Shinobi fights were something that one never knew the outcome of. They normally started in an instant and ended just as fast. At first, I had wondered exactly why this world seemed to be centered around the ideals of stealth and subterfuge, thinking that it was just some interesting gimmick. Taking a step back to look at it, I understood some of the process in it. After all, when people could just so easily kill someone with conjured lightning, bury them under tons of stone, burn them alive with spat fire, drown them in a sudden torrent, or cut them to ribbons with deadly wind, most head-on tactics used were laughably stupid. Instead, they used the vulnerabilities present in the wielders of such superhuman powers, their humanity. Humanity in the sense that a stab wound in a fairly vital spot would be fatal. Hence, the art of Shinobi and other more elusive methods were adopted to better combat their superpowered foes. Of course, there were exceptions when talking about how wide the world was, but those were so few that a simple knife could kill almost every Shinobi currently living in the Elemental Nations. It was fast, effective, and much easier than taking the time to actually spit a fireball. So, it came as no surprise to me that when Itachi and I started to see bodies, most of them were killed due to cuts or stabbed kunai that were long forgotten. That wasn't that bad when I thought of my previous fights. What was worse was the smell that hit me when we were passing. I was still getting used to it, finding it hard for me to keep my stomach down as we continued to the full brunt of the fighting. The fact that they were probably dead for much longer than I thought only made the smell worse. Tremors and sudden blasts of wind were all that we needed to feel to know that our giant toad fighter was still going strong. Several trees that we passed were cracked, split open by some other fight that was long since concluded. The only thing we found that spoke of the winner of the fight was the corpse of a fake Anbu. And as much as I held onto my resolve, I still felt horrible knowing just how many corpses we had passed. More often than not, I found that they were Anbu, or more accurately, the Anbu that looked too young to be anywhere near as experienced as they should have been. Itachi's eyes never left their Sharingan state, and always roved around as we rushed to the loudest of the noises. I think I was taking a bit too long to catch up to him as he spoke, "I would advise against looking at their faces." My foot nearly shattered the tree branch that I desperately held onto. "What? But wouldn't… leaving them like this be crueler." "I found that it helped." Itachi said again, not really elaborating why he had said that in past tense. I wanted to comment on it, though. It was probably stupid to have a conversation at the moment, but I wanted to know exactly what the teen was thinking as he looked at all this mayhem. "Have you been through this before? Something like this?" Trees shook as we ran, mainly my own as I kept botching most of my landings, but it felt like an eternity before Itachi spoke up again. "I had heard that war never changes… Never once did I believe that it would happen to me twice. This should have never happened to Sauske, nor…" "Nor?" I was on the edge of my seat. Something about Itachi had drawn me closer to him. A kindred soul, perhaps; one that had its own fair share of problems. And from experience, I could tell he had his own wounds to bear. "A cousin, though... he was more a brother." Itachi said, eyes seeming to find something in the distance. It was in one seamless motion that his hand moved, blurring as I only barely caught the sign of something metallic and sharp in his hand before it rocketed off into the silent trees. There was a thud long after we passed. Only then did Itachi open his mouth again, "I don't want to lose Sasuke, too." "Don't worry," my jaw clenched, words tumbling out. They were about as comforting as the odds of me fighting and winning against a giant, ninja toad. Not that I would in these circumstances. "I'm sure your brother is safe." If Itachi wanted to argue against my words, he chose to remain silent, taking the false comfort for all it was worth. I understood it; they were things that I had long since realized plagued me in this world. The notion of worry and regret. However, things couldn't be smoothed over with just words alone. Sometimes you needed actions. Luckily, before we could dwell too far into our thoughts, action met us. More Anbu clad teens found us, their smaller forms hiding in the nearby trees. There wasn't even a thought when my body found itself moving. My arm found Nuibari, already chucking it with empowered strength. The needle didn't even stop as it bored through them with sickening ease. It was instinctual. Almost seamless in transition from running wildly across tree branches to adding more guilt to the emptiness in my gut. I was almost disgusted at myself with how easy I had done it. A disgust that translated to a small amount of hesitation. I had prepared myself, but was still falling short. And that was all the individuals needed as an opening. An opening that quickly closed with the intrusion of Itachi. His insane throwing skills downed the rest of them with a series of