---

“Guh…!” Ayanami drowsily grunts, waking up.

The young Hyuga lies sprawled on the ground, her eyes darting in every direction, everything is spinning, everything is a vivid blur. She tries to sit up, but she feels a pair of hands, pushing her back onto the ground.

“...nami, don’t move! I’m still treating your wounds...” A yellow and violet blur says with a girl’s voice.

Ayanami slowly comes out of her daze, her eyes beginning to focus and see the world clearly. The one speaking to her is none other than one of Lady Tsunade’s students, Ino Yamanaka; the next head of the Yamanaka clan is on the ground, healing Ayanami’s injuries with her medical ninjutsu.

“*huff*... *huff*... Ngh…!” Ayanami winces.

The Hyuga kunoichi notices that her right elbow has an intense pain. Not only is she unable to move it, it hurts even more when she tries to move it. She can even taste her own blood.

“Why would she do something like that…!” Another voice says, it’s a boy’s voice this time.

Ayanami turns her head to her left and sees Sakura’s back, the pink-haired kunoichi is hunched over on her knees, healing another wounded ninja; the one hurt is Hinata. Neji and the rest of Team Guy are with them.

Still somewhat in a daze, Ayanami stares aimlessly into the sky. Wh-What… What happened? Oh, wait… I remember now…

♦♦♦♦♦

A little earlier, Ayanami is sitting on her knees, taking in nature energy to power her sage mode. The vengeful kunoichi keeps her eyes trained on the Akatsuki leader like a hawk; the only thing keeping her from attacking Pain is the fact that she needs to be completely still so she can take in the surrounding nature energy.

Now that I think about it… Jin must’ve sought out this power. I wonder if he knows a way to speed up the process? The young Hyuga grows frustrated due to having to wait and charge up.

Ayanami can sense the two great toad sages to her right, Lord Fukasaku and his wife, Lady Shima. They are in the process of building up sage chakra for a jutsu of their own, a powerful sound based genjutsu.

“Sage jutsu chakra… seems to come with its own fair share of risks.” Pain takes note of the shape his opponents are in.

“And yours doesn’t?” Ayanami heckles. “6 bodies each with their own fantastic and amazing powers? Whatever jutsu you're using must use up tons of chakra. I bet the real you is just skin and bones by this point.”

The leaf kunoichi detects a large influx of chakra coming from the two elder toads now; Ayanami suspects they must be primed and ready.

“Alright, we’re ready now… Let’s do it, ma!” Fukasaku affirms Ayanami’s assessment.

“Gotcha!”

Pain raises his left hand and Fukasaku instantly rises, hovering in mid-air. The toad elder is speechless and confused by his sudden suspension with no attachments, the confusion quickly ends as Fukasaku feels an invisible force pulling him closer and closer to the Akatsuki leader.

“N-No! Let him go, Pain!” Ayanami desperately chases after the elder toad.

Quickly deducing that her best option is to stop the caster, Ayanami runs right past Fukasaku and charges right at the Akatsuki leader. She pulls out a kunai and runs her sage mode enhanced lightning chakra nature through the weapon, aiming right for his eyes. However, Ayanami notices something wrong; Pain has both his arms raised as he infuses more chakra.

He went after Lord Fukasaku to lure me in… And I fell right for it! Realizing her error, Ayanami immediately braces herself and shifts her body to a more defensive stance.

The young Hyuga slams hard against Pain’s gravitational push, it feels like she was hit by a speeding bullet train; Ayanami is dazed by the sudden impact. Everything goes black, Ayanami feels like she’s soaring through the sky on her back. She falls to the ground with a loud thud, but she doesn’t feel it at all.

“Ayanami!” Naruto cries out.

The last thing Ayanami hears before fully losing consciousness is the piercing sound of something getting stabbed.

“PA, NO!!”

♦♦♦♦♦

Still laying on the ground with Ino healing her, Ayanami remembers how she wound up in her current predicament; she overhears the conversation going on between Lady Katsuyu and the surrounding leaf ninja.

“...suppress the Nine-Tails all on his own. And now… he’s about to go up against the final Pain.” Katsuyu informs the group.

