2k reads!!!!!!! I have no idea how this has reached this many reads, but I'm not complaining! Thank you to all of my awesome readers! You are the best! I am humbled by all of your votes, comments and appreciation! I hope that I can continue putting out chapters that you like, enjoy!
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Kakashi and I had been walking quietly for some time now. Pakkun was a little bit ahead of us, and Hokomaru stayed protectively by my side with Kakashi on the other. It was a comfortable silence as we all focused on the task at hand. To save chakra, I was using my sensory abilities to try and pick up any sign of Sasuke's or Itachi's chakra signature that I could. Kakashi was "reading" his dumb book, but based on the fact that I hadn't heard him flip a page in about thirty minutes, I figured that he wasn't reading at all. But was instead focused fully on our search. Why he was holding a useless book in front of his face I could not tell you; it seemed completely unnecessary.
"Kakashi."
"Hmm?"
"Why do you have out Icha Icha even if you're not reading it?"
He shrugged, "Well, I do this because-"
Kakashi froze and looked up, and I followed his gaze. From where we were on top of a hill, we had a perfect view of the large event happening a couple of kilometers away.
BOOM! The most massive explosion that I had ever seen blocked out the sun; it made my kunai jutsu look like child's play, like firecrackers next to an atomic bomb. It was a large white cone of pure chakra energy with two other small cones extending from it like arms. It looked like either the deadliest cactus ever or an elongated Viking helmet of pure destruction. The light blue glow on its edges left aftermath in my vision when I blinked as the large explosion persisted for about fifteen full seconds. Anything that was caught in there was surely dead. This explosion would leave a scar on the landscape forever. It was making my sensory skills tingle with the pure unadulterated power that I could feel even from my safe distance away from it. It was a life force, a soul, turned into pure chakra. I looked at in awe partly because it was a massive explosion, but also because I now knew the power of a soul. It took the soul of Yutaka Hyuga (I had learned his name after I started spending time training with the Hyugas) to transport me to this world. I was now seeing the energy that was needed to overcome the barriers of time and space and it was an awe-inspiring sight. In a way, it really was art. 'That is what it took to get me here, wow.' Kakashi and I watched, awestruck as the mushroom cloud of smoke drifted up into the air slowly after the large body of energy had finally died down.
"Jesus Christ," Kakashi didn't even question who Jesus was like he usually did, he simply nodded in awe.
"What on earth caused that explosion?"
I looked at it closely, "It seems like Deidara's handiwork, this wouldn't be the first time he's blown himself up, but this time it seems that he really is dead."
There was a tearing pain through my mind, a vision. I activated my yin seal and watched as the events that caused the explosion started to play out in front of me like a semi-transparent screen so I was seeing both real world and the vision at the same time. Needless to say, it was very disorienting.
Sasuke, Deidara, and Tobi faced off on the edge of a clearing. Sasuke demanded that they tell him where Itachi was, and Deidara was enraged that he was being overlooked. The ego of an artist is touchy.
"Ana, are you alright?" Kakashi's face was floating between Sasuke and Deidara's stare-down.
Fighting for every word, I answered, "Yes, we need to go to the site now, it was Sasuke and Deidara fighting there, that much I know." I climbed onto Hokomaru since it's really hard to see where you're running when there are images dancing in front of your sight.
Deidara sent a barrage of C1 explosives to test out Sasuke's abilities, who simply knocked them away with a flurry of chidori senbon.
We continued to run, and my temples began to pulse with every one of Hokomaru's swift steps. The brain has no sensory neurons so why on earth are my visions so painful?
Seeing that the C1 attacks were ineffective, Deidara summoned his large C2 dragon. He jumped on as it took to the air just out of reach of Sasuke's Chidori Sharp Spear Jutsu. The bulbous tail began to be sucked up from the end and then travel to the dragon's open mouth were the clay was spat out as different explosives. A see of land mines came from the dragon's mouth, and Tobi disappeared with them as he hid them under ground.
We approached the large crater quickly. The other members of the squad were gathering there as well since everyone had seen the large, beacon-like explosion.
Sakura saw the activated yin seal on my face, "Ana are you alright?" I would have answered if I could.
In the second level of his cursed seal, Sasuke protected himself from a large explosion that came from the dragon's tail regurgitation, but he had to sacrifice one of his hand-wings to keep himself safe. Sasuke threw his sword in front of him and used it as a platform to avoid the landmines. He used the Chidori Sharp Spear to sever the dragon's wing and then pinned Deidara by each elbow to the dragon's back using large shuriken that were about three feet in diameter. The dragon exploded when it hit the ground, but Deidara was able to free himself in time.
