Behind the Waterfall

#63 Meanwhile

The sight of Fuu brought tears to his eyes, the teen having held his emotions in check for the whole fight. Watching the girl lay there, blood still flowing from her open wounds, hurt him in ways that he couldn't have imagined. There were not many things he held close to himself, but the few people that were important to him, definitely seemed to be his weak point. His clone looked at him with a stern face, nodding grimly before dispelling, transferring his information back to the original.

The blonde sighed in relief as he realized that, despite the amount of blood that the girl had lost, her condition was stable according to Chomei who was continuously pouring chakra into her system to speed up her healing process. With that reassurance he could see that her wounds, although many, were already fewer than she had had when his clone had taken her away from the battlefield.

Closing his eyes, he pushed a bit of his chakra into Fuu's system.

A moment later he opened his eyes to a swampy background. He knew that he wouldn't find Fuu herself in here, the girl's consciousness having retreated back into her subconscious while in the coma. Naruto was looking for Chomei.

The giant insect came into view from the skies as if she had heard his thoughts.

"What is it, Naruto?" It asked, her wings folding back as she landed in front of him.

"How is she? Any updates?" The blonde asked, his voice silent as he let his worries come to the front.

"Not really, her injuries were severe but are healing, I don't know when she will wake up." Chomei replied. Naruto wasn't sure if he had heard the accusatory tone or if he had imagined it, but it was only right since he was accusing himself as well.

"I see it in your eyes. Don't beat yourself up over this. It was a battle situation and both of you did everything right. That man was too quick for Fuu to react. There was nothing you two could have done." The bijuu said, it's voice softening.

"I should have protected her." Naruto murmured more to himself as to the insect.

"And what would that have brought you? You both would have gotten injured. Or you would not have hit your target. Either way protecting her means that the chances of you standing here would have been drastically lowered." It responded, anger rising in her voice again.

"I know. I just can't help but feel as if this is my fault." Naruto stated, sitting down.

"It isn't."

Naruto was about to say something when he felt his clones destroy themselves. Closing his eyes he quickly sorted through the memories they had transferred to him.

The sanin had left the fight between Naruto and Pain even before Fuu got injured. He retreated back to Konoha where another front had opened up, finding a mass of paper everywhere and bloodied corpses of his shinobi with cuts all around their bodies.

"The Angel is with them." Someone muttered, lying broken and bleeding in the streets. Medics were rushing around, Tsunade's apprentice expertly using her units to save the most people.

Following the screams Jiraiya had found the current battle and was stunned. In front and over his shinobi hovered a woman with blue hair and the same coat as Madara and the group of six they had summoned. On her back were two wings out of paper, slowing beating the air to hold her afloat.

Paper floated around her firing attacks and blocking jutsu.

"Konan!" The sannin screamed, the woman's eyes widening a bit as she quickly found him in the streets and stared at him.

"Hello sensei." She greeted, her paper still blocking attacks as she floated in his direction.

"Why are you doing this? Yahiko as well." The white haired man asked, giving the shinobi a sign to get away from the battle site.

"We have no choice, for our dream of peace to come to reality we need the tailed beasts. And you would not have given up yours." Konan replied, landing in front of him.

"Why would you need to bijuu for peace? If you want to use them to force peace, that will never work. There will always be people that rebel against you if you force them into a position." Jiraiya countered, slightly lowering his kunai.

"We don't want to force the people into anything. We will give them their dreams and they will come voluntarily." The blue haired woman stated.

"How will you give them their dreams?" Jiraiya asked, trying to make sense of her words.

"Madara told us about the Infinite Tsukuyomi and how we can use the bijuu to make him almost a god. Then he will use the moon as a reflection to put every person in the shinobi lands under his jutsu." Konan said smiling.

"You realize that there is no guarantee that Madara will actually do that? Even if he does, what if someone isn't looking at the moon while he does it?" Konan's smile faltered. There was an explosion of chakra from where Naruto was fighting and several smaller ones where Hiruzen and Tsunade had gone, but Jiraiya knew that there was nothing he could do to help them.

"We will accomplish our dream." The sanin knew that there was little to no chance that this would actually happen.

"You know I can not let you do this. I can not let you take Naruto and Fuu." He raised his kunai again.

"I have learned a lot since you last saw me." Konan replied, raising her arms a bit as she started levitating again, her wings starting to beat again.

A second explosion from Naruto's position and Konan tilted her head, as if she was hearing something.

"I am sorry sensei. I have to leave." She said, her voice showing emotions that the sanin couldn't quite place. With those words she vanished, not waiting for a response from Jiraiya.

Hiruzen seemed to have a lot more trouble, Tsunade and himself had managed to separate Madara and Danzo, but the old warhawk didn't want to stay dead, five times the man had been killed and five times his body shimmered out of existence as he reappeared a few meters away in safety.

He felt the clone from Naruto disappear, his disappearance reminding him of how easily Madara had been to shake. He still felt the chakra signatures of all of his Anbu so they were still fighting him, and apparently they managed to keep up with him.

There was a small break for the old man as Tsunade landed a crushing punch, the traitorous shinobi slumping to the ground, dead.

A few moments later, the body shimmered away again, Danzo appearing behind it with a pained expression.

Then his eyes widened as Naruto landed next to Hiruzen.

Hiya Dragons,

That is it for todays chapter. As always thanks for reading. No dedication this time.

I don't really have a question for this one. So just tell me what you thought about the chapter and if you want to see anything in particular.

Anyways, that is it.

Take care and stay safe,

Peace,

Gleam-eyes