Might Guy turns to his protégé. “Lee! We’re going to back up Naruto.”

“Right!” Rock Lee nods in agreement.

“No, wait. Please don’t… You’ll only get in his way if you do…” Katsuyu objects.

“But Pain destroyed the Leaf--Naruto cannot do this alone!” Lee argues.

“Naruto has a plan he intends to follow… let’s put our faith in him.” Katsuyu articulates to the group.

“No.”

Everyone turns their attention to the one who spoke their disagreement with Lady Katsuyu’s suggestion, it was Ayanami. The Hyuga kunoichi slowly picks herself up and dusts off her clothes, spitting out the blood in her mouth. A look of an unbreakable resolve is written all over her face, a fire burns deep in her eyes.

“All due respect, Lady Katsuyu, but I’ve lost a lot of friends and allies today--I won’t risk losing another.”

The entire group is taken aback by Ayanami’s stubborn determination. At this very moment, no one can discern if she’s being brave or foolish.

“You can’t go! I haven’t finished healing your injuries yet, idiot!” Ino snaps, trying to reason with her comrade.

“If what Lady Katsuyu said was true, Naruto is injured and fatigued. Besides…” Ayanami looks back at Ino with orange pigmentation forming around her eyes; her irises turn yellow while her pupils become toad-like. “This whole time you’ve been healing me, I’ve been gathering nature energy.”

The kunoichi reaches for her right elbow and pops back into place. “AAAAAAAGHH!”

Luckily, the pain quickly vanishes as soon as it skyrockets with a loud popping sound. Ayanami carefully moves her arm around and checks for any other wounds to worry about; thankfully, there seems to be no lasting injury she can’t push through.

Ayanami sadly glances down at Hinata before turning away. Hinata… I’ll make sure Naruto comes home alive.

“Wait, Don–!”

Guy’s words fall on deaf ears as Ayanami is already racing toward the raging battle to aid her friend.

“Woah! She’s as fast as me when I use the 5th gate! Guy-sensei really is an amazing teacher!” Rock Lee praises his mentor.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A little while later, in the aftermath of Pain’s Planetary Devastation, Naruto grabs hold of Pain’s weaponized black receiver and kicks the Akatsuki member away, breaking off a chunk of the black rod; Pain crashes into a pile of boulders and rubble. Naruto takes the chakra receiver and stabs himself with it in his right shoulder.

“Urk…!” Naruto winces from the sharp pain.

With his sage mode activated, Naruto is able to reverse the signal and pinpoint where Pain’s chakra is coming from, a false tree in the distance. Inside this tree is a man with a large reserve of chakra and a pair of Rinnegan staring right back at the Nine-Tails’ jinchuriki; with the location firmly in Naruto’s memory, he pulls out the rod and tosses it to the side.

“Bastard!” Pain grunts, getting back to his feet.

“Shadow Clone Jutsu!” Naruto weaves a sign, creating two clones.

As the young Uzumaki quickly builds up chakra in his hand for a Rasenshuriken, his clones both slam smoke bombs onto the ground; the thick clouds of smoke obscure Pain’s vision. The Wind Style: Rasenshuriken blasts out of the smoke, flying straight towards the Akatsuki member.

“Almighty Push!”

Naruto’s jutsu is immediately nullified by Pain’s gravity barrier, but the Akatsuki member doesn’t have time to gloat as Naruto has thrown another Rasenshuriken soon after. Pain hurriedly leaps into the air, narrowly avoiding the second attack.

4 seconds to g– “AAGGHH!!!” Pain is interrupted as he is suddenly hit from behind by a long range attack composed of air.

Pain is sent flying across the field of debris. Bewildered, Naruto uses his sight to trace the trajectory of the jutsu, the source of the attack came from Ayanami; the young Hyuga appears to have one of her hands raised, she wears a look of cold satisfaction.

“Ayanami!? What’re you doing here?” Naruto calls out.

Ayanami shouts back, “You’re crazy if you think for even 1 second that I’m just gonna let you fight this guy alone!"