A quiet settled over the lake. Hinata stood on the water's surface on the southern part of the lake. Her Byakugan was active and she is constantly sweeping her surroundings. She saw the great, sleeping form of the Three-Tails on the lakebed. She saw the two squads, Team Kakashi and Team Anko, moving in wide, moving along the northern and southern shores, their chakra signatures are steady points of light in the dense forest. The comms were a low, periodic check-ins confirming their progress. All clear.
She looked towards the center of the lake. The great, glowing circle of the sealing jutsu had finally begun its slow descent and submerging beneath the dark water. It was a net of light, sinking into the depths to catch a monster. As it descended, the thick, heavy fog of the Three-Tails' residual chakra began to thin, the air growing clearer, sharper.
The two land-based squads had just reached the northernmost and southernmost points of their patrol route when Hinata's senses flared. It was a flicker, a distant note on the edge of her perception. A spiritual echo. Intruders.
Her focus snapped to the northeast, pushing her senses far beyond the range of her Byakugan. She felt them, a wave of the same tainted, corrupted presence as the mutants they had slaughtered earlier. There were dozens of them, a concentrated tide of wrongness, and they were closing on the lake.
"Contact!" her voice was a sharp, clear broadcast that cut through the quiet comms chatter.
The two squads in the forest instantly froze.
"Status," Kakashi's voice was immediate and calm.
"Large group of hostiles approaching from the northeast," Hinata reported, her voice flat and precise. "Their spiritual signature is a match for the curse mark mutants. I estimate their numbers are comparable to the group we eliminated at the camp."
A beat of silence, then Kakashi's voice again. "Neji, confirm."
"Negative," Neji's voice came back. "They are beyond the effective range of my Byakugan from this position."
"I feel them," Naruto's voice cut in. "It's faint, but it's there. Corrupted chakra, just like Hinata said."
"It'll take our squads at least an hour to intercept at their current location," Anko's voice added with a dangerous growl.
"So it's the second group," Yamato mused. "They didn't scatter after all."
"Hinata, are there any other signatures?" Kakashi asked.
Her senses swept the perimeter again. "Negative. All other contacts are concentrated in the northeast."
"Understood," Kakashi's voice was decisive. "Yamato, Anko, your squads will proceed to intercept. Naruto, Hinata, you will remain on station and guard the sealing team. Maintain your positions."
Guard duty? Venom's voice was a low grumble of disappointment in her mind. We are the primary offensive asset. This is an inefficient allocation of resources.
Hinata ignored the complaint. Through her Byakugan, she watched as the two squads turned and began moving at high speed directly at the approaching threat. She was certain that within a few more kilometers, Neji's own eyes would pick up their chakra signatures. Still, something felt wrong. The timing. It was too convenient, too perfect. These mutants, who had fled deep into a neighboring country, were now returning, marching directly towards them, just as they began the most vulnerable part of their mission. Anko's words echoed in her mind. There's someone else commanding them.
"Naruto," she said quietly over their private channel.
"Yeah, Hinata-chan?"
"Stay on high alert," she warned. "Something about this feels wrong."
"You got it," he replied instantly, his tone shifting from relaxed to focused.
Half an hour passed. The sealing jutsu was now deep beneath the surface, a glowing web in the dark water.
"Contact confirmed," Neji's voice finally came through. "Several dozen targets, bearing zero-four-zero."
As the land squads prepared to engage, Hinata continued her own relentless scan, sweeping the lake, the forest, and the horizon. With the Three-Tails' chakra fog almost completely dissipated, her vision was clearer than ever.
And then she saw it.
Another flicker. A single, distinct spiritual echo, appearing as if from nowhere. And it was coming from the west. From the direction they had arrived.
"CONTACT!" she broadcast to the entire team, her voice sharp with alarm. "New target! West side! Naruto, you have it?"
"Just got it!" he confirmed, his voice tight. "What is it?"
"Is it another group?" Shizune's voice was strained, the effort of maintaining the seal evident in her tone.
"Negative," Hinata reported, her vision snapping to the west, pushing to its absolute limit. "It's a single signature." Her vision focused, and she finally saw them. A lone figure, running through the forest. The figure was worn, her purple clothes ripped and stained, her movements exhausted but desperate. And on her back, she was carrying the small, limp form of the boy. "It's the crystal user. She has the child."
The information went through the squad.
"Any other hostiles?" Shizune asked, her voice tight.
Hinata did another rapid sweep. "Negative. Just the two of them."
"We can't stop the sealing!" Shizune's voice was firm. "We're too deep into the process! Naruto, Hinata, you have to deal with them yourselves!"
"Acknowledged," Naruto and Hinata replied in near-unison.
They turned, their feet finding purchase on the water, and began to run.
Inside Hinata, Venom stirred, the black biomass beginning to flow. The lake was vast. It would take them several minutes to cross it. Her mind, fused with Venom, ran the calculations. Their speed, her speed, the intercept point would be somewhere near the center of the lake's western shore. She pushed harder, her powerful legs churning, the water barely seeming to ripple beneath her feet.
