Danzo

Author's Note

This chapter was one that was really experimental. A lot of character interaction, a lot of emotions. Let me know where I could improve it, any input is welcome.

--------------------------------------------------------------I activated Sage mode but didn't let the cloak go over me, only changing my eyes into slits. Using my sensory capabilities, I quickly found where Danzo was. He had a Root base on the outskirts of the village. There was a large concentration of Root ninjas inside of the base. Checking everyone's location, I could see Pain was heading towards the Hokage Tower, while Hinata was moving towards the hospital.

'She probably saw Pain and is trying to get her old team out. I'll keep Sage mode active, if Pain lifts off the ground at all I teleport to Hinata and get her and whoever is near her out of the radius.'

I quickly made my way over to where the base was located. I could sense different seals put around the base for detection, but without time I wouldn't be able to deactivate them. They were set to detect chakra signatures that passed through it, though, so I threw a Flying Raijin kunai through the barrier and teleported to it.

I then formed the hand signs I got from Orochimaru's memories, using the Meisaigakure(Hiding with Camoflage) Jutsu. My form shifted, becoming invisible as light shifted around me. I then walked towards the entrance to the base, controlling my body to make sure I made no noise and controlled my breathing. Walking up the wall, I walked along the ceiling, avoiding sentries that were posted on the ceiling as well.

Eventually I got to the deepest parts of the base, ending up near a large door with five guards posted outside of it.

'Too bad I can't shift into water, could've snuck under the door. Looks like I'm going to have to just tear my way through.'

I made a shadow clone that was using the Meisaigakure Jutsu and reared my fist back, sending a Hiken composed of Amaterasu flames towards the group of guards, taking them by surprise as I became visible. They couldn't move fast enough as the flames tore through them, killing them and destroying the door. I walked through it while my clone stayed invisible and moved along the roof.

"Hello Danzo" I said as I walked through the door to find Danzo sitting on somewhat of a throne.

"Sasuke Uchiha, the traitor returns" Danzo replied, staying seated.

"I thought I'd come and see what you had to say about ordering the extermination of my clan" I said, keeping Danzo's attention on me while my clone moved along the ceiling to get positioned behind Danzo.

"So you found out the truth then. I'll assume Itachi is dead. I should've taken care of your clan myself, instead of letting Itachi do it in exchange for your survival." Danzo said.

My clone was positioned behind Danzo now.

"You know Danzo..." I began and while I was mid sentence my clone moved, cutting off Danzo's bandaged arm before he could react.

"NO" Danzo yelled as his lone visible eye widened at the sight of the arm in my clones hand. Taking the arm from my clone I sealed it into my arm storage seal.

"The sharingan is the Uchiha Clan dojutsu, I'm just taking it back. I'm going to make this short, I've got somewhere to be." Activating my Lightning Cloak, I dashed across the room to Danzo, who reacted by pulling his bandages off from his eye, but I closed mine, relying on the senses provided by Sage mode to attack Danzo, piercing my hand through his head.

I could sense Danzo disappear from in front of me and appear on the other side of the room.

My clone attacked him again, pulling out bone swords that he used to cut Danzo in half, resulting in him appearing on the other side of the room.

'I just have to continue pressuring Danzo until the 60 seconds are up and he's dead.' Forming one more clone, I had it go to the entrance where Root ninja were gathering and deal with them.

For the next minute my clone and I continued to assault Danzo, not giving him a chance to get an attack off. He was a decently strong shinobi, but I completely outclassed him in speed, so every time he reappeared, my clone or I would kill him immediately. Maybe if he was younger he would be able to get some attack off, but I doubted it. The Root ninja were no trouble, even a clone of me could deal with their number with ease.

Eventually Danzo's time ran down and Shisui's sharingan closed, showing that Izanagi was deactivated. Not wasting any time, I killed Danzo for the last time, ending the village elder.

'Izanagi is such an annoying stall tactic.'

Checking the situation above with Sage mode, I could see that Pain was talking with Tsunade. I wasn't sure how long their conversation had been going on, but I knew it would be over soon.

I teleported to my mark on Hinata, appearing outside of the village to find Kiba, Shino, and Hanabi looking at Hinata with various expressions. Hanabi's stood out to be as one of anger, while Kiba seemed disappointed and Shino's was hard to read.

"Now what's going on here?"