Kakashi's ninken spread out in the crater, looking for any scents that they could. Pakkun could smell Sasuke, but there was no sign of a corpse.
A large Deidara began to grow behind the original, his C4 clone, Karura. It grew a hundred feet tall and then began to swell and inflate before exploding into a cloud of microscopic explosives that disintegrated every living thing that they touched. But, Sasuke can see chakra as color because of the high level of his sharingan so he was able to avoid the small bombs, much to Deidara's anger and disbelief.
The search done, Kakashi told everyone to have a little patience and give my vision time to finish. Before we moved out we needed the information that it would give us. Naruto griped about needing to hurry up with the mission, but Sakura put him in a headlock, ending his whining.
Sasuke landed behind Deidara on the clay bird that he was riding, demanding to know Itachi's location. The Uchiha stuck the chidori through the artist's chest, but it was a clay clone. While Sasuke was stuck, Deidara made a smaller C4 explosive that expanded around Sasuke, trapping him with the microscopic bombs. Filling himself with the chidori, Sasuke disarmed all of the explosives and appeared behind Deidara to land a devastating punch. He demanded to know Itachi's location again, but Deidara's pride as an artist required that Sasuke tell him how he survived the C4. Never one to pass up an opportunity to brag, Sasuke explained that while Deidara thought that he was in control of the fight, Sasuke was testing the weaknesses of the Akatsuki member's jutsu the entire time. It was an earth style, and earth is weak to lightning. Through his tests, the Uchiha came to the conclusion that he could deactivate any of the artist's explosives with his chidori.
Angered that his art had been defeated and figured out, Deidara decided to unveil his ultimate art: C0. He feed the mouth over his heart and eighth inner gate with the last of his clay and began to absorb the energy around him, becoming transparent and apologizing to Tobi who hadn't gotten out of the blast range yet.
"ART IS AN EXPLOSION!"
He blew up magnificently, and Sasuke barely had time to summon Orochimaru's most powerful snake, Manda.
Everyone looked at me expectantly for my vision to end. I groaned as my head throbbed like it was being beaten by a sledge hammer. 'Damn, I'm going to have quite the migraine after this one...'
Suigetsu summoned Manda using a special scroll, and Sasuke stepped out the large snake's mouth. The snake and the young ninja had not completely made it out before the explosion went off, and Manda died due to the damage he sustained. Sasuke, however, was injured but alive so he and his team set off to heal before searching again for Itachi.
I quickly placed the usual hand of healing chakra on my head as soon as the vision ended to try and lessen the impending migraine, but this time it wasn't as effective as usual. The yin seal receded from my face and condensed itself back into the small diamond on my forehead as everyone looked at me expectantly.
Naruto has the least patience and so he demanded information first, "Ana, what did you see? What happened here? Is Sasuke alive?"
He loves talking loudly when I have a bad headache, but in his defense, I always have a headache and he is always loud. "Sasuke and Deidara fought, and Sasuke made it out just in time before the explosion would have killed him. Deidara blew himself up for real this time, and I think that his partner, Tobi, died in the explosion as well. Sasuke has met back up with his new team and is after Itachi again." I knew that that wasn't a very detailed or exciting description of the epic battle that I had witnessed, but my head hurt and talking was a chore. It was a very bad sign that the migraines were getting worse; I would have to tell Lady Tsunade about this.
Everything after that was a bit of a blur for a while, one of the lovely side effects of a vision. Kiba channeled his chakra to his nose so that his sense of smell was even greater than that of a ninja hound, and we began to close in on Sasuke's location. I began to sense around us, but I could feel some sort of interference on my sensory chakra; someone was suppressing Sasuke's team's chakra signatures. If only I was at peak health, I am a much more powerful sensory ninja than the one that I was going up against, and any other time I would have overpowered their chakra in no time at all. This sensory ninja, I seemed to remember her name being Karin or something similar to that. However, with the state that my mind was in, I couldn't overcome her chakra and thus pinpoint the group's location. I told this to Kakashi and he seemed a little disturbed that they had a sensory ninja powerful enough to hide from me.
"I can always activate my byakugan..." I suggested hopefully.
Kakashi shook his head, "Hinata already has her byakugan activated, you would just be putting unnecessary strain on yourself."
I sighed and continued to fight against the cloaking chakra that was really starting to piss me off. I knew that this should have been relatively easy for me, but I just couldn't concentrate long enough to follow the chakra to its source. I was completely focused on my task so I was super shocked when Naruto made a ton of shadow clones and sent them off in every direction.
"Kakashi, what's going on I was sort of... not really paying attention there for a little bit..." I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly in a very Kakashi-like fashion.
"They have sent out birds carrying clothing with Sasuke's scent in different directions so Naruto has created Shadow Clones to hunt down all of the fake scents."
