In Spite of it all (BOOK TWO)

Chapter 40

Naruto POV~

When Obito came back, he looked half-dead. Not even half-dead, he looked like he would die any second.

We stared in shock as he fell on the ground, one hand clutching the literal hole in his chest. The injury was wide, and bleeding, and right where his heart is. Blood also dribbled out of his mouth, and he was coughing and choking on it. In this state, each breath could easily be his last.

Obito looked up, his one sharingan eye and one Rinnegan narrowed and unfocused. He lifted his hand to perform a jutsu.

I lashed out a chakra hand. I didn't want to, I didn't want to kill him, I didn't want to kill him. 

I grabbed his hand before he could do anything. Whatever happened in their fight was between Kakashi and him. But right here, right now, I had to do what I could.

But I didn't want to kill him.

I restrained him as gently as I could, Kurama's chakra wrapping around his dying body and preventing him from moving. 

I could heal him, if I wanted to.

The indecisiveness tore at me from both directions. I knew I shouldn't let him live, for the sake of the literal world, but if I killed him?

I couldn't kill him.

Before I could do anything about it, though, a dark substance began to seep through the ground. It sucked at Kurama's chakra, forcing me to withdraw it just to prevent this black mass from eating it. It moved thickly, like tar, and covered half of Obito's body. Long black spikes like the ones Obito generated stabbed themselves into him, and he screamed.

Kurama growled, "If I had to guess, I'd say that's black Zetsu."

'Shit.'

Obito screamed again, guttural and agonized. His fingers were digging into the ground beneath him. Upon closer inspection, I could now see that the black mass had an eye. 

Black Zetsu. The other half of Zetsu.

The tree-like clones underneath the ground...

What was going on here?

Sasuke had his Susanoo's bow drawn and ready to fire. "Naruto. We should just strike him now."

I didn't have it in me to tell him not to, but at the same time I didn't want to agree. So I kept silent. Sasuke watched me carefully, aiming his Susanoo's attack at Obito and black Zetsu, but didn't fire yet.

A second later, a massive purple chain, glowing with restraining chakra,  lashed out from Obito. I reeled back, but the purple chain wrapped itself around Kurama's avatar around me. It began to pull, and never have I felt such a powerful tug at Kurama's chakra.

Kurama's panic leaked through to mine. "NO. NARUTO! KEEP HOLD OF SOME OF MY CHAKRA!"

Only then did the realization of what was happening really hit me.

Fear, a cold wave that I recognized after so many years of drowning in it, gripped me with its freezing hands. 

But this was a different fear. A different panic.

I was terrified of losing Kurama.

My heart rate picked up, pounding in my ears like a drum, and I reached out to the chakra of all the Bijuu.

Thoughts and consciousnesses, voices overlapping and whispering at the very back of my mind, flooded into me. The Bijuu were very much aware of what was happening.