LEGACY

Tiga puluh empat

Chapter 34

By the time Fumiko woke up, the first thing she noticed was that the place was empty. Her chakra flow was back, so she could sense that no one was in the hideout. The girl tried to push herself up, but fell back down.

"Oh, right." She grumbled. She forgot that Madara cut her hand off. Using her healthy arm, she pushed herself up again and sat down. Her vision was filled with blackness for a second before it completely came back.

The girl closed her eyes, focusing on her cakra when she noticed enormous chakra coming from several places quite far away from her.

"What the—?"

She jolted away when she suddenly felt a chakra coming fast to her. A white gooey plant-like creature with yellow eyes looked at her in menace.

"You're up."

"...What are you?"

"Eh, you don't need to know. Afterall, I'm going to eat you."

The creature moved so fast that Fumiko almost did not have enough time to back away. On reflect, her sword like lightning appeared on her healthy hand and cut the creature's head off. Out of nowhere, lots of the white creature appeared before her.

"Shit, my chakra won't be enough if I defeat them and go to Itachi." She hissed.

Hurriedly, Fumiko body flickered to the spot where she felt her older brother at. Bad idea, dizziness attacked her right away before her brother caught her. "Fumiko?!"

The girl opened her eye slowly, noticing that she was in a room with two kages in it. Tsunade was in front of her immediately and inspected the frail girl's body. "Where have you been?" She asked sternly.

"Madara," she whispered, making the kages and her brother froze. "He tricked me. Knowing I was weak enough after killing Deidara, he cut my arm off and held me captive. Something about not wanting me ruining his fellow's plan to attack Konoha. I just—"

Before Fumiko could finish, blood spluttered from her mouth. The girl coughed violently as Tsunade worked her magic. Itachi was getting more worried as Tsunade's frown deepened.

"Fumiko..."

As if knowing what the Senju wanted to say, the girl forced a smile. "It's... alright."

"I can only do this much." Tsunade said as she backed away from the girl.

"Thank you, Tsunade-sama." Itachi tightened his embrace on his younger sibling.

Both Itachi and Fumiko had not hugged in such a long time that it felt almost wrong for them to do so. They were silent for a bit as Tsunade explaned what had happened in Fumiko's absence.

"I will join the battle." Fumiko said.

"In your condition?" Nara Shikaku scoffed. "You'll only kill yourself."

"This is a fight that I must attend." The girl stood up and looked at Shikaku with her eternal sharingan on. "A fight between a headclan with her ancestor. I must be the one to kill Uchiha Madara. As the headclan, this is my responsibility, no?"

"It involves the whole nation, of course it's not only your responsibilities!"

Fumiko ignored Shikaku and looked at her brother briefly before looked at Tsunade. "If I didn't make it—I know I won't—please make Itachi the headclan."

Tsunade frowned but nodded. She knew she owned Fumiko that much. The girl nodded back before looking at Itachi. He gave her a blank look, but both of them knew that it was only a façade.

"Make sure you raise both of Haruma and Hiroto right. Let them choose which one of them is going to be the headclan. Don't pressure them like tou-san did to us."

Itachi knelt before his sister and pledged his oath. Then, in a blink of eyes, Fumiko was no longer standing before them. Shikaku sighed, looking at Itachi with pity, before looking at Tsunade.

"You did not try to hold her back from the battle in her condition. Why?"

Tsunade did not answer him immediately and looked down at Itachi who still froze in his place. "We owe her that much."

"What do you mean?" Shikaku frowned.

"We owe her that much..."

"To let my sister choose her own deathbed." Itachi snarled, he finally looked up with his mangekyo on. "Tsunade-sama, please let me into the battle too."

"I can't let you do that."

"Why?!"

"Because you just pledged yourself to protect your children." Shikaku sighed. "If Tsunade-sama let you do that, you might get killed and won't be able to fulfill your promise to her."

Itachi went silent and walked back to his table before Inoichi announced that Naruto and Killer Bee had escaped.

A day had passed as Fumiko kept fighting enemies on her way to a certain spot. The girl knew she was exhausted. Her eye was blurring and it was hurt to open them. She backed away from her enemy when she felt two chakras coming her way.

"Fumiko-san," The familiar chakra stopped before her.

The girl swayed away in alert before processing who was in front of her. "Oh. You."

"You look like shit!" He exclaimed, making an irk mark appeared on Fumiko's forehead.

"What are you doing in here?" By what Tsunade told her, Naruto was supposed to be kept hidden.

"There's no way I would hide away from this battle!"

The teenager in front of him just blink before looking to her left. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to where Hinata and the others are. Why?"

"Take me with you."

"Alright." Without protesting, Naruto scooped Fumiko in his arms and ran towards Hinata's direction.

Unbeknown to the Uchiha, she was about to experience something that broke her completely.