Hinata moved across the water's surface, a blur of midnight blue armor. Each stride was a powerful, gravity-defying leap that covered dozens of meters, the water barely disturbed by her passage. She could have started the attack from a kilometer out, a rain of plasma from the sky, but the child was still with her. A hostage. Or worse. Her trajectory was a straight line, closing the distance with a high speed.
Then, she saw it. The crystal user reached the western shore. She gently, almost carefully, set the small boy down on the stony beach before turning and stepping back onto the water, her feet landing on its surface as she began to run out to meet them.
"She's left the child on the shore," Hinata's voice was a calm but urgent broadcast over the comms. "He is clear of the engagement zone."
That was all the confirmation she needed. The crystal user was still running, building speed, a lone figure on the vast lake. It was time to test her.
"Naruto, I am initiating the attack," she warned.
As she ran, the faceplate of her helmet retracted slightly, and a torrent of white-hot fireballs erupted from her mouth. "Hōsenka: Ryūseigun! (Phoenix Fire: Meteor Shower!)" Simultaneously, the Klyntar biomass on her shoulders writhed and grew, forming two sleek, snarling Venom-like heads that joined the assault, spitting their own high-velocity spheres of white flame. The barrage wasn't aimed directly at her, but at the space around her, a horizontal storm of incinerating projectiles that exploded in concussive bursts of heat and light just above the water's surface, churning the lake into a boiling chaos. In the distance, she saw Naruto's form blur, and a hundred identical figures fanned out across the water.
The crystal user was surprised. Hinata saw her falter, her head snapping up as the world around her ignited. She began to move, a series of sharp, desperate dodges. One of the airbursts caught her off guard, the shockwave sending her stumbling. Instantly, her movements became more aggressive, more precise. Glittering purple pillars of crystal erupted from the water's surface, acting as shields and new platforms as she leaped and weaved through the explosive chaos. By the time Hinata had closed the distance to a few hundred meters, she was facing not just the woman, but a large, swarming arc of Naruto's shadow clones.
The clones moved as one wave of orange. A massive, howling gust of wind erupted from their position, a wide-angle attack designed to shove and disorient. The crystal user reacted instantly, slamming her hand down onto the water. A colossal, thick wall of purple crystal shot upwards against the gale.
Now. Hinata's lifted her arm, making a hand sign and pointing at her target. A sphere of grinding, white-hot lightning formed at its tip. "Raikōsen no Yari! (Spear of the Lightning Drill!)"
PFFT-ZZZZZRRRR!
The projectile shot from her fingertip, at the side of her defensive pillar of the woman. The crystal user was forced to leap back as the drill of pure lightning slammed into her shield. CRACK! The sound was sharp and clear even from this distance. Large, spiderwebbing fractures spread across the crystal's surface.
A frustrated, feminine shout echoed across the water. The woman abandoned her defensive position, her speed surprising as she dashed towards Naruto's side of the formation. A clone was ready for her, a swirling blue Rasengan in its palm. But she was faster. A spear of sharp, purple crystal grew from her forearm, and she impaled the clone, which dispelled in a puff of smoke. But another was already there, his own Rasengan aimed, while dozens more threw a volley of wind-infused kunai. The Rasengan only nicked her shoulder, sending her stumbling, but she remained on her feet, shockingly intact.
"I've had enough of you insects!" she shrieked. She slammed her palms together, and the lake around her erupted as a forest of razor-sharp crystal pillars shot upwards, impaling dozens of Naruto's clones in a single, violent motion.
But her attack was cut short. A relentless barrage of smaller, faster lightning drills slammed into her position, shattering the newly-formed crystals before they could even reach their full height. Hinata had closed the distance, her movements a blur of zigzagging patterns as she ran, her fingers shooting a continuous barrage of grinding lightning.
As she fought, she noticed it. A faint, crystalline shimmer that coated the woman's entire body, catching the light in a way her skin and clothes shouldn't. Her mind, working in tandem with Venom, ran the analysis. The durability against the Rasengan. The way she shrugged off the shockwaves. The conclusion should be instantaneous.
A carapace, Venom noted. Crystalline armor covering her body. Resilient, but finite. It possesses a fracture point.
"Naruto, she's wearing a full-body crystal armor!" Hinata's voice was a clear, commanding report over the comms. "It has its limits! We need to overwhelm it!"
"Got it!" he yelled back. He gave a sharp command, and his remaining clones shifted their tactics.
