A/N - HEYYY ☺️ Yeah, I know. Y'all probably mad that it took me SO LONG to come out with another chapter. Two months to be exact 👀. I was kinda taking a break from writing and I kinda still am just cause I don't know, I just haven't felt like writing for some reason. I kinda wanna relax though I really appreciate you guys' patience.

Anyway, let's not keep you waiting any longer. Please remember to comment and vote and enjoy ❤️

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Chapter 66: Hinata's Confession Of Love

Naruto was summoned by Shima along with Fukasaku, Gamabunta, Gamakichi, Gamaken and Gamahiro. They were all visibly surprised to see Konohagakure utterly destroyed. Knowing full well that Pain was responsible, Naruto confronted him.

"I am the fifth Hokage!" Tsunade hopped in front of Naruto and the toads, panting and completely out of breath.

"Lady Tsunade!" An anbu hopped over to her side.

"You trampled on the jewel," She breathed, talking to Pain. "The dreams of my predecessors! I will not forgive you!"

Tsunade then narrowed her eyes and declared, "I will settle this now as the Hokage!"

Pain seemed unfazed by her.

"It appears you now understand a little about pain," He told her. "However... My business is not with you. My business is..."

The Asura Path moved in to take her down, but Naruto intervened and smashed the pain with a rasengan to the ground, destroying it into pieces.

"With me!" Naruto finished for him, glaring daggers into his opponent's eyes.

He then ordered Gamakichi to take Tsunade to a safe place and to inform everyone not to interfere in his battle with Pain. Before beginning his battle, he revealed that after mastering senjutsu, he was able to sense chakra signatures, and inquired why he cannot sense Kakashi's, before realising that Kakashi had been killed. 

'Kakashi sensei...' He lowered his eyes before realizing something and his eyes snapped open. 'Wait! Where's Nia?! I can't feel her chakra!'

He closed his eyes and felt for her chakra. When he focused, he was able to spot it not too far from him and looked ahead oh him. Yards away, behind his opponent, he could see her as she was with Konohamaru and what looked like a member of the Hyuga clan.

He breathed a sigh of relief knowing that her and his unborn babies, along with everyone else, was safe.

Meanwhile, Nia found it tough to see through the dust clouds.

"Please, Hiro, tell me... is that Naruto out there? Is he alright?" The girl questioned the member of the Hyuga clan as he nodded.

"Yes," He answered. "It's Naruto and he just wiped out one of the Pains."

Konohamaru and Nia exchanged smiles at one another as they cheered in excitement.

"I knew Big Brother Naruto would come through for us!" The brown-haired boy raised a fist in the air.

"Isn't he just amazing?!" Nia fond over the young man as he battled the enemy.

Back at the battlefield, the Animal Path used Summoning Rinnegan to summon a giant multi-headed dog, a giant ox and a giant rhino. Naruto threw the rhino into the air and struck the other two creatures with his Sage Art: Big Ball Rasengan; the three giant toads leaped into the air to fight the summons. Confronted by Pain's Preta Path, he used Frog Kata to knock him out, using the natural energy around him to connect the blow despite the Path dodging his fist. Pain noticed that Naruto had mastered Sage Mode, just like their master Jiraiya. Naruto was shocked that Pain was Jiraiya's pupil; Pain declared that as "student siblings", they should have the same vision towards peace, involving Naruto sacrificing his life and handing over the Nine-Tails for that cause.

Naruto angrily rejected Pain's ideology, asking if Pain considered his destruction of Konoha as peaceful, and proceeded to form his Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.

The Hyūga shinobi relayed to Nia that Naruto had formed a chakra shuriken, which Nia realized as the double-edged Rasenshuriken; however, instead of thrusting the Rasenshuriken physically, Naruto threw it at the four remaining Paths.

Naruto hurled his Wind Release: Rasenshuriken at the five five Paths of Pain, who attempt to get out of its range. However, Naruto expands the Rasenshuriken at the last moment, and the attack destroys Pain's Human Path. Shortly after, Pain noticed that Naruto's senjutsu was beginning to wane. Knowing that Naruto cannot fight the remaining four due to all four sharing the same Rinnegan vision, Shima creates a dust cloud to obscure Pain's vision; Fukasaku uses his senjutsu to hurl Gamabunta in Naruto's direction, and the giant toad swallows both Naruto and Pain's Animal Path.

With the other Paths unable to see through the dust cloud and the Animal Path unable to see inside Gamabunta's mouth, Naruto uses his remaining senjutsu to form his Spiralling Serial Spheres and rams it at the Animal Path, destroying it. Gamabunta then regurgitates the destroyed Path as well as Naruto, whose Sage Mode is deactivated as he has run out of natural energy.

