My heart thumped violently in my chest. My mind searched for any possible way out of the situation.

No. No. No.

I couldn't die, not here, not now. Not crouched on the ground like a genin who didn't know how to fight. What could I do? I didn't have enough chakra to risk ninjutsu, I was basically unarmed, my body was a wreck of injuries, and the Claw was five yards away.

"Leave her alone!"

My head snapped up, following the trajectory of the shurikan thrown at the Claw and my heart sank. No. He couldn't be this stupid, not after last time.

Aisa's face was pale and terrified but he stood strongly, holding his tonfa in a white-knuckled grip. The Claw tilted her head, considered him for a moment, then went to dispatch me so there would be one fewer enemy.

As soon as she killed me, she would go after Aisa, I realized. I stared, wide-eyed, as the Claw stabbed down at me, each second slowed to eternity.

"And Aisa. God. If something happened to him."

A flash of Aiden, crying at the bottom of our hill. I tightened my grip on the kunai.

Slowly, I leaned toward him so my right shoulder pressed into his left. "I won't let it," I promised rashly, recklessly. I told myself that I am only saying it to make Aiden pull himself together. "I won't let anything happen to him."

***

My kunai slid against her blade and it missed my throat by centimeters, piercing into the ground. In an instant I pivoted, placed a hand on the earth, and slammed my foot into her face, knocking the mask off. Then I turned, stabbed my kunai through her foot and shoe and into the dirt, and ran.

I grabbed Aisa by the arm, spinning him around and sprinting away. "You idiot," I gasped. "You utter idiot."

"She was going to kill you!" Aisa cried out. "What was I supposed to do!?"

"Stay safe!" I stumbled and barely suppressed a cry. "Stay out of it!"

Finally far enough away I stopped, whirling around. "Find Aiden," I ordered. "Go. Don't you dare come back."

There were tears in his eyes, spilling over onto his dusty, dirt caked face. "But what about you? You need help!"

"If you see someone along the way, let them know to come here. But your priority is to find Aiden and stay safe." I pushed him away, ignoring his tears. "Go."

I'd never been more relieved or more filled with dread than when he turned and ran and disappeared from sight.

***

It was unnerving, fighting knowing I was going to die.

I had recovered one of my blades, thankfully, but it wasn't enough to heal my injuries and replenish my chakra and give me five hours of sleep and food and water. In other words, I was still losing. Badly.

Even in my exhausted state, I was capable of basic predictions; I knew the most likely attacks the Claw would make. The problem was keeping up with them and responding with my own. Right now, the best I could do was prevent the fatal strikes from connecting.

The memory of Ibiki beating me up, trying to force me past some wall and onto another level flashed through my minds. If I wasn't so preoccupied, I would have smiled dryly. Well, Ibiki, I thought to myself, if there was some secret level of skill that can be reached through pain and desperation, now would be the time.

Almost in response to my silent plea, the Claw passed my guard, managing to deliver a shallow, though painful wound across the side of my stomach and lower ribs. I retreated, panting through clenched teeth, unable to force my body to keep up with where I knew the Claw would strike next. My grip on my single blade was all wrong, too tight and rigid yet held no strength behind it.

The Claws gaze met mine. Her eyes burned with hate and an echo of fear hidden behind masks upon masks. Mine were wild and desperate and ringed with exhaustion, her fear reflected in mine. The Claw feinted low with her left blade, hoping to distract me from her right blade's underhand stab that would pierce beneath my breastbone and into my heart.

I saw it coming, and willed myself to move, and realized that I was probably going to be too slow. Maybe I could block with my already mangled right hand, allow her to stab my hand and possibly manage to rid her of one blade. I was doubtful I hand the strength to stop the strike; she would probably continue through my hand and into my chest. I cursed myself for separating myself from the main area of fighting; sure, I may have been surrounded, but I also might have gotten help from comrades. Instead I was isolated, exhausted, and losing. The best I could hope for now was to turn a definitely fatal blow into a crippling one. Prolong the fight. Prolong my death.

I prepared for the pain that was to come but then I was knocked back to the ground, and there was a clang of metal on metal, and the Claw's eyes widened in shock. Neither of us had noticed him coming, too caught up in our own battle, in the mission, in winning, in surviving.

Aiden stood over me, my lost blade in his hand, blocking the Claw. His arms trembled from the strength but managed to hold, locking the Claw in pace.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I choked out, anger and pain scratching my voice.