The assault became a storm. The clones began spitting a high-speed, rapid-fire volley of Mizudeppō (Water Gun) bullets, while Hinata's own barrage of lightning drills intensified, a relentless torrent of destructive energy. The crystal user was caught between two fires. She tried to dodge, to form shields, to shoot back with her own crystal shards, but the sheer volume of the attack was overwhelming. A water bullet would slam into her, followed by a lightning drill that exploited the momentary imbalance. CRACK! PING! THWACK! The sounds of impacts echoed across the lake. Hinata could see it clearly now, the fine, crystalline armor that covered the woman's body fracturing and flaking away under their relentless assault. The woman's chakra began to flicker erratically, each hit eliciting a pained grunt, but still, somehow, she remained standing.
Hinata saw it clearly. The woman was hurt, her armor was cracked, but she wasn't slowing down. She was absorbing blows that should have rendered a Jounin unconscious from sheer shock and trauma. It wasn't just the armor. Hinata had fought enough, had taken enough hits herself to know. The human body has its limits, but those limits can be pushed, sanded down by experience until pain is just another signal, not a debilitating force. This woman had a pain tolerance that bordered on inhuman. This could drag on. And their orders were to capture her alive.
A cold, pragmatic, and deeply embarrassing solution presented itself.
"Hinata-chan, I've got an idea!" Naruto's voice crackled over the comms, a spark of chaotic brilliance in the storm. Through her Byakugan, she saw it: a dozen of his clones had submerged, swimming like orange torpedoes beneath the surface, converging on the crystal user's position. Hinata held her position, her continued barrage of lightning a necessary distraction.
"NOW!" Naruto roared. He and his remaining surface clones slammed their palms together, and a colossal, roaring dragon of pure water erupted from the lake, surging towards the crystal user. She reacted instantly, a new, thicker wall of glittering purple crystal rising to meet the assault. In that exact moment, as her focus was entirely on the massive jutsu before her, the attack came from below.
Two pairs of strong hands erupted from the water, their fingers digging into her ankles with a crushing grip. Before she could even register the surprise, two more clones surfaced on either side of her, swinging their oversized kanabos in a brutal, synchronized pincer attack.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
The sound of wood and iron on crystal armor was sickening. The force of the blows staggered her, and then a final clone surfaced directly in front of her, a swirling bright grinding chakra in his palm. The Rasengan slammed into her stomach.
WHUMP!
A strangled grunt was forced from her lips as she was blasted backwards, sent flying horizontally across the water's surface, her armor now a spiderweb of deep, critical fractures. But she was still conscious, still fighting. In mid-air, a jagged blade of crystal grew from her forearm, and she twisted, preparing to counterattack.
She never got the chance.
A high-pitched, grinding shriek filled the air as a living meteor of grinding lightning intercepted her. Hinata, wreathed in her Raikō Kaiten, collided with the airborne woman.
KSHHH-KRAAAACK!
The sound was deafening. The crystal user's armor cracked and then exploded outwards in a shower of glittering purple dust, the last of her defenses annihilated. She coughed, a spray of blood and spittle flying from her lips, but her eyes, wide with a mixture of pain and furious disbelief, were still focused. She brought her crystal blade around in a desperate, last-ditch slash.
Hinata's own arm blurred, a sleek, black blade of symbiotic biomass extending to meet the attack.
CLANG-SHATTER!
The symbiote blade, harder than any forged steel, shattered the crystal weapon into a thousand glittering shards. A strangled grunt of pure agony was ripped from the woman's throat.
It's not enough, Hinata's mind, a cold fusion with Venom's logic, concluded. Pain will not stop her. This ends now.
They were still airborne, suspended for a fraction of a second in the chaotic aftermath of their collision. Hinata moved. She appeared directly in front of the woman, her towering, armored form eclipsing the sky, casting her in a deep shadow. Her symbiote blade retracted. In its place, a dozen sleek, black, and unnervingly fluid tendrils erupted from her back, fanning out like a grotesque corona.
The crystal user's eyes widened in a pure shock.
Then, the assault began. It was not a storm of blows. It was a series of precise, targeted strikes. Hinata's own chakra-wreathed fingertips and the tips of the writhing tendrils moved with a surgeon's grace, not jabbing or piercing, but tapping, brushing, and tracing lines across the woman's body. They weren't targeting tenketsu points. They were targeting nerve clusters, erogenous zones, the hidden architecture of pleasure that Anko had so clinically mapped out for her.
The woman's body seized, a surprised, involuntary moan of pure pleasure escaping her lips. "Nnngh…!"
Then the final barrage hit, a rapid, percussive series of taps across her stomach and the sensitive insides of her thighs. The sensation was too much, a cataclysmic neurological overload that sent a jolt of pure, agonizing ecstasy through her system so powerful she nearly bit through her own tongue.
She hit the water, but landed on her feet, the impact sending up a huge splash. She stood there, shuddering violently, her legs quivering and barely supporting her weight. One hand clutched at her chest, the other pressed desperately against her thigh as if trying to physically contain the waves of sensation that were still wracking her body. Her head was thrown back, and a series of long, strangled moans escaped her throat.
Finally, she managed to get her eyes open, to focus on the armored monster who now stood calmly on the water before her.