The Deva Path begins to attack Naruto, believing it to be an easy fight now that Naruto was not in Sage Mode. Naruto tosses his scroll to Fukasaku, who summons a Naruto shadow clone that was gathering natural energy back at Mount Myōboku. Naruto then dispels the clone and absorbs the clone's gathered senjutsu, reverting back to his Sage Mode and resuming his fight against Pain.

Fukasaku explained to Shima that since they could not fuse with him due to the Nine-Tails rejecting them, Naruto had come up with that creative, ingenious solution to circumvent Sage Mode's five minute duration. Naruto formed another Rasenshuriken and hurled it towards the Deva Path, since Katsuyu revealed to Naruto that he was unable to use any techniques at the moment. However, the technique was absorbed by Preta Path. Naruto wondered how the Preta Path was able to move, since he knocked it out with his Frog Kata, and realises that Pain's Outer Path is able to reanimate the bodies using its King of Hell technique. Knowing that his victory rests on destroying the Outer Path, Naruto formed a strategy.

He created two shadow clones and has them form a Rasengan in each of his hands, and then has the clones drop a pellet of red smoke. One of his shadow clones then transforms into the Rasenshuriken as the other clone throws it in the Deva Path's direction, knowing that the Preta Path would catch it and attempt to absorb it. The fake Rasenshuriken promptly reverted back to its shadow clone form just before the Preta Path can catch it, and since that Path's weakness was physical attacks, the Path was easily subdued. Naruto then throws the real Rasenshuriken through the red smoke towards Pain, who does not have anyone guarding his front anymore.

However, Pain has regained his abilities and proceeds to use his almighty push to repel and dissipate the attack. In spite of that, the real Naruto, who had jumped into the air through the guise of the smoke, lands on the Outer Path, using his Spiralling Serial Spheres to destroy it, surprising Gamabunta, Fukasaku and Shima.

The Naruto that attacked the Preta Path prepares to kill it, only for Pain, whose five second interval has passed, to use Shinra Tensei again to repel both Naruto and his shadow clone, as well as Gamabunta, Gamahiro and Gamaken. With the three giant toads defeated, Naruto is left to fight the two remaining Paths alone.

Fukasaku and Shima began to prepare their genjutsu so that Naruto may be able to exploit Pain's five-second intervals. The Deva Path then used its almighty pull to pull Naruto towards it as the Preta Path restrained him. Naruto's Sage Mode deactivated as the Preta Path begun to absorb his chakra. Realising that not being able to move was a good thing, Naruto took the opportunity to stand still and gather natural energy, which the Preta Path acquired. However, the Path consumed too much and turned into a frog statue, effectively being destroyed.

Irritated yet surprised that he had been pushed that far, the Deva Path used almighty pull to pull in Fukasaku and killed him; Naruto, trying to catch the toad, fell to the ground as Pain stabbed his hands with his black pole, pinning Naruto. Having trapped the jinchūriki, Pain told him that the world shall finally know true pain, after which peace shall be created. Naruto called Pain a hypocrite for preaching about peace after killing Jiraiya and Kakashi while also destroying Konohagakure.

Pain explained that he and Naruto were fighting for the very same peace that Jiraiya wanted, and that he was merely having his vengeance on Konoha for what they did to Amegakure during the Second Shinobi World War, in which Ame was treated as a battleground by the Lands of Fire, Wind and Water.

Pain stated that he lost his family and friends due to the shinobi cycle of hatred and thus understood the pain Naruto must've been feeling, and asked Naruto what approach he would take to ensure peace. Naruto recalled Jiraiya bestowing to him his wish to break the cycle of hatred and bring about peace, and responds that he did not have an answer.

Pain divulged that by acquiring the Nine-Tailed Fox, he would soon have the power of all nine tailed beasts, after which he would be able to use their power to destroy entire nations. After such destruction, the world would be frightened and inspired by that very fear to not cause wars and thus peace would be stabilised. As the years pass, eventually the fear would dissipate, after which humans would no doubt use the tailed beasts against one another, once again causing massive destruction that would spur fear and quell conflict.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru decided that they should find the real Pain as to not let Shizune's death to have been in vain, claiming that they will glean whatever they can from everyone, including dead bodies. Inoichi recalled the memory he had glimpsed inside Yūdachi's mind and remembered that Pain lived in a high tower. Realising that the real Pain must be nearby and in the highest tower near Konoha in order to control the Six Paths of Pain, they decided to locate him.

In his tower, a crippled and ill Nagato is revealed to be the true "Pain", speaking to Naruto via his Deva Path. Konan noticed Nagato coughing blood and tells him that he ought to take it easy, as he has already depleted a lot of chakra.