--------------------------------------------------------------Hinata POV

Arriving at the hospital, I ran inside. Some people called out to be asking if I needed healing, but I ignored them, instead heading directly to where Hanabi and Team 8 was. They were in a hospital room a little ways in.

Opening the door, I walked inside. Hanabi was awake now, with Kiba, Shino and her talking to each other.

"Hinata, what are you doing here?" Kiba asked.

"I'm here to get you guys out of the village. Pain's about to use a large scale attack, you need to get out of the radius." I said.

"Tch, and why exactly should we believe the traitor" Hanabi said.

"Because I'm still your sister and I don't want you to die."

'Why is Hanabi this abrasive? I didn't think she would be this bad just because I left.'

"What's gotten into you Hanabi? You didn't used to be like this."

"What's gotten into me? You decided to up and desert the village. You left everyone behind. Me, father, Kiba, Shino, Kurenai. Did you even think about how any of us would feel?"

"I didn't think you would take it this hard." I said, shocked at how angry Hanabi was. She sounded mad at me before, but this was a new level of anger.

"No, you just didn't think. Sasuke gave you a little confidence and you decided you didn't need us anymore."

"I didn't think that." I protested.

"Then what did you think when you left?" Hanabi asked.

I sighed. "I just needed to do something for once. I wanted to improve, get more confident, and I wasn't going to do that in the village. Everyone saw me as a meek girl who couldn't stand up for herself, and I was. I needed to get out of the village, so I could grow."

Hanabi sneered. "So what, it was some self-improvement journey? I don't care, I'm not leaving this village. Unlike you, I'm loyal to my village and I'll fight to protect it."

I wasn't sure what to do. I could just knock Hanabi out again and try to take her with me, but if I did that I don't think there's any chance we'd ever get along again.

"Hinata, why don't we tell everyone here so they can evacuate." Kiba suggested.

It wasn't that I hadn't though of it, it just would take longer than escaping with just Team 8. I didn't want to risk Pain using his attack before I could get them out, but now there was no way they were leaving.

"Alright, let's go."

Kiba, Shino, and I walked towards the door, while Hanabi stayed where she was.

"Come on Hanabi. Don't let your issues with your sister let more people get killed." Kiba said.

Hanabi hesitated and then nodded, following after us as we all walked out of the door. We split up, Hanabi and Shino going their own ways while I stayed with Kiba. Since I was a missing-nin, I needed someone to go with me.

We rushed through the hospital, getting everyone to try to evacuate. Some people needed help being carried, so I formed clones to assist with that.

A large group formed on the outskirts of the city as more and more people were evacuated.

Eventually everyone from the hospital got out and we regrouped with Team 8.

"What do you think of me Kiba?" I asked as the two of us walked towards Shino and Hanabi.

"Did you know I was on the mission to bring Sasuke back?" Kiba asked.

"Yeah, he told me."

"The six of us, we put our lives on the line fighting to bring Sasuke back. We fought people who were above our level, people who could potentially fight Jonin. Some of us almost died. We went through all of that, just for you to not even fight to bring him back and instead leave with him. That hurt Hinata, and I don't think any of us are going to get over it anytime soon."

At this point we reached Hanabi and Shino.

"Hanabi, I know I hurt you. I should've thought more about how my actions would impact everyone around me." I said, trying to apologize.

"An apology isn't just going to fix everything."

"Then what do you want?"

"Nothing. I'm done with you." Hanabi said.

Looking at Kiba and Shino, they moved to stand behind her.

"You're actions hurt the people around you Hinata. You can't expect us to get over that right away." Shino spoke, for the first time since I had come back.

"We're not Naruto and Sakura, Hinata. They want to bring Sasuke back to the village, to be Team 7 again. We're different, we moved on. We grew from it, instead of holding on to the past." Kiba said.

Looking at the new Team 8, I felt a sense of loss. I wanted to come back to the village to see how everyone was doing, but it looks like they don't want me to come back.

It was at this point that Sasuke appeared in a flash next to me.

"Now what's going on here?" He asked.

--------------------------------------------------------------POV Sasuke

"You" Hanabi roared and rushed towards me, jabbing at me with Gentle Fist. I dodged her palms, while Hinata stood to the side, looking lost.

"Hinata you alright?" I asked.

"No, but we can talk about it later. Did you finish up with the old man?" Hinata asked, but I'd known her long enough to know she was hurting and trying to hide it.