"What… Nnngh… what the hell… Ahhh!… did you do… to me?!" her voice was a ragged, broken thing, each word a desperate battle against the tide of bliss that was trying to drown her.
Hinata watched the woman from a distance. It was surprising. The neurological assault she had delivered should have been a complete system shutdown, a total incapacitation. For the crystal user to still be conscious, even barely, spoke of a will, or a tolerance, that was impressive. But her guard was shattered. The fight was over.
With a series of wet, splashing sounds, Naruto and his clones landed on the water around her, their initial aggressive postures immediately faltering as they took in the scene. He stared at the quivering woman, then at the still-faintly-writhing tendrils that were receding back into Hinata's armor. A deep blush spread across his face.
"Uh… Hinata-chan?" he asked, his voice a deeply awkward squeak. "Did… did you just use some kind of… tentacle hentai jutsu on her?" The clones around him all mirrored his blush, some looking away in secondhand embarrassment.
From across the water, the crystal user managed to force out a single, strangled grunt of humiliated rage. "Ngh… Bastard…!"
Hinata felt a surge of heat rush to her own cheeks, thankfully her helmet hid her expression. "We finish this. Now." Her voice was a low, commanding rumble, instantly snapping Naruto and his clones back to a state of serious professional focus. The woman was a cornered animal, but the fight was…
A pillar of violent, purple chakra erupted from the western shore, so immense and raw the sheer pressure of it was staggering. Hinata, Naruto, and the crystal user all snapped their heads in its direction simultaneously. Hinata's Byakugan flared, her vision piercing the distance. It was the boy, his small body floating in the air, wreathed in that chaotic energy. She saw it then, multiple foreign objects, small things deep within his chakra network, forcing it into a catastrophic, runaway overload.
"YŪKIMARU!" the crystal user screamed, her own agony forgotten in a new wave of panic.
The boy's erupting chakra was even more violent than before, a psychic scream that tore through the air.
"What the hell is going on over there?!" Shizune's voice shrieked over the comms.
The very ground beneath the lake began to tremble, a low, grinding groan that vibrated up through the soles of their feet. Hinata's vision plunged into the depths. The Three-Tails was awake. And it was rising. Fast.
"SEALING TEAM, GET OUT OF THERE! NOW!" she roared into her comms.
It was too late.
With a cataclysmic surge, the giant, armored body of the Three-Tails burst from the surface of the lake, sending a spray of water into the sky. The massive, glowing ring of the sealing array was caught on its head like a broken crown. The beast let out a guttural, world-shaking roar and shook its massive head violently. The sealing array, held by the four straining kunoichi, shattered into a million points of fading blue light. Its three long, armored tails thrashed wildly in the air before one of them slammed down onto the water's surface, aimed directly at their position.
A moving cliff of dark, churning water rose from the impact point and surged towards them. Naruto and Hinata leaped instantly, launching themselves high into the air as the crystal user hastily formed a jagged wall of crystal to shield herself.
While airborne, Naruto's voice was a desperate shout. "We gotta save Sakura-chan and the others! They're in danger!"
"Agreed."
They separated in mid-air, their paths diverging as they shot towards the two opposite sides of the colossal, enraged beast.
A blur of motion. Hinata saw the beast's colossal, reptilian head turn, its single, hate-filled eye fixing on the small, frozen figure of Karin on the water. Its gigantic maw began to open, a cavern of death.
There was no time to think.
Her right arm flowed, the midnight-blue armor melting and reforming into a sleek, biological cannon, intricate silver lines glowing along its length. "Raikōhō! (Lightning Cannon!)"
ZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
A continuous, brilliant beam of white-hot lightning erupted from the cannon's muzzle, slamming into the side of the Three-Tails' face. The attack didn't pierce its thick, armored hide, but the sheer kinetic force and blinding light made the monster jerk its head away with a guttural roar, shielding its eye.
The moment was enough. Karin snapped out of her shock, gave Hinata a desperate, grateful nod, and began sprinting across the water towards the relative safety of the western shore. Hinata didn't let up. She began to run in a wide, sweeping arc, her feet barely touching the churning water, the lightning cannon still spitting its incandescent fury, constantly annoying and distracting, in order to keep the beast's attention pinned.
"What the hell is going on?!" Sakura's voice screamed over the comms as she ran south.
"The kid woke it up again!" Naruto's voice shot back.
Through her Byakugan, Hinata saw him, a small orange figure on the far side of the beast. He formed a massive, grinding Rasengan in his hand and slammed it into one of the beast's thrashing tails, the impact creating a massive splash and forcing the appendage away from Shizune and Ino.
But the beast was a whirlwind of chaotic destruction. Its three colossal tails thrashed behind it, in furious tantrum. Two of them slammed into the water where Naruto and the others had been, sending up plumes of water hundreds of feet high.
"NARUTO!" Hinata's voice was a sharp crack of alarm.