Team Guy, who were out on a mission, made their way back to Konoha when Neji spotted the wounded Gamabunta, recognising the toad as Jiraiya's personal summon. In the village, Hinata was able to spot the pinned Naruto with her Byakugan and recalled memories of first encountering Naruto when she was younger. Her guardian, Kō, had told her to stay away from him as she heard the villagers gossip about the Nine-Tails. However, after a group of thugs pushed her around, Naruto came to her defence. 

The sixth Pain over powered Naruto and stabbed rods into Naruto's body making it impossible to move by himself now. Pain stabbed the last rod into Naruto and broke it off.

'Pain's chakra is going inside me?' Thought Naruto as he was helpless on the ground

"You'll be coming with me now, Nine Tails..." Said Pain as his Rinnegan eyes grew larger.

Before Pain could take Naruto, He stopped and heard someone coming. The person jumped up and thrusted her hand down where Pain was. He jumped back and avoided the attack. The force of the strike made a large crater in front of Naruto. When he looked up to see who it was, he was shocked to see it was Hinata who just saved me from Pain.

'How cruel using those rods to stop Naruto's movements!' Hinata said to herself as she was looking behind her to see Naruto on the ground and turned to look at pain.

"I won't let you hurt Naruto anymore!" Hinata bravely spoke to Pain.

"Reinforcements..." The orange-haired man said slowly.

Naruto, surprised to see Hinata standing in front of him yelled, "Why did you come out here? Just run! You can't win!"

"No!" Hinata refused, "I'm just being... selfish now."

'W-What's she...' Naruto was bewildered.

"What's that mean... Hinata? Don't put yourself in danger like this, just go!"

"I'm here cause I... want to be." Hinata then paused for a moment before adding, "This time... i'm going to save you, Naruto."

Naruto's eyes slightly widened.

I... don't get it... Why is Hinata doing this? Why won't she leave before Pain-

The pinned down male's thoughts were cut short when the navy-haired kunoichi continued talking after a momentarily silence.

"I used to be such a crybaby." She began, "Always giving up before I even got a chance to start. I almost took the wrong path so many times, that I lost count... But you helped me find my way and take the correct path, Naruto. I always chased after you; wanting to catch up, wanting to walk together forever with you. You changed who I am, Naruto. Your smiling face saved me, Naruto. That's why, i'm not afraid to die here! If it means I can protect you!"

H... Hinata.. I still don't... b-but why? Naruto asked in his mind. His question was answered when Hinata finished her last sentence to him.

"Because... I love you. I always will."

A soft breeze blew as Naruto stared up at his comrade and friend in complete astonishment.

Naruto couldn't see Hinata's face but if he could, he would most likely see a smile on her face at those words.

Hinata got into a fighting stance and Pain got out one of his rods ready to finish this right now. Hinata looked back at Naruto with his head looking at the ground. She spun around and kicked and broke some of the rods and was about to do so again and she was sent flying.

"Hinata!" Yelled Naruto as he watched her be sent flying away from him.

Hinata stopped and got back up to her feet. 

'What?' She watched as Pain walked and was now standing in front of Naruto. Hinata got into another stance and gathered Chakra into her hands and was about to attack.

'I have to do something or else Naruto will be taken.' Hinata said to herself as she lunged forward with her attack. "Gentle Step: Twin Lion Fists."

Back where Nia was, she asked Hiro what was going on at the battlefield.

"Lady Hinata... she's... fighting Pain all by herself."

"What?!" Nia snapped her head at him. "What're you talking about? Where's Naruto? Wasn't he just fighting Pain?"

"Naruto's been pinned down by what looks like rods. He's unable to move. Hinata moved in to try and save him."

"No..." Tears filled the girl's eyes as she pictured Naruto being helpless and about to be captured by the enemy.

Immediately, she dashed forward, but Konohamaru and Hiro jumped at her and wrapped their arms around her, holding her back.

"No! Let go!" Nia squirmed in their arms.

"Big Sis, you can't go out there!" Konohamaru scolded. "You'll get yourself killed."

"He's right!" Hiro agreed. "Besides, you're pregnant! You have two babies inside you! You can't just go fight Pain. We won't let you."

"But Naruto... he's in danger! He could be killed if we don't go out there! Hinata's no match for the Akatsuki. She won't be able to protect my Naruto! I wanna save him! Let go!"

"You're no match for the Akatsuki either!" Konohamaru argued. "We just have to wait and see how things play out."

"But my Naruto could be killed if we don't do nothing! I'm begging you! Let go!"

Hinata crawled to get to Naruto. She was bloodied and broken, however, he determination to save him was keeping her moving.

She managed to get to her knees and clasped the bar that was pinning Naruto's hands.

"Why fight me... knowing... you'll die?" Pain questioned.