"Aisa said you needed help," Aiden gasped, struggling under the weight of the Claw's blade. "He said--"

The Claw yanked back, and I cried out a wordless warning but he'd already seen it and moved, kicking her in the shin, blocking the strike, and lashing his own fist out toward her throat. It had been a while since he'd lived on the streets, been a while since he'd needed to fight for his life, but his body remembered the movements of a desperate fight.

The Claw threw Aiden back into me, where I was just beginning to regain my feet. There was a small smirk on her face, and I remembered that these Claws were different; they were executing a bigger mission than just killing me. They were here to destroy everything. And The Rising Phoenix hated me and all I represented: their failure, their rogue Claw, their lapse of control. They didn't just want to kill me; they wanted to destroy me.

And she'd seen me with Aiden before the invasion started.

Aiden was already back on his feet, fighting because of me. My heart was pounding as I stood, running to join the fight. I get there, block a slice aimed for Aiden's ribs, and for a brief moment we worked in tandem. The Claw was pressed back for several seconds, forced on the defensive between Aiden and my attacks. There was a brief flare of desperate fondness in my chest for Aiden and everything he was capable of before all thoughts were consumed in the rhythm of the fight.

Then one of her kicks connected with my chest and the breath exploded from my lungs as I was thrown back tens of yards. My mouth opened in several empty gasps before air flooded my lungs and I curled on the ground, trying to gather the strength to stand and help.

Not against a Claw.

I'd told him, I'd told him he couldn't stand against a Claw and survive, so why was he here, why was he helping me, why was he fighting a fight he couldn't hope to win?

Because, I suddenly realized, he understood. He knew that if I lost, if the Leaf lost, there would be no survivors left. He knew Aisa would never run away, would never abandon his village and friends to save himself. If I were to lose, he would lose, and Aisa would die. Our only hope was beating her together.

In the end, it was always, always about Aisa, for Aisa, for the little brother he was willing to kill and die for. To protect him.

Using the still standing frame of a corner of a house, I stood, locating Aiden and the Claw immediately. He was still fighting, almost fifty yards away from me, and losing. The breath froze in my lungs in an echo of my earlier pain as Aiden fell, barely rolling away from the Claw's next strike. Every step was painful but I forced myself to run to him, only able to watch each time he faltered, each time he sustained another injury, each time I thought his block would be too slow, too late. I was still too far away to make any difference, and I cursed the sloppy mistake that allowed the Claw to throw me back, take me out of the fight, and—

A kick connected, blowing through Aiden's block, breaking his arm and throwing him to the ground. I heard him scream, heard that same scream cut off as he hit the ground, his body limp, unconscious. I prayed it was momentary, that he would get back up, fight, run. My blade went spinning from his hand and into the air, landing near me. I scooped it up, sheathing it with the other blade as I continued to run, desperate, mind whirling and predicting and knowing.

Knowing.

The Claw lifted Aiden's broken body up from the rubble, hand fisted into his shirt in some gross parody of one child bullying another for his lunch money or homework or any number of trivial things that didn't really matter in this world. Aiden's arms hung at his side, limp, exhausted, helpless; his eyes were closed but beginning to blink open, consciousness coming back just in time, too late. I was running and stumbling over the ruined earth and I called his name once as I tried my best to save him but I knew.

I knew.

The Claw pulled Aiden up, his legs on the ground and back lifted from the earth and with a sharp movement, she thrust forward and pulled him back up into her sword.

I could do nothing but watch as he was impaled.

My knees hit the ground as the blade pierced him, an ugly noise tearing itself from my throat and screaming across the suddenly silent battleground—not quite a word but an animalistic cry of denial. My mind wasn't working; it was racing and falling apart and I couldn't handle this and Aiden was dying and I couldn't do anything and I'd lost and with a sudden burst of clarity I realized that I love him.

I love him and he's dying.

***

Nothing seemed to be real.

There was pain in my knees from where they'd slammed into the rubble strewn ground, but it was distant, not truly there, and the battlefield seemed oddly quiet, distant screams and shouts muted in this moment. I could see nothing but Aiden; he filled my gaze, growing larger and larger like the puddle of blood around him, and all I could truly recognize was that I love him and this is my fault.

Because I hadn't been fast enough. I hadn't protected him. He was dying because of me, because he'd come to help me, because I hadn't been good enough, fast enough, prepared enough.