"He's been hit!" Shizune's voice was a panicked shriek.
A dreadful, gut-wrenching moment of silence, then Naruto's strained voice came through. "I'm okay! Ugh… It sent me flying! I'm still… flying…!"
The annoyed Three-Tails turned its attention back to the center of the lake, its rage building. A swirling, grinding vortex of water and chakra began to form at its mouth, a horrifyingly familiar shape. Another Tailed Beast Ball.
Hinata's arm cannon morphed, growing larger, glowing with an internal heat. She poured her chakra into it, cultivating a sphere of pure plasma. "Kōseiton! (Stellar Release!)" she roared, launching the projectile. The softball-sized plasma shot across the water and slammed directly into the Tailed Beast's forming attack.
FWOOM-BOOOOOOOM!
The premature detonation was catastrophic. The Tailed Beast Ball exploded in its own face in a massive, concussive blast of steam and raw energy. The monster let out a howl of pure, world-shaking agony and began to thrash violently, its tails and limbs moving erratically, sending new, mountainous waves surging across the lake that forced Hinata to leap high to evade them. The comms erupted in a cacophony of shouts, the distant, tinny voices of Kakashi's squad now audible, yelling for a status report.
The Three-Tails' single, hate-filled eye found her again.
Ah, Venom's voice was a pleased rumble. It appears we have successfully pissed it off.
The beast rose higher in the water, raising one of its colossal forelimbs, and then brought it down with a speed that defied its immense mass, aiming to crush her into the lakebed. Hinata launched herself into the air, dodging the blow. In that split second of weightlessness, she saw it, a mountain of armored flesh and shell, one of the beast's tails, swinging towards her with frightening speed.
There was no room to dodge.
Instinct took over. The black biomass of the symbiote flowed over her armor, and a half-dozen small, snarling Venom-like faces erupted from her shoulders and back, spitting short, sharp jets of white-hot fire. The sudden thrust sent her lurching sideways in mid-air, and the tail passed by with a deep heavy sound, the wind from its passage nearly tearing her from the sky. Great, leathery wings erupted from her back, catching the air with a powerful flap that sent her soaring forward, circling around the beast's flank towards the eastern side of the lake.
The monster's body was slow to turn, but its tails were not. They were nimble, terrifyingly fast. Three giant pillars of mass lunged at her, their movements crossing and weaving in an attempt to swat her from the air. She banked hard, her symbiotic thrusters firing in staccato bursts as she weaved and dodged. Her mind was a running in a high-speed, her Byakugan scanning in 360 degrees, tracking the trajectory of the tails, the chaotic currents of the wind, her own momentum. The sheer volume of the tails as they whipped past created violent, invisible walls of wind that threatened to send her tumbling.
She flew northeast, the beast's rage following her.
"Its rampage is too chaotic! We can't evacuate!" Shizune's voice was a desperate cry over the comms.
Hinata saw it then. The beast, its attention still fixed on her, had begun to form another Tailed Beast Ball. If it fired now, and even if it missed her, the blast could easily hit the others. She angled her flight, her arm cannon forming once more. Another sphere of plasma shot from the muzzle, another perfect hit on the forming attack.
BOOM!
The shockwave hit her full-force this time. Her flight destabilized, her wings struggling to find purchase in the turbulent air. The three tails were on her in an instant. She twisted, her thrusters firing wildly, dodging the first. The second whipped past, its wake sending her into an uncontrolled spin. She was a falling leaf in a hurricane. And the third was already there.
There was a sound like a cannonball hitting a wall. A mountain of armored flesh and shell connected with her entire body. The force was absolute. Her world became a silent, screaming blur of blue and green as she was launched, like a projectile, away from the lake, away from the battle, and deep into the dark, waiting trees of the forest.
The impact sent Naruto tumbling through the forest like a ragdoll. Trees shattered around him, their trunks exploding into showers of splinters as he slammed through them. But his body, enhanced by the raw, vibrant power of nature, absorbed the catastrophic impacts. He twisted in mid-air, using the final tree as a braking point, and landed on the damp forest floor in a low crouch, surprisingly intact. A few deep, steaming breaths, and he was ready. His eyes, glowing orange, scanned the woods. He felt it then, a familiar, hostile presence, and before he could even stand, the world around him was consumed by a glittering, purple light. A cage of solid crystal erupted from the ground, encasing him completely.
Guren appeared from behind a tree, one hand held up in a practiced seal, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She looked at the crystalline prison, a grim satisfaction on her face. One down, she thought, her mind racing. That annoying bastard is dealt with. The information from that person, had been accurate. He had warned her about the Konoha team, their numbers, their approach. Now she just had to get back to Yūkimaru, complete Lord Orochimaru's orders, and then… then she would find that tall, armored bitch. The humiliation of that strange, pleasure-inducing attack burned hotter than any wound. She would shatter that monster.
KRAK-BOOM!