"Yeah, I see you got everyone out before Pain could..." I said, but was cut off as a giant explosion of force washed over the village, creating waves of wind pressure towards us, blowing everyone's clothes around. Dust was all throughout the air, causing some people to cough as the air quality dropped.

Gasps were heard all around us as people looked at what was left of Konoha. Most of the village was destroyed, with a giant crater sitting in the middle of where it used to be. The Hokage Monument had made it out intact.

Looking at Team 8, I could see their eyes wide at the amount of destruction.

"How could one man do this?" Kiba asked.

'The Rinnegan gives someone immense power. It won't be that much longer now, everything is coming together. Pretty much all the preparation is done, I just need the Fourth War to start.'

"I think it's time we go Hinata." I said.

"What, so you're just going to appear and leave again?" Kiba asked.

"Yeah Sasuke, what was even the point of coming back if you were just going to leave when the village needs you?" Shikamaru's voice sounded as he walked out of a crowd, with the rest of the Konoha 11 besides Naruto accompanying him.

I looked at the group in front of me.

"The village doesn't need me. Naruto can handle Pain. Even if it did need me, why should I want to help it?"

"You think Naruto can beat someone who destroyed the entire village with one jutsu?" Ino asked, skeptically.

"I know Jiraiya is dead. With him gone, the toads will be looking for a new sage. I'm assuming Naruto is training with them, which means when he gets back he'll be much stronger than he was before."

"How would you know about sage training?" Sakura asked.

"The toads aren't the only ones who can train a sage." I said, activating sage mode to turn my eyes into slits.

"While an interesting development, it proves one thing. You, at the very least, have a chance to beat Pain. So why won't you?" Shikamaru asked.

"Why would I want to protect the village in the first place?"

"Sasuke, this is where you grew up. Where your family is from. And we're all here, don't you care about us at all?" Sakura asked.

"That's a loaded question now isn't it Sakura. If you're holding out some hope that I'll have a crush and want to save you like some prince charming, you might as well give it up now." I said.

"No, that's now what I'm saying. Do none of us mean anything to you at all?" Sakura asked.

'That's surprising. I thought she'd be trying to get me to save her like some 'true love' or something. Maybe my change made her grow a little.'

"I didn't even interact with the majority of you all that much. Naruto is the person out of you all I've interacted with the most and even if I wanted to protect him, he can handle himself. The rest of you don't mean all that much to me. I respect things about you: Shikamaru's intelligence, Shino's skill, Sakura's healing. That doesn't mean I have some need to protect you. As for the village, the village didn't treat me any better. You want to know the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre? The third Hokage and Danzo Shimura ordered that Itachi kill my whole clan."

"The third Hokage wouldn't do that." Lee protested.

"You all see him as the kind old man he portrayed himself as. You seem to forget he lived through three different Shinobi World Wars. He was did what he thought would present Konoha the best chance of survival, but it doesn't mean I'm going to like him or the village."

Sakura's eyes watered for a second, before she blinked and it was gone, instead being replaced with a determined expression. Her expression was mirrored by the rest of the Konoha 11.

"Fine, then from this moment, I'm done trying to bring you home Sasuke. This place clearly wasn't your home and it never was, so we're not bringing you home, we're bringing you in." Sakura said.

"If that's how it has to be. You have bigger things to worry about, like Pain coming this way." I commented. I could sense the six Pains making their way over to us.

Everyone turned around to see the group of Pains.

"If Naruto Uzumaki will not appear then we will force him to. Killing his friends will show him true Pain." The Deva Path said.

"That's our queue to leave Hinata." I said turning to look at her, but she shook her head.

"I guess I thought our return would go a little differently. Even if you don't care all that much Sasuke, I do. So I'm going to stay, at least to try to beat Pain." Hinata said.

'What did her sister and team say to her? She seems regretful, I guess the reunion didn't go all that well.'

"Okay Hinata, let's see if we can't kill Pain before Naruto even gets here. We'll just have to have some fun fighting, now won't we?"

Hinata smiled at that and nodded.

"You guys stay back, we'll handle this." Hinata said.

"This won't make us forgive you, you know." Hanabi said.

"That's fine, it doesn't mean I'll stop protecting you." Hinata said and we both turned to look at Pain, who was staring down at us.

"You have been an obstacle for long enough Sasuke Uchiha."

"And you've been an annoyance. Let's see who falls first."