I should have insisted on tearing apart the Rising Phoenix instead of agreeing to being a sensei or focusing on the Akatsuki or not taking solo missions. I shouldn't have stayed in any place for too long until I knew the Rising Phoenix was no longer a threat. I shouldn't have been lulled into a false sense of safety by the warmth Konoha had to offer. I should have know.

The Rising Phoenix decided to wage war on Konoha. On me.

On Aiden.

This was my fault. They killed Aiden to get to me.

And they had succeeded.

The Claw pulled her blade from Aiden, and he let out a little gasping noise that I'm not sure I imagined or managed to hear from across the battlefield. My eyes were filled with Aiden, with his blood, and when I transferred my gaze to the Claw the red haze stayed.

Watching the Claw, I tilted my head slightly; what had once been an opponent on par with my own skills, who might have been able to even beat me, suddenly appeared so open and vulnerable and exposed. It was as though for the first time in my life, I could see.

The Claw sprinted toward me, the edge of her speed dulled by fatigue, limping from the wound in her foot; something I hadn't noticed, before. I began to jog toward her, swaying from the path of the first knife she threw my way, sprinting as she hurled the second in order to throw off her aim, and then we were on top of one another.

She raised her blade, preparing to bring it crashing down on me, but I could see it all, see the path the blade would take, see every action and counteraction that could occur, and before the blade had even begun its descent I had decided on a course of action.

I simply grabbed her wrist and twisted, and she was forced to drop the blade. But she spun with the motion, jumping and kicking at my head so the wrist I was holding was closest to the ground. She expected me to let go in order to dodge.

But I had already seen this course of action.

I ducked beneath her kick, tightened my grip on her wrist, and held on—and she screamed as I broke her wrist and dislocated her shoulder and just kept twisting because I wanted to hear her scream more.

We were separated, now, her arm mangled and dangling uselessly by her side. She was panting, teeth clenched in an attempt to control the whimpers pouring from her mouth. I was just watching her, seeing all the openings and possibilities and knowing that I could beat her.

She grabbed a knife with her left hand--she was right handed, and would be at a slight disadvantage. I drew my own two blades, parried her first downward stroke, and stabbed her in the side before she could block me. It was all so suddenly easy.

If only it had been this easy earlier. Maybe then I could have saved Aiden.

I was on her in a second, pressing the advantage, thrusting my knee into her side and feeling her ribs give beneath the force of my blow. With ease, I flipped the Claw over, slamming her into the ground and probably breaking a few bones in the process. The fight had lasted under a minute.

"Kill me, then," she snarled, teeth stained red by her own blood, eyes slits of burning rage. Her face was mangled by the burn and pale from lack of sun and twisted in pain and hate. I felt nothing for her.

I slammed the Claw into the ground again, not feeling anything, not even a fierce vengeance as she choked on her own blood. I just knew I wanted to hear her choke more, hear the blood bubble and catch in her throat as she struggled to breathe. "No," I ordered. "You will listen and you will answer."

I was somehow both painfully aware of and removed from the horrible, painful emptiness inside of me. The Claw spat out the blood in her mouth. "Ask away. There's nothing you can do, nothing you can do with your strength and your smarts because you can't hurt me., Mujōna." She sneered, pain and triumph in her eyes. "You can't hurt me."

I ignored her, ignored the truth in her words. I would never be able to hurt her, hurt the Rising Phoenix, as they had hurt me. But, all the same, I held the front of her armor, slamming her into the ground.

"It grows and blossoms," I choked out, pulling her up only to slam her into the ground once again. My hands remained clenched around the straps of her body armor, pressing her into the ground. "It dies and wilts." The Claw was making pained little gasps, the pressure I was putting on her pushing the rib further into her lung. I pressed harder. "It happens in the beginning ." My voice broke, and emphasized each line by ramming her into the ground. "And happens in the end. It can make you cry, it can make you sad, it can make you smile, and can make you brave," The Claw was nearly dead; I'd seen enough people die in front of me to know when they were on the cusp between life and death. But she had enough strength in her, she needed to have enough strength to answer my question.

"What is it?"

My eyes were empty, empty of emotions and empty of mercy and empty of tears. The Claw's breath barely dribbled through her crushed throat. "I... don't know," She gurgled past the blood, and then her eyes glazed over, staring at something I couldn't see, still pinned open in death. I pulled her up and dropped her once again, no strength in the movement as her limp body hit the ground.

"It's love, you fucker," I whispered. "It's love."