Her thoughts were cut short as her perfect prison exploded outwards in a shower of glittering dust. Naruto stood in the center, a low growl rumbling in his chest. In the next instant, he was gone, replaced by a hundred identical orange blurs that fanned out through the trees, their hands already moving. A volley of kunai, each with a small, sputtering paper tag attached, rained down on her position.
Guren dodged, her movements sharp and desperate, but the explosions forced her into the open, leaping from branch to branch. The air around her filled with a high-pitched, tearing sound as a machine-gun barrage of air bullets shredded the foliage, splintering the trees she used for cover. There was no room to breathe, no time to think. She was being herded. Suddenly, a shadow fell over her.
She looked up. There was nowhere left to go. The air was thick with a new volley, this one a mix of air bullets and small, hissing fire pellets. With no other choice, she crossed her arms, and two thick, jagged blades of purple crystal grew from her forearms, forming a defensive X just as the attack from above slammed into her.
CLANG!
The force of the impact drove her down, her legs buckling, nearly giving way. She looked up and saw him. The blonde, his real body, his oversized kanabo pressed against her crystal blades, his face a mask of cold fury. It was him. This whole time, he had been hitting her with a giant, iron-studded log.
They were locked in a stalemate, the grinding of wood and iron on crystal echoing in the quiet forest.
"Ready for a little chat?" Naruto grunted, pressing down with immense force.
"RAAAGH!" she roared back, twisting her body with a surprising nimbleness, trying to slice him open with her blades. But his movements were impossibly fast. The massive kanabo became a blur, blocking her slashes with a series of sharp, percussive CLANGS. He spun, his weapon now wreathed in a sheath of howling wind. FWOOSH-THWUMP! She brought her blades up just in time to block, but the sheer force of the blow sent her flying backwards. She landed hard, skidding to a stop, her breaths coming in ragged, painful gasps. Her chakra was running on fumes.
Naruto didn't press the attack. He just stood there, watching her. Good, he thought. Now to piss her off.
"So," he called out, his voice deceptively casual. "What's the deal? What do you and that snake-freak Orochimaru want with the Tailed Beast? And why are you torturing that kid to do it?"
It worked. He saw her flinch, her eyes widening with a fresh wave of fury.
"That is none of your business!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "It is the will of Lord Orochimaru!"
In the next instant, he was in her face again, his kanabo locked against her blades. This time, she saw them. Dozens of shadow clones had materialized in the trees all around her. She was completely surrounded.
"Looks to me like you and your Lord Orochimaru are only good at one thing," Naruto's voice was a low, dangerous growl. "Making people suffer. Especially innocent kids."
That was the final straw. All her frustration, her pain, her desperation, boiled over. "You Konoha bastards are so full of yourselves!" she screamed, her voice raw with hate. "You think because you own the Nine-Tails you can do whatever you want?!"
Naruto blinked. The sheer, unexpected venom in her voice, and the content of her words, surprised him.
She seized the moment. With a final, guttural roar, she poured the last of her reserves into a massive jutsu. The ground around her exploded as colossal pillars of purple crystal erupted from the earth, forcing Naruto to disengage, leaping back to gain distance. Several of his clones were impaled, dispelling in puffs of smoke. Guren stood in the center of the crystalline wreckage, her hands clasped together, her face a mask of pure, murderous intent as she channeled her remaining chakra into a final, devastating attack. The very air around her began to crystallize, forming the head, then the neck, then the vast, serpentine body of a massive, glittering crystal dragon.
Naruto landed lightly, sealing his kanabo away in a puff of smoke. His eyes were glowing a burning orange. He took a deep breath, the air around him beginning to shimmer as he gathered his own, far greater power.
The crystalline beast lunged.
The world was a silent blackness. Then, a jolt, a primal command that bypassed her stunned brain and shot directly into her nervous system.
WAKE. UP.
Hinata's eyes snapped open. She was still airborne, hurtling through a green and brown blur. Her her armor was intact. The subdermal Klyntar weave had done its job, dissipating the catastrophic kinetic force of the impact across her entire body. She was bruised, aching, but unbroken.
"…nata! Hinata, report! Are you alive?!" Shizune's voice was a panicked shriek in her ear.
Her wings were gone, retracted on impact. She forced a breath into her lungs. "I am operational," she broadcast, her own voice a calm, filtered monotone that surprised even herself.
"What happened with you two?!" Kakashi's voice cut in, strained and distant, punctuated by the sound of clashing metal. "We are engaging the hostile force now!"
"The sealing was interrupted!" Shizune reported frantically. "The beast is awake! The rest of the sealing team has retreated to the western shore!"
Hinata's mind, processed the variables. The beast was loose. The crystal user was a threat. The child was a trigger. And Naruto… Naruto was somewhere in that chaos. She needed to get back.
Her wings began to unfurl from her back, but Anko's voice, sharp and urgent, cut through the comms. "Dammit! A small group broke off! They're running south! We can't disengage to pursue!"
