[A/N: OH MY GOODNESS IT'S BEEN MORE THAN A YEAR I'M SO SORRY. This chapter starts the endgame so it took a very long time to write (and I actually didn't realize I had enough done for a chapter; oops). Hopefully the next chapter will be posted sooner…]

Chapter 18: Ignition

"I'm fine, Sakura, you don't have to do this," Shikamaru protested, his dug-in heels squeaking on the sterile white tiled floor as Sakura dragged him into her examining room.

"Nonsense," Sakura retorted. "Kakashi-sensei and Naruto have already had their turn, so now it's yours."

After their arrival back at Konoha, Sakura had insisted on examining all of the others, especially when she heard that Kakashi had ended up in another encounter with the Akatsuki member who had assaulted him before. This time, there had been no immediate ill effects, but Sakura had performed every genjutsu test she knew of anyway.

From what Sakura had been able to study about the genjutsu Kakashi had been inflicted with last time, the caster appeared to have some knowledge of medical jutsu techniques. This allowed genjutsu to be directed with incisive precision, making them and made them risky to remove. Despite her exhaustive tests, Sakura still wasn't entirely satisfied that there wasn't a hidden genjutsu waiting to surface.

Naruto had been fine, if a little out of sorts that he hadn't been allowed to take on the Akatsuki. However, if he had done so, he would have received much more than just a stern lecture from Tsunade.

Tsunade's frustration with Naruto had been somewhat lessened by the fact that it had at least partially been due to his actions that the Kazekage had been saved from death at the hands of the Akatsuki. After rescuing Gaara, Kakashi and Naruto had turned him over to the following Wind country ninja. This detour slowed the pair up enough that both Konoha groups arrived back at the village at approximately the same time.

Now that she was through with Kakashi and Naruto, Sakura had a chance to investigate what was going on with Shikamaru—the real reason she had insisted on the medical examinations. Shikamaru had been reluctant to talk to her while they were in Suna, and on the way back he had been even more taciturn. She was sure something was wrong. She was also certain it wasn't medical, but this scenario was the best way she had thought of to make Shikamaru talk to her.

"I promise I'm fine," Shikamaru declared as Sakura shut the door. "I just need some rest and some better food, and I'll get to work on the rest as soon as you let me go."

"It's procedure," Sakura told him firmly. "Now sit on that operating table before I call your mother!" After three years of Shikamaru trying every trick in the book to dodge his physical appointments for cloud-watching, Sakura had responded by learning a few tricks of her own to keep him in line.

Shikamaru obediently perched on the operating table and watched as she flipped through the files on the desk. "Did you come into any contact with the Akatsuki's genjutsu user?"

"No." Shikamaru's reply was flat and terse.

Sakura frowned. "I'm not interrogating you, for goodness' sake—I just need to know. You were with Temari a lot, and she got hit with a genjutsu. It's possible that if you were close enough you could have been caught up in one too and not noticed yet."

"If that's all it is," Shikamaru said, beginning to relax, "I did see him once, but only from a distance. Temari was the one who went to investigate the prison break."

An ordinary person, upon being told they might have been put in a genjutsu without their knowledge, probably wouldn't say "if that's all," Sakura mused. Still, Shikamaru's order of priorities had never been anything that could be described as ordinary. "If you were that far away you're probably fine," she said, "but I'm going to just check and make sure."

Pulling some medical chakra to the palm of her hand, Sakura gently touched it to Shikamaru's forehead. This way she could sense any small mental blocks or chakra irregularities caused by a genjutsu, and disrupt them enough to force dissipation.

There was no need for any of that currently, for Sakura discovered nothing out of the ordinary. "Okay, you're clear," she announced. "Now, go get some rest, and after that tell Chouji's father that I want him to feed you. Is there anything you need before you go?"

"Could I have a glass of water?" Shikamaru asked, eyeing the gleaming sink Sakura had just turned to in order to wash her hands. "That way I won't have to go through the kitchen at home and my mother won't tell me to do anything."

"Brilliant thinking," Sakura teased as she scrubbed her fingers for the regulation fifteen seconds. "Spoken like a true genius...hand me a paper towel, will you?" Once her hands were dry, she reached into a cabinet for a plastic cup, then paused. "Did you hear something outside?"

Shikamaru shook his head.

"That's funny, it sounded like...well, whatever. Seems like I could use some rest too." Turning the faucet back on, she filled the flimsy plastic cup then turned to hand it to her friend. "Here's your—"

The water flew into her face before she heard the explosion or registered that the floor was trembling under her feet. Shikamaru caught her arm as she staggered off-balance.

"What was that?" Sakura gasped.

"No idea—but that's a hell of a lot of nasty chakra outside."

"Where's Naruto?" Konoha's jinchuuriki would likely be one of the first targets of any invasion force. Sakura tried to sense his chakra signature but the roiling mass of dark chakra that had just intruded on the village was diluting everything else. I've felt that before; was it during the Chuunin exams?

"I'll go find him: you should check with Tsunade." Shikamaru turned and pulled the window open, leaping out just as another shockwave almost brought Sakura to the floor again and showered her with plaster dust. The dust caught onto the water droplets already scattered on her skin, leaving her streaked and grimy.

