Stupid Mooching Kittens

A New Path

The battle against the assassins was sort lived, thanks to the combined efforts of the Konoha ninja, the former Akatsuki members, and Kim, Jade, and Ren. Deidara had to admit that Itachi's exploding shadow clones were beautiful works of art, which probably had more to do with the fact that he got to see his stoic rival explode multiple times. Kim, much to everyone's surprise, turned out to be a pyromaniac as she performed fire jutsu after fire jutsu, even managing to combine fire chakra with wind chakra and create a flamethrower-justu of sorts. Jade's sleep-mist jutsu, combined with Sakura's chakra scalpels proved deadly; the redhead would make their opponents drowsy while the pink haired girl would incapacitate them. Kakashi and Sasuke fought side by side, cutting the enemy down at dizzying speeds, armed only with a pair of kunai and the Kusanagi. Assassins kept getting mummified in Konan's paper, and skewered by Nagato's chakra receivers. Hana was limited in her arsenal of Jutsu since she did not have the Haimaru triplets with her, but that didn't seem to hinder her in any way as she brutally tore through enemy ranks.

When the battle was over, everyone worked to gather the dead bodies of the fallen assassins in a pile to be dealt with. As it would turn out, the leader of the assassins had not retreated as they were lead to believe when he made his escape, and fired a single bullet in Kim's direction before ascending the rope ladder that had dropped down from the last operating helicopter. Ren used the body flicker technique, and used his body to shield his daughter.

Everyone could only watch in abject horror as Ren took the hit that was meant for his daughter.

"I love you," Ren whispered before he was rendered unconscious from the excruciating pain.

Kim let out a blood curdling scream as she father's body fell limp in her arms, causing her to fall over onto the ground. The girl tried to regain her wits about her, and attempted to stop the bleeding in his chest by placing her hands over the open wound. She cursed herself for not bothering to learn Medical Ninjutsu when she had the chance. She was vaguely aware of being bodily restrained and lifted up and away from her father as Sakura, Hinata, and Hana took over her father's treatment.

Jade collapsed to her knees sobbing for fear of losing the man who was like a father to her. Deidara knelt down and pulled the redhead's shaking form into his arms. Naruto let his tears run down his face as Sasuke silently stood beside him, both hating themselves for not being able to do anything. Itachi wrapped his arms around the two sullen boy, in an attempt at comfort. Nagato sat with his legs spread out in front of him, intently staring a head. Konan kneeled behind her childhood best friend with her arms wrapped around his shoulders. None of them could take their eyes off of the three medics as they worked to save the life of the man who had so graciously and warmly accepted them into his home. They were so consumed with their thoughts about the felled man, no one even noticed that they had been returned to their original ages or the fact that a few of them seemed to be five years younger.

Kakashi moved out of the clearing, taking a kicking and screaming Kim along with him. He threw her onto the ground when she somehow managed to knee him in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. When she tried to crawl back to her father, the man had to pin her to the ground, which only seemed to make her fight harder against him. As she thrashed beneath him she hysterically begged him to let her go back to help.

"You can't go back," Kakashi reasoned, talking hold of her wrists and holding the down high above her head as he was forced to use his full body weight to keep her still. "You're not trained in Medical Ninjutsu, and you're clearly in shock. If you try to help, you'll only make it worse." He released the hold he had on her wrists as she seemed to calm down. "Sakura will do her best, you know this."

When she opened her eyes, the white haired Jonin was startled to see her eyes glowing a blood red and instead of the three commas, there were three rings connected by a thin line and the three rings seeming to swirl into the pupil like a pinwheel. The appearance of the Mangekyo Sharingan didn't surprise Kakashi as much as the hollowness he saw in her eyes.