Hinata only gripped the rod tighter.

"I stand by what I say... Because... That's... my ninja way." She smiled as Naruto lifted his head to look at her.

Pain lifted his hand up and when he did, Hinata flew in the air as Naruto's eyes followed. Seconds later, Pain would shoot his hand down, crashing Hinata to the ground as Naruto watched with a shocked face. Hinata lay on the ground bloody and unable to move. Naruto watched the scene play out as he was helpless to do anything. Pain looked at him and a black rod slid out of his sleeve.

Pain lifted his arm up with the rod in hand and brought it down and stabbed Hinata in front of Naruto's very eyes. Naruto looked as Hinata bleed from the wound that Pain gave her. Pain pulled it out of Hinata and looked at Naruto.

"This is how my parents died. By Ninja of the Leaf Village." Pain said as Naruto just kept looking at Hinata as she was bleeding out. "Out of love, sacrifice is born. Hate is born... and we are able to know pain."

Naruto's eyes were wide and time seemed to stop. Inside, he was torn up and unable to comprehend what had just happened. However, before he could snap, something broke him out of his trance.

"NARUTOOOOO!" He heard a loud cry from a distance away.

His eyes immediately followed the voice to see that Nia was crying, still trying to break free from the two ninjas' grasp to try and go save him.

When he saw that Pain had heard her cry for him too, Naruto immediately panicked.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HERE, NIA!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Baby, I don't want you to die!" The girl couldn't stop crying.

Pain only turned around and saw her struggling to make her way over.

"So... he didn't finish the job..." He said lowly. "That guardian is still alive."

He raised his hand toward the girl.

"DON'T YOU DARE!" Naruto roared.

"Almighty Pull!" Pain yelled out, a sudden force pulling at Nia as the two guys holding her struggled to keep her in their grasp.

"Argh! It's so strong!" Konohamaru gritted his teeth.

"Whatever you do, don't let go of her!" Hiro demanded.

This only led to Pain strengthening his jutsu. It was so powerful that mere moments later, the two shinobi were unable to hold on and were forced to let go.

"Big Sis!" Konohamaru screamed as Nia was floating away to the enemy.

He tried to summon clones to help him out, but he would be quick to find out that he had depleted his chakra and thus was unable to have them aid him.

"L-Let me go!" Nia was at the enemy's mercy as he was choking her with one hand, he feet dangling a few inches off the ground.

"NIA! NIA!" Tears welled up in Naruto's eyes as he was helpless to save her.

Pain only strengthened his hold as Nia dug her nails in his hand and kicked her legs in a attempt to escape his grasp.

"N-Naruto... I can't... I can't breathe..." She whimpered.

"YOU LET HER GO!" Naruto was desperate to rescue his sweetheart as he tried to move but only caused pain to himself.

Pain only slid out a rod from his sleeve. He aimed it at Nia's heart.

"STOP! DON'T DO IT! SHE'S PREGNANT WITH MY BABIES! I SWEAR IF YOU HURT HER, I'LL KILL YOU!" Naruto eyes became red and his pupils became slit like a cat's.

"She's a guardian... She must die before I take you..."

"NOO!"

With that, Pain thrusted the rod at Nia. However, before it could get her, she was pushed out of the way by someone.

Naruto and Nia watched as blood seeped out of the person's mouth as they had been pierced in the heart.

"I... won't let you... kill... her." They barely could talk as they coughed out blood.

"No... This can't be happening..." Tears fell from Naruto's eyes as he watched arguably the most important person in his life dying right in front of him. "IRUKA-SENSEI!"

"N-Naruto..." Iruka weakly made eye contact with him as he then collapsed to his knees before succumbing to his injury and dying on the cold ground beneath him.

"I-Iruka..." Nia sobbed as she hurried over to him. "IRUKA!"

As she cried over his death, Naruto's eyes only grew big as memories of him with his old sensei played in his mind. He felt as though his heart was thrown for some wolves to devour and his stomach dropped. Slowly, his blood boiled and his distraught turned to pure rage.

That was when it happened. His heart had connected to the beast within him.

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A/N - That's the end of that! This was a decent sized chapter but I'll probably be summarizing what happens next including when he meets his dad. Again, y'all can just watch the anime for that. If this takes me a long time to update, it's probably just that I'm not in the mood to write. I still wanna finish this story, but I'm just tired ig lol.

If you have any ideas for a bonus chapter on my first story, I'd love to hear it.

Anyway, I made another MMD video of NaruNia. It's cringey but I couldn't help but to make it. Here it is. Nothing fancy though lol

Please remember to comment and vote and have a great rest of your day.

QOTD:

1. Fave Part?

2. Fave Line?

3. Any Ideas for a bonus chapter?