impossibly fast shuriken, bodies collapsing to the forest floor seconds later. It happened so quickly that I probably would have had a couple more injuries before I joined the main fighting had Itachi not been around. The Uchiha teen didn't even spare them a glance, and if he did, it certainly wasn't at their face. Even so, I could feel him hurting somehow. That the act of killing cut him more deeply than any knife could. A deep seeded sorrow that chipped away at him ever so slowly. "We need to keep moving. These are just weaker scouts that are staying away from the bigger fights; mainly here to tire those looking to help or take out stragglers." Itachi said, waiting only a brief moment for me to retrieve Nuibari. I didn't question him on why he knew that. In a way, I didn't have to. We both had our differences as well as our traumas, and we both chose not to prod into each other on some silent agreement. All we needed from each other was saving our friends and family. So as we passed through the forests, came across more enemies, came across more corpses, and still, we pushed onwards. Itachi would handle any single stragglers that were hiding nearby, and I would pitch in my own support against larger, roaming groups of Shinobi. They were never stronger than the first ones we downed with ease. Nuibari had basically claimed the proverbial high ground on any battle so far; easily cutting through swaths of attacking Shinobi like a knife through warm butter in a way that still gave me goosebumps. I could feel the world tremble as we got closer to the main areas of fighting. Wind shifting with a sort of rage that shook my hair with a new sort of fervor that I nearly lost myself in the feeling of it running through my locks. Though, the worst thing was the bodies. At first, I wondered why there were only corpses of Anbu-clad Shinobi with little to no sign of the attacking group, and then we found the first signs of who I suspected was Jiraiya's group. Their foreheads had a smudged, green tattoo boldly displayed to the outside world; eyeless sockets staring out into the sky as their bodies lay there, unmoving. They were the Hyūga branch members. And if it wasn't for the grins on their faces, I would have assumed that their last moments were that of horrible pain. They had to be crazy, I decided. Near them, though, we also found the bodies of older Anbu members or the occasional Uchiha member. Itachi didn't comment on them, and I just tried to calmly get my stomach in order as we ran. I wasn't being squeamish. Something in me was long past that stage. There was just so much death that I had acclimatized to the smell long ago, and now I was feeling something other than sickness. Chakra burned through my veins, spreading the feeling like a growing wildfire that had just caught. All of this was so pointless. So many lost lives that I had been a part of was just beyond what I thought my homecoming would be. And when we had finally burst into the largest cleared section of forest, I was already thrumming with barely contained energy. Toppled trees, shattered and burned stumps littered the pockmarked earth in a war that ruined the world it ran on. There was no cover whatsoever, I realized. Instead, there was just a massive toad that wielded a two-pronged, spiked spear as well as an equally large plate as a shield. Every swing it made caused torrents of wind in its wake as well as uprooting anything that dared to stand in its way. What gathered more of my attention was the fact that there was now a giant human fighting against the behemoth. Their punches slamming into the plate the toad wielded with earthquake-level destruction, echoing thunderclaps into the surrounding clearing. Everyone around the titanic duo was doing their utmost in fighting each other as well as dancing out of the way of the two. Eyeless Hyūgas were fighting more Hyūgas with pulsing Byakugan, Uchihas spitting balls of fire at random Shinobi who I never seen before, and I found Jiraiya on top of the giant toad with his hands clapped together, staring desperately off into the distance. Even now, looking at the sheer insanity at everything going on, I found Kakashi and Itsuki each fighting off stray Uchihas, Hyūgas, and the occasional Anbu from climbing up the giant toad. It was insane to even think I was seeing everything. There was so much more that was going on in the chaotic fighting that was obscured by flashes of fire, lighting, and explosions that I felt rooted in place, afraid to step into what this world's warzones looked like. My previous flash of power evaporating under the oppressive atmosphere of this chaos. Heat burdened my face as I stood there, the trails of fire and smoke licking against my face the longer I waited for something to shock me out of whatever dream this was. The dream never ended, though, and I grew increasingly certain of that as metallic whistles sung around me. A hand shook me from my musings, and I nearly stabbed Itachi as he brought me out of whatever fugue I had ridden into. "I don't see Sasuke, nor Hinata anywhere. We need to split up to cover more ground." He paused, looking out into the chaos then back at me. "Can you do that?" I wanted to nod. To show that I was ready to step into the warzone in front of us, but I was caught flatfooted. Everything was