I nodded, "That makes sense."
"Ana, are you sure that you're alright? Naruto was shouting loudly so how on earth did you manage to tune that out?"
I shrugged, "I don't know, I just wasn't listening..." Kakashi continued to nag me, but I tuned him out as well. I know that his worrying is well-meant, but dear god it gets on one's nerves after a while. Finally I couldn't take it anymore because my mind was beginning to clear again, making it harder for me ignore him.
"Kakashi, shut up."
He blinked in surprise, "Huh?"
"I'm fine now, the effects of the vision are wearing off so if you could stop nagging me now, I would be eternally grateful. Unless, of course, you want me to get another migraine. In which case, just keep on talking." He looked at me in shock, usually I'm not an abrasive person, but extreme headaches make me a little bit pissy, actually make that very pissy. "You know what, I'm going to summon my pack and help search." Before he could argue, Hokomaru disappeared in a puff of smoke and was soon replaced by the four rambunctious yearlings that started dancing around my heels. "I will let you know if we sense or smell anything."
"Ana, what are you-"
I never heard him finish because I was already long gone. Like hell I was going to hang around long enough for him to play the rank card and order me to stay back. My head had finally cleared, and I was ready to run into that sensory ninja again. I felt disgusted as I remembered a small detail, she was a Sasuke fangirl. Great... more of them.
My white and red cloak flapped around me as my byakugan scanned in all directions while I ran. We were running out of time; Sasuke had already fought and killed Deidara, and we wanted to capture him before he got to Itachi, who could kill him in their battle. The four young coyotes around me had their ears perked for any sign of danger and their noses waving through the air. There was an unfamiliar chakra network in front of me. I slowed my pace in case this was Itachi. I didn't know who it was, but this network felt like it could be Itachi's, it almost seemed to hold his personality. I approached slowly from the side, our objective was to locate and confirm the target, not to engage.
"Hello."
I spun around, the Itachi that was in front of me managed to somehow get behind me in a fraction of a second. I can see three hundred and sixty degrees around me, but I couldn't see how he'd done that.
"Hello, Itachi. I had a feeling that was you." Unexpectedly, my coyotes did not press their ears against the tops of their heads and growl, but instead they looked up at him curiously with their small canine heads cocked to one side. They didn't sense any danger with Itachi's presence, strange. "What do you want?"
"Nothing from you; I am looking for Naruto. I need to speak to the jinchuriki before I face my brother."
I got into a ready stance, but my summons remained passive, "I won't let you lay your hands on him!"
"I'm not going to touch him." My eyes widened in shock, "In fact, I have a feeling that this brotherly duel will be my final battle." I looked into his eyes as he spoke about his presumed death, there was no sadness, remorse, or anger there. There was only a well-hidden spark of joy. Who looks happy when discussing fratricide?
"Itachi... But, aren't you more powerful than your brother?"
I could see the hint of a sad smile over the edge of his black cloak's high collar, "Most likely. However, running into you was quite lucky. Ana, you must promise me this: if you remember my past, tell no one. You can't tell Kakashi or the Hokage, and you especially cannot tell Sasuke. The safety of the Leaf Village hangs in the balance."
"The safety of the Leaf Village hangs in the balance." I probably had a stupid look on my face while contemplating his unexpected words. "Wha-What? But you're Akatsuki, why do you care about the Leaf Village?" I narrowed my eyes, "I always knew that was more to your backstory. I didn't hate you in my old world, and I know that there has to be a good reason for that." He looked at me expectantly since I still hadn't given him my word yet. I rubbed my temples as I sighed, "If I remember your past and it really is for the best of the Leaf Village that I keep it quiet like you say, then yes, I promise I will not tell a soul."
He sent me a warm smile, a smile that the man who murdered his own family in cold-blood should not be able to give. "Goodbye, Ana, I don't believe that we will meet again. Good luck protecting the Leaf." With that he was gone, disappearing in the same way that he had appeared behind me. I stood there for a few seconds in shock, 'Did he wish me luck in protecting the Leaf Village? What. The. Hell is going on?"
I looked around me and hollered loudly, "ITACHI! GET THE HELL BACK HERE AND TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!" No response, he was long gone. I smacked my forehead a little too forcefully, "Come on brain, remember things. For once will you show me something that I want to see? I hate not knowing what's going on!" My four young coyotes looked at me like I jumped off the deep-end.
"A-Ana," Nishi spoke quietly from the branch to my right, "Are you alright?"
"Nope."
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So I did something a little different for the vision this time since Ana didn't pass out or close her eyes and hope that it wasn't confusing. Man, 2k reads... I just can't get over how awesome that is! See you at the next update!
Edited 4/26/2016