Snatching up a paper towel to wipe some of the dusty water out of her eyes, Sakura bolted downstairs. "Tsunade-sama? Shizune-san?" It was just after lunch, so Tsunade might be still in the hospital cafeteria where she sometimes ate. Sakura hoped so, since it would probably be a safer location than the Hokage Tower, which would inevitably become a target.

Another blast shook the building as Sakura was halfway down the stairs. She was thrown against the wall and tumbled down several steps before she could get to her feet again. Shikamaru was smart to get down through the window, she thought as she rubbed a scrape on her knee. I sure would if the person I was looking for wasn't inside…

"Sakura!" someone called as she finally reached ground level and pushed a door open into the cafeteria. "Is that you? It's so dusty…"

"Yeah, it's me. Ino?"

"And Chouji," Ino replied. "What's going on?" As some of the dust from the last shockwave settled a bit, Sakura could see that Ino was supporting her teammate, who wore a brace around one ankle, and remembered that he had been admitted yesterday for a severe sprain.

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Was Tsunade in here?"

"She was, but she finished eating and left more than half an hour ago."

Sakura sighed. "She's probably back at the Tower then. Why don't you stay here with Chouji? With his ankle like that it might not be safe outside—you can use one of the basement shelters until we figure out what's wrong."

Ino nodded. "Got it. You go do your thing—this way, Chouji."

Once Ino and Chouji had successfully made it to one of the shelter entrances, Sakura headed for the lobby. By this point, the alarm had spread enough that there was a cluster of visitors and volunteers gathered around the main entrance, several trying to push it open.

"What's wrong?" Sakura asked quickly.

"Something fell against it…" a girl wearing a cafeteria uniform explained. Glancing through the glass as the girl stepped out of the way, Sakura could see what looked like a torn-away section of the hospital's fence pinning the double doors closed.

"That's right up my alley," Sakura declared confidently. "Stand clear, everybody! Shannaro!"

Sakura leaped up and slammed her fist into the floor. An instant later, the reinforced glass of the hospital doors and the windows next to it rippled and shattered, leaving the frames empty and more than enough space to get out through. A kick sent the piece of fence that had been causing all the trouble flying dozens of yards away.

Brushing her bangs out of her face after all that exertion, Sakura picked her way gingerly through the shards of glass littering the entrance and stepped outside to look around.

"By all the beasts," she whispered as she took in what was happening, "the city is being destroyed."

…

Orochimaru's base had been utterly destroyed.

Sasuke had expected, when he set out to find the location Pein had told him of, that he would find it deserted and his brother gone. He had not been expecting to find it burning and stinking of death.

When Sasuke had been with him, he had never known his brother to revel in destruction; clearly Itachi's attitude in that area had changed drastically. Cringing at the smell, Sasuke picked his way past corpses (some intact enough to be identifiable, some in so many pieces it was impossible even to tell how many bodies they had come from) in hopes of finding some clue to Itachi's current whereabouts inside the underground facility.

Pein said he would go to Konoha next, Sasuke remembered, but he still couldn't bring himself to believe it.

The stone walls surrounding Sasuke were charred and cracked, and he had to duck a few times as pieces of rock fell from the ceiling. If the whole building was in this condition, he couldn't afford to stay long or he would risk being trapped by a larger collapse.

Activating the Sharingan, he cast around for either signs of Itachi's presence or any remaining living chakra. While Itachi's chakra was widely present, it was so mixed with other signatures that Sasuke couldn't make out a viable trail to follow him by. He did, however, find chakra from two apparent survivors emanating from far in the back of the base. The specific location was impossible to pinpoint, as chakra-muting seal arrays were carved into the walls in order to keep the base from being discovered.

Sasuke didn't much like the prospect of heading even further into the increasingly damaged building, but on the other hand this would be his first chance since parting ways to speak to someone who had actually seen his brother.

"Hello?" he called softly, stepping around what appeared to be—he deliberately didn't look too hard—a severed hand, to make his way into the corridor he thought led to the correct area. This is starting to be like one of those horror movies Kiba used to watch, he thought, and quickly regretted it.

No one answered, not that Sasuke had really been expecting them to; in this sort of situation one would have to be a fool to do anything but keep quiet. Unfortunately, this put Sasuke in the unenviable position of having to try every door in the vicinity of where the survivors appeared to be.

Many of the rooms were empty, to Sasuke's gratitude: the base appeared to have been thinly populated so most of the inhabitants were probably now scattered around the entry. They had been either trying to defend the base or (Sasuke thought this more likely) escape, but he had found no evidence that anyone besides Itachi had made it out of the facility.

Some of the rooms Sasuke examined appeared to be deserted sleeping areas or holding cells, and there were a few labs which smelled dizzyingly of formaldehyde and other, worse things.

Sasuke was beginning to think that maybe it wasn't so bad after all when he opened another door and jumped back barely in time to avoid being covered by the mass of torn, smoldering flesh that spilled out. Is that...was that a snake? he wondered as he saw scraps of scaly skin, then decided he didn't want to think about that and tried very hard not to be sick.

With the way out now blocked by the charred reptilian mass, Sasuke headed further into the base; even if he couldn't find the survivors, perhaps he could find a secondary exit so he wouldn't have to wade through that. Wrinkling his nose at the smell of blood and smoke, he continued trying doors.