Hinata's Byakugan flared to life. Even at this distance, hurtling through the air, she saw them. A dozen of the mutants, their corrupted spiritual echoes a smear against the forest floor, had broken from the main group that Kakashi's team was now engaging. They had a significant lead. They were going to escape.
There was no time for a debate. She was the only asset in position.
"I will handle them," she declared.
Small, snarling Venom-heads erupted from her shoulders and calves, spitting jets of white fire that acted as thrusters, arresting her forward momentum and re-angling her trajectory in mid-air. She saw her targets, a panicked, fleeing mob. Her tactical display highlighted the largest of the group, a hulking brute with a larger chakra signature than the others. That was the anchor. She began to spin.
Her form blurred, her wings and thrusters working in together to create a tight, controlled rotation that grew faster and faster until she was no longer a person, but a living comet of destruction. She shot through the trees, a guided projectile of incinerating force.
FWOOSH-CRUNCH!
She collided with the large mutant. The sound was a wet thump as her spinning form tore him in half. She didn't stop. The spin widened, the fire from her thrusters blooming outwards. "Kaen Kaiten! (Blazing Vortex!)" She became a blazing vortex of white fire that slammed into the center of the panicked group. The mutants who were caught off guard were instantly incinerated. Two of the stupider ones actually tried to attack her spinning form, their crude weapons melting on contact before the sheer kinetic force of the spin sent their burning bodies flying.
SZZZZZLE!
The spin began to slow. But the attack was just beginning.
As her rotation ceased, her body exploded outwards. A dozen sleek, black tendrils erupted from her back, each one tipped with a different, nightmarish weapon: a long, straight blade, curving scythe, a heavy, spiked mace. Her armor, pulsed with the fiery orange glow of her Katon: Jōka no Hagoromo (Fire Release: Robe of Purification). She was a moving slaughter.
"Hakke Hyaku Nijūhachi Shō: Mugen Ranbu! (Eight Trigrams 128 Palms: Infinite Wild Dance!)"
She became a blur. Small, symbiotic appendages erupted from her ankles and elbows, allowing her to push off empty air, to change direction at impossible, right-angles, her momentum a weapon she could redirect at will. A hulking, four-armed mutant charged her, its fists like hammers. She didn't meet the force. She flowed under its attack, a scythe-tipped tendril severing all four of its arms at the elbow in a single, fluid motion before her armored fist caved in its chest. CRUNCH!
Another, a lithe, whip-like creature, tried to outmaneuver her. She was faster. She appeared before it, her movements a liquid dance of death, a whirlwind of blades and fists that sliced it into a dozen pieces before its body even hit the ground.
Then, she felt it. A high-frequency shriek that bypassed her armor's sound dampening and lanced directly into her skull, a spike of pure, white-hot agony. Venom roared in her mind, screaming in pain.
A mutant with a grotesquely twisted, bat-like face was perched on a high branch, its mouth open in an unnatural O, emitting the sonic assault.
The pain was intense, but they had prepared for this.
Venom retracted, the black biomass flowing inwards, reconfiguring itself, hardening into a dense, internal buffer around her skull and inside her armor, which had been forged with an alloy designed for this very purpose. The symbiote then began to vibrate at a precise, counter-frequency, turning the agonizing shriek into a tolerable, throbbing hum.
She didn't have time for a precision strike. She raised both hands, unleashing a wide-angle torrent of fire that engulfed the entire treetop. The shriek cut off abruptly. Before the burning creature could even fall, she was there. Its head, separated from its body by a single, clean slice, tumbled from the fire.
It was the last one.
"Splinter group has been neutralized," she broadcast, her voice calm and even.
The sounds of battle still crackled over the comms, the distant shouts of Tenten and Lee, the guttural growls of Kiba.
"I am returning to the lake. There is still a hostile there."
"Acknowledged, Hinata," Kakashi's voice came back, punctuated by the chirp of his Raikiri. "We're finishing up here."
She landed with a heavy impact that sent a tremor through the forest floor. The bodies of the mutants were scattered around her, broken and silent. Hinata stood for a moment, the adrenaline of the fight draining away, leaving a deep, hollow ache in its place. She had expended a significant amount of chakra. The initial bombardment, the fight with a Crystal user, the desperate evasions against the Three-Tails, and the final, brutal slaughter of this splinter group. She needed to refuel.
Her helmeted gaze swept the area, a full 360-degree scan confirming what her senses already told her: she was alone. The others were far away, still engaged. The dead mutants, their curse marks now inert, still held a lingering reserve of chakra, a chaotic, tainted energy that was slowly bleeding back into the earth. It would be enough.
She approached the body of the large, bat-faced mutant. Kneeling, she placed her gauntleted fingertips on its chest, the black biomass of the symbiote rippling out to make contact. "Jūken-Hō: Kyūketsu Tenketsu. (Gentle Fist Art: Vampiric Pressure Point.)"
