very same specter that was trying to find our elusive attacker, so, with renewed fervor, I began bashing a fist against the door.

My knuckles ached and bled, but the door didn’t give even under my relentless assault. My head swirled with thoughts as I tried to save the innocent child who was wrapped up in something he had no right to be in. However, I paused as I looked around for a minute, finding that they had a small window that was near the ground level. A very smashable looking window that I proceeded to throw rocks at.

The clear pane of glass shattered with a loud ring as a couple rocks found their marks, showering the ground with shards. There were still a couple pieces of sharp protrusions still in the window, but I could care less about those as I shot a foot to clear most of the ones in my way.

Forcing my way into the store, I found what I had been looking for with a sigh of relief. Grabbing a good amount of water bottles, I raced out the way I came, nicking my burdened arms along some of the more persistent shards of glass.

I found Sasuke breathing becoming shallower and shallower, and hurriedly threw most of the water over the areas where the beetles were feasting on. The small, black insects polluted the runoff that trickled off of the young Uchiha’s body. A tentative sigh of relief came over me as Sasuke trembled, grumbling over as if he had just been asleep minutes earlier.

My heart hammered in my chest as I looked over the boy for a little bit. When I found that the beetles had been purged for the most part, I removed my jacket and drenched it in water.

“Sasuke, Sasuke…” I shook the boy softly, afraid of any lingering damage. As if to spite my worries, the boy just sleepily grumbled, slapping my hands away in his delirium. “Come on, wake up.”

Groaning, the boy finally cracked open his eyes to find mine. Of course, the situation was ruined when he huffed and turned away from me without a word.

I sighed, realizing that he was fine. “Alright, Sasuke, can you do me a favor and stand in that smoke over there?” Making sure that the disgruntled Uchiha saw my finger pointing to the smoldering building nearby, I handed him my drenched jacket.

“Keep that over your mouth and nose, and try not to be near areas of a lot of smoke.” I ordered as the boy continued to pout.

As of now, I was way past the point of tolerance for the kid. Maybe it was the fact that we looked about the same age physically, but the uncooperation of Sasuke was truly driving me up a wall. I was going to have a talk with Itachi after this, because this amount of dependency on his brother was just not healthy.

However, before I could press the child more on going into the smoke to get rid of the insects, my specter found one of the Anbu from before hiding out on one of the rooftops at a pretty far distance. I was almost appalled at the distance between the three of us as it seemed like he was being too cautious for children like us.

Was he like that naturally, or did he know something? Could it be that I gave off something that set is Shinobi senses on overdrive? Was there such a thing as Shinobi senses on overdrive?

Still, all my worries were warranted as another more visible cloud of those beetles round the corner towards us. The writhing mass of black swarmed our direction in a way that horribly grossed me out.

Sasuke followed my eyes a little, and yelped in fear as he found the cloud that would give any child insectophobia. However, instead of running away like I expected him to, the boy just stood there, frozen as if glued to the ground.

It was around this time that I was growing very annoyed with the young Uchiha. He was certainly nothing like he was depicted in the original, and this overreliance on his big brother was annoying. Though, I think I would have prefered a competent annoyance rather than someone who was basically deadweight at this point.

Maybe it was spending so much time with Hinata’s odd maturity, or maybe it was Itsuki’s constant calm that made me like this, but I could barely suppress a growl as I ripped the stunned Sasuke from his spot before the cloud of insects caught up to us. Basically dragging him at this point, I forced the two of us into the smoldering building. Sasuke immediately began coughing as he stupidly ran into a cloud of lingering smog, but I pushed my wet jacket over his nostrils and mouth before he could complain.

While it took a little bit of struggling, I finally got the Uchiha to crawl in an area with more smoke. And just in time, too, as the cloud of insects came swarming into the building. The squirming mass of black fell victim to the smoke as parts of it sagged to the floor, however, some of was still able to find a path for the rest of the swarm to enter.

As the room gradually filled with both buzzing beetle and heavy smog, I found that our target was making his way to us slowly. I unsheathed the sword at my hip, readying myself for what I was about to do.

“I may regret this, but for now…” I rasped as I laid under a cloud of smoke. The insects were slowly making their way to me, but I would be gone before they truly swarmed me. With another huff, I turned to the area where the young Sasuke was hopefully staying.

The swarm would find their way through our makeshift defenses sooner or later, and I wasn’t sure how to protect Sasuke while fighting an opponent at the same time. Little as I cared to admit, this opponent could hide from far away and pepper us with swarms of insects till we dropped. Risking Sasuke’s life was an option, but it wasn’t the right one for me.

Still, I wasn’t sure if it was the smoke getting to my lungs somehow but my tongue tasted like sour ash in my mouth. Then I was gone, disappearing like I never even existed for a moment.

My eyes rapidly focused as I rematerialized behind the cloaked Anbu. For a split second, I had a chance to take in his form as I hesitated on his unprotected back.

The man couldn’t have been older than his mid-twenties. A large, dark cloak hung over his body in a way that concealed every discernible feature of him. The only thing I was able to find was the fact that it flared at his neck till it covered his nose.

Just as easily as my hesitance came, I squashed it as I imagined Sasuke sitting within a cloud of darkness, listening to the insects that would eat him alive just a small distance away. My gut clenched as my sword dug its gory path through the Shinobi before he could even respond. I gagged as I felt the feedback of muscle and sinew being cleaved out of the way of the blade, and I wanted to throw up then and there as I felt something writhing along the blade within the man.

Blood and insects spilled from my stab, and I could only fall along with the extra weight on my sword. The two of us collided with the ground with a disgusting splash, spraying red fluid and mashed insect in the air. Beetles began to buzz and swarm over the limp body of the Anbu, but I cared little for it as I turned over and expelled the contents of my stomach.

As much as I resolved myself, as much as I prepared to kill, the circumstances just weren’t quite like the first time I committed murder. This was well and truly a time when I wasn’t as exhausted as I had been; where I had complete coherence to my actions, and squashed my hesitation.

I didn’t hate the Shinobi like I did those who conspired to remove Hinata’s eyes. He and I were just enemies on different sides, separated by the veil of combat. While I could understand the necessity of my actions, that didn’t mean I had to enjoy it. Even when my stomach finally complied to silence.

Still, one thing was bugging me as I stared down at the death that was a product of unwarranted conflict.

That Anbu was weak as hell.

In fact, with all the build up to him, I had expected to get in a fight for my life against this strong opponent. Now, it may have been the fact that my sneak attack was simply too good, but Itachi had easily seen through me without the hesitance in my actions and had dealt with my blow accordingly. Itsuki had stated several times over that Anbu were on another level, too. The ease at which the enemy before me was killed set off all kinds of signals in my head.

Idly, I tensed, waiting for some retaliatory attack to come, but now matter how long I waited there was nothing to be found. Something was decently off about the whole thing. However, I couldn’t put together exactly what even as I returned back to the smoldering building that held a cowering child.

Luckily, Sasuke had heeded my warning of staying still, and I had found the child easily. It was a little odd that he was now quiet, though. If anything, it helped me immensely as my mind was whirring too hard to have to deal with the boy’s complaints.

Now all I had was more questions and a big brother to find.