happening too fast. I just learned about what happened, and I assumed we could get here in time to stop the worst of it. Everything felt like my fault. It was a stupid guilt, I knew. However, my mind was too in shock to notice. All around me was just fire, destruction, and death. I was trying to balance the guilt on my shoulders and move on, but I just couldn't take my eyes away from the whole thing. There was a thud nearby that drew my attention for a second. The sound of a falling body was something that I never could get used to, but it was something distinctive. My eyes landed on the fallen Shinobi. Their face was burned in my memory just like all the others. A rictus of pain and defiance on that never seemed to go away. There was blood, flowing like a dribbling stream that was slowly being drained away. Brown eyes looked into mine, begging, pleading, hating. It wasn't anything that I saw that made me move. Nothing singular could drag me from my spot, but I needed to move. I needed to do something. So, I stepped forwards, finding Itachi watching me with one eye and scanning the battlefield with the other. Plans to run away were long gone. This was madness, but no one deserved this. "I-I'll go to Kakashi and Itsuki. You're faster on your own." "Yes…" Itachi said, pausing to turn away from me. "You will be fine, Naruto." For a moment, I contemplated answering that I would be. Then that thought was squashed. Obliterated under the reality before me. War was never just 'fine'. It was horrible. It was a violent and desperate struggle that shouldn't have been here. That could have been stopped. "No," I whispered, watching as Itachi already took off. "I won't be fine…" My eyes traveled to Itachi, already embroiled with his own fight, to Kakashi and Itsuki fighting near the giant toad, and I summoned my knife to my hand. "How do you do this?" The split happened only for a brief second. My specter traveled over to Itsuki, trusting him to not lash out at my sudden arrival, and I rematerialized right next to the one-armed Shinobi, punching a Chakra-enhanced strike into an attacking Shinobi's back. He fell right in front of the missing-nin as Itsuki's eyes lit up at my arrival. "You made it!" He cheered, throwing a smirk over to Kakashi. "See! I told you he'd be here! The kid's too nosy to sit on the sidelines!" Kakashi was much more reasonable in his reaction, both his normal eye and Sharingan eye glaring at me. "What are you doing here?" I was forced to duck as a few kunai whistled over my head, taking a couple strands of particularly spiky hair with them. Itsuki acted long before I did, swinging the hammer part of Kabutowari into the ground with enough force to create cracks in the earth. Spikes of stone then exploded from the ground a distance away from us, and the screams of a new victim rang like nails on a chalkboard. My body moved with the assistance of Chakra, bouncing on the balls of my feet before shooting to an Anbu who wasn't caught in the attack. The Anbu was still reeling from the suddenness of Itsuki's assault, and wasn't prepared for the deadliness that was Nuibari. The ever-piercing tip found him as Kakashi came back into earshot. I spoke as another fell to my hand. "I came with Itachi. I'll leave after we save Hinata and Sasuke." Kakashi's movements were more fluid than mine and Itsuki's. He dodged and weaved in between his opponents, a single kunai in his hand doing more work that Itsuki's earthen spikes ever did. Like a ghost, he would duck under an opponent's strike, letting them lose sight of him long enough for him to plant the point of his kunai into their throat or heart. It was fast and brutal. Done without a hint of hesitation despite them being Konoha Shinobi. His free hand wasn't useless either, grabbing, pulling, and tripping wherever it was applicable. At one point he jumped over one rather large Shinobi, flipping in such a way this his head faced the ground as he was in the air above them. The free hand slammed down on the top of the Shinobi's head, and I heard a crack as he twisted to kick two kunai aimed at him into a couple Anbu that stood around him. Four bodies fell to the floor, only Kakashi stood back up. "Itsuki, tell him." He ordered in the small lull of peace his feat gave him. "What?! No! You tell him! I'm busy over here." Itsuki whined, looking none the worse for wear as more earthen spikes exploded around him. Kakashi glared at the missing Kiri-nin, blocking a few thrown shurikens without looking. "This is not the time to argue." "This is definitely the time to argue!" Itsuki yelled, blocking a barrage of kunai by swinging the axehead of Kabutowari in front of him. "Jiraiya-san told me not to tell the kid if he arrived!" My head shot up from where I stood, feeling sore from the combat I was seeing. These Anbu lookalikes weren't letting up, and I was finding it hard to keep my Chakra reinforced limbs up as I pushed against a rather enthusiastic Shinobi. Luckily, a burst of corrosive Chakra tumbled from the pit of stomach to give me just enough strength to kick the Shinobi in the shin. There was a crack before he fell onto Nuibari's raised tip. "What do you mean to not tell me?" I ducked under an earth spike, feeling the heat of a fireball as it blasted against my makeshift cover. The earthen cover shook as