Instantly, she felt it, a reverse flow. Tainted, chaotic chakra began to pour from the corpse into her own network.
Impure, Venom's voice was a clinical warning in her mind. The curse mark's taint is a corrupting agent. It must be filtered before assimilation.
As if on cue, the black biomass on Hinata's armored back writhed and grew, forming a complex, grotesque array of thick, chitinous tubes that pulsed with a faint light. As the corrupted chakra flowed into her, these tubes began to vent a filtered-out impurities being expelled back into the atmosphere. This was a new, strange, and deeply secret part of her evolution. It had started after her eyes changed colors, a subtle shift in her Jūken. A light touch didn't just disable an opponent anymore, it sometimes stole a fraction of their strength, a whisper of their chakra. Venom had explained it was a natural evolution of their symbiosis, an awakening of a dormant aspect within her own bloodline. She hadn't told anyone. It was a weapon she was keeping in reserve, something she would perhaps, one day, explain only to Naruto.
The process was fast. In under a minute, the corpse was a dry husk, and she could feel her own reserves topped off, the hollow ache replaced by a vibrant power.
She stood, her legs tensing. Chakra flooded her muscles, the symbiote's biomass rippling just beneath her armor. With a sound like a small explosion, BOOM, she launched herself into the air, a powerful leap that sent her soaring above the canopy. In mid-air, her wings unfurled, catching the wind with a powerful flap that sent her gliding eastward, back towards the lake.
She moved in a series of powerful, gliding leaps, covering the vast distance with a speed that would have been impossible on the ground. The fight with the Three-Tails' had taken time, and she knew she was needed. We need more flight training, she thought to the Venom. Being hit like that was… not good.
She approached the lake from the southeast, and even from miles away, the sight of the Three-Tails was staggering. A living mountain floating on the water's surface. She had no intention of re-engaging it alone. She banked hard, circling south, using the dense forest as cover to approach the western shore.
It didn't take long to find them. Her Byakugan picked up two familiar chakra signatures huddled in the woods near the southwestern edge of the lake. "Sakura, Karin, I have your position," she broadcast.
"Hinata! Thank God!" Sakura's voice was a relieved gasp over the comms. "We're here!"
Hinata landed silently beside them. Karin rushed forward, her face a mask of pure relief. "Hinata-sama! You're alright!"
"Report," Hinata commanded, her voice calm.
"Ino and Shizune-san retreated north of us after the seal broke," Sakura explained quickly. "We were supposed to rendezvous."
"Shizune-san, Ino, report your status," Hinata said into her comms.
A moment of static, then Shizune's voice came through. "We're on the western edge of the forest. We are safe for now."
Hinata's vision swept north, and she found them, two steady points of light in the trees. And near them… another, smaller signature. "I have your position. The child is near you."
"Acknowledged," Shizune replied.
"Naruto, status report," Hinata said, a note of worry creeping into her filtered voice.
His voice came back, crackling with static and the distant sound of explosions. "—ighting her now!——uation under——trol!—"
Hinata pushed her Byakugan to its limit, searching. She found him. A massive, chaotic release of Naruto's ambient-energy-enhanced chakra, far to the northwest, almost on the other side of the lake. The Three-Tails' attack must have thrown him even farther than she'd thought. She could see it, a whirlwind of clones, flashes of crystal, the two of them locked in a desperate, running battle. But he was winning. The crystal user's chakra was flickering, on the verge of complete depletion. Good.
She tried to expand her search, to find the other group of mutants, but it was no use. The Three-Tails had once again saturated the entire region with its ambient chakra, a dense, shimmering fog that drowned out any other faint spiritual traces.
"The area is saturated again," she reported. Karin nodded, confirming she felt the same oppressive static. "We need to regroup. Let's move."
They ran, three kunoichi moving as one through the ravaged forest. They found Shizune and Ino kneeling beside the small, trembling form of the boy. The medical-nins didn't even look up as they arrived, their hands already glowing with green chakra, running diagnostics. Sakura immediately joined them.
Hinata stood a short distance away, finally getting a clear look at the child. He had long, pale blonde hair and wide, terrified purplish eyes. He couldn't have been much older than Hanabi. His clothes were torn, and he was shivering uncontrollably.
"What's your name?" Ino asked gently.
"Y-Yūkimaru," the boy whispered.
Hinata could hear the medics murmuring to each other. "…chakra system is severely strained…", "…complete exhaustion…", "…surprisingly, he's stable. No permanent damage yet."
A new voice crackled over the comms. It was Kakashi. "All hostile mutants have been neutralized. My squad is returning to the lake's perimeter."
"We have the child," Shizune reported back immediately. "His condition is stable. We're on the western side of the forest, but we need to maintain a wide perimeter. The Tailed Beast is still active."
Then, Naruto's voice, clearer now, but still strained. "—just about… done here!—"