more and more fireballs collided against it, and I winced as a couple tongues of flame burnt their presence on my arms. "Now's not really the time to be keeping things hidden! Just tell me!" Itsuki threw something at the direction of where the fireball came. An explosion threw dust and twigs into the air a couple seconds later. No more fire came at me. The crippled Shinobi eyed me for a second, somehow being more anxious than when he was facing down a literal horde of enemies. Eventually his eyes grew some form of resolve. He nodded at me as seriously as possible. "Kakashi, you tell him!" The hand holding Nuibari twitched. "Are they okay at least?" "They're fine." Itsuki finally answered, letting Kakashi throw a couple kunai as cover. Considering the couple thuds that I heard, it was more than cover fire. "...sorta." "I don't like the sound of that." I huffed, dodging back to my friend's side, chucking Nuibari into the smoke. It was more as a scare tactic as well as a way to place some thin wires around and zone enemies, but the few tremors in the string alerted me that I had stabbed a few along the way. "No, no, they're fine!" Itsuki said, quickly hiding any previous apprehension. "Kakashi you tell him! I don't wanna have the kid hate me!" My eyebrows shot up as Kakashi turned to really look at the dead serious face of Itsuki. The silver-haired Shinobi sighed, breathing deeply before running back closer to us. "The two of them are safe, but not for long. Jiraiya-sama's plan might injure or kill the two of them if it succeeds." "What?!" My mind was a mess. This whole war was putting quite a bit of stress on me, and suddenly the safety of my friend was being put into question by a man who I originally thought of as a perverted hermit that taught the original Naruto cool moves. Sure, he seemed plenty mysterious, and had this sort of wise and kind mentor vibe about him that I remembered. The recent realization that he was perhaps someone much more important than I originally thought came about when he organized this resistance force. However, never did I think that Kakashi's words would ever come from his mouth. "What do you mean? Why would he do this?" A couple shuriken sang near me, cutting a small gash in my upper arm as I focused on Kakashi. The Sharingan-wielder in question moved to block a few more thrown projectiles as I stood there, silently waiting for him to explain why my entire reasons for being in this fight were being threatened. His mask crinkled a bit before he finally turned to me. However, whether it was a stroke of luck or misfortune, he never had to explain the reason to me. Instead, all we had to do was watch as a couple more combatants entered the field. The Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was the most recognizable of them, moving in a way that belied his old age and wearing a black suit that hung close to his body, metal woven fishnet clamping down around his forearms and lower shins. On his right arm he wore a beige, segmented bracer that covered his elbow to his knuckles, and in the other arm he carried a massive black staff with golden ends to it. He looked desperate. Bleeding from several small cuts that tore into his clothes, but not letting the stinging pain stop him as he ducked and flipped over what looked to be thousands of midnight strands snapping and stabbing at him like an army of living spears. A man stood at the epicenter of the spears, his hands clasped in a hand sign as the black spears seemed to leak from his shadow, curling around him and attacking Hiruzen. There was another adding to the chaos. Someone who I knew by their blonde hair and disheveled appearance. Inoichi stood by the Hokage's attacker, throwing a series of tiny, metallic needles, a deluge of purple glinted kunai, and a barrage of shuriken at the older Shinobi. Oddly, the older man seemed to be strictly dodging the two's attacks, not daring to do anything other than deflect a few projectiles that nearly caught him. I assume there was a reason why, but honestly, I would have preferred I didn't see it. And as the third member of the squad dedicated to attacking Hiruzen came to light, I wasn't as shocked at seeing him as I was by who he held. Danzō stood, his once needed cane long forgotten, as his entire right side looked like a small forest had taken over. Branches grew out from underneath the bandages on his side, curling out over the squirming bodies of two children of my physical age. Their mouths were covered by the green of leaves that grew along with the branches, and I could see a couple of cuts along their bodies from attempts to escape their wooden prisons. I knew what was going on without even being told. Danzō having two hostages, Hiruzen staying on the defensive, and Jiraiya's serious face all lined up in my head to form an image that chilled me to my core. My eyes met Itsuki's, and I found him silent, frowning at me with an emotion I couldn't put together. He said something, but I just wasn't hearing him. All I knew was that the giant toad that we were protecting had turned to face the three newcomers. Jiraiya stood on the massive weapon that it wielded, and my anger spilled forth as despair waged it own internal war when the two-pronged spear was raised with the intention of being thrown. Its target: my friend.