Canon


.1.

Practicalities

.1.


The world, I've heard, is a blown up beach ball of molten lava, sedimentary rock, dirt, and cracking seismic landforms filled to the brim of people, millions of thousands of people, boys, girls, woman, men—people.

Some people are people-persons; others are those types of sadistic, pessimistic people who would rather watch that people-person burn in boiling, sizzling, yellow acidic waste, laugh as they squirm in failed attempts of saving themselves as their skin peels off piece by piece, smile in pure joy when they shrivel up like a raisin.

However, people like that, those sick, twisted in the mind fiends, I shouldn't be speaking of or about, for they are are a simple waste of my time and a spoiling to this Earth's majestic surface.

Those people, them, they are not a part of anyone's life here. They mean nothing to anyone here, for they, the 'peacekeepers', those unmerciful, conceited, and prideful pricks…are who keep this world from reaching its fullest potential. They are who stop 'peace' from being able to be achieved.

They, the enemy, are Konoha.


The sky was tainted a rich, thick red, holding a similar eeriness to that of blood, fresh, hot-to-the-touch blood, bloody residue left over on a ninja's katana after lacerating the victim into bite-size pieces slowly, blood—the sky looked like blood.

The air smelled like it; the thickness suffocating to the lungs, yet, the odd pulling sensation of the tender muscle contracting difficultly did nothing to stop her, simply because the sky looked like blood, scarlet and smoldering, the air smelled like blood, humid, thick, and hanging lowly, the fields covered in blood. She liked it, enjoyed it, wanted more blood wherever blood could be.

A low, sinister, chuckle tickled at the back of the sixteen-year-old beauty's throat, tightening the high-strung ambience further. It was almost over, she thought deeply, adding a quick quirk that tweaked her lips upward in a slow, intimidating way, into a smirk, almost over for those bitches.

Four strongly built men waited anxiously on a westward wall, facing away from the high concrete barriers, leaning into a defensive crouch, waiting, waiting, and anticipating for what would happen next. Clear blue eyes, eyes as blue as an Aruba Ocean, narrowed analytically a mere millimeter when the girl clad in seemingly counterproductive heeled ninja shoes took a painstakingly slow, thought out step forward.

He found his heart beating faster, harder, and achingly in his chest, begging just to burst out already when the teenager stepped onto a dry lifeless leaf. The crinkling crunch of the brown companion of the few trees inside the dead, long forgotten stadium reminding him far too much of the snapping, splitting sound of bones, of his comrade's bones. He swallowed thickly, and then licked his own cracking lips, returning to panting less than a second later. The Chuunin in front of him was calculating her movements for too long, long enough to send him shaking.

Unintentionally, he moaned, the pain of his own injuries taking their toll, the poison finally activating. Just as he felt the skin around the deep, flesh-endowed wounds, tighten, opening the wounds further, his last standing of ten men started moaning and groaning in agony. Blue brown eyes flicking everywhere, anywhere to find an escape, he muttered tiredly, "Shit." He almost didn't believe it; he was caught in a genjutsu, and he allowed it to go on for far too long. There was almost no way out.

His comrades had melted away, gone with the changed location.

Sharply, the girl's eyes as red as the blood red sky averted in the teen's direction narrowed dangerously as she seemingly stared through his soul. A wide smirk donning her angelic face, the teen giggled. "Would you like me to stop—to end it all?" Her voice was sweet, innocent, too much so considering the circumstances, and the quick glint of mischevitiy in her eyes darkened greatly.

His eyes narrowed, and he gripped the hilt of his katana, hard, so hard the stressed, tired leather burning on his bloodied hands. He'd have to do this quickly, and, normally, it wouldn't be a problem, he was one of the fastest in his village, but this girl was just as fast as he was if not faster.

His brain racked for jutsu he could use.

Ninjutsu were out, the girl could complete hand signs as he did, almost as if she was copying. Genjutsu were out, he was caught in one right now, and he knew that if she could cast something this powerful and real, she'd dispel anything he could create with a blink of her eyes, as if it was a walk in the park.

Slowly, he released the handle of the sword. There was no point trying to use it. She had one of her own, and, just looking at her, he could tell he knew how to use it. His was really just for show.

The wind blew harshly, sending his dark blue sweat dampened hair westward. He smiled, white teeth flashing brightly. "Just give me a second to think. You're tired, I'm tired, and I can tell you're almost out of chakra."

She watched him carefully, her fingers twitching toward her senbon, but her eyes never leaving his. What was he getting to? A ninja asking an enemy ninja for a break, a second to think? He couldn't possibly be serious, could he? Nevertheless, somehow, she let her tensed muscles relax, and she carefully, slowly rose from her crouch, moving her hand from the poisoned senbon.

"You're asking me for an intermission during the middle of a war battle…" Her voice echoed through the seemingly empty stadium, inquisitive and cautious, but still hard, not soft enough to be asking a question. Her head tilted to the left, her eyes narrowing on his, the absence of a pupil and the pronounced nerves on the side of his head. She stared for a second, contemplating. They were eye nerves, no doubt a trait from having the Byakugan, a kekkei genkai of the Hyuuga clan.

That's how he knew of her chakra levels.

He nodded. "The way I look at it, we both have two choices. We can pit it out to the end now and probably end up being severely injured because of chakra deprivation, either that or dead, as in the both of us—"

She couldn't stand listening to him anymore. What was he talking about—two choices? As a ninja, you have one, and that is to fulfill the wishes of your Kage whatever the ending may be. Death is always an option. One that should be taken openly when you accepted the job.

Her hand reached into her ninja pouch, pulling out five thin senbon, and with speed only caught by an expert, she sent them hurling toward the same target.

His eyes widened, and it was like a scene straight out of Matrix.

As soon as they left her hand, he caught sight them, the sound ripping through the wind. There were five. One was high up in the air in an arc that would most likely reach him in no less than a quarter of a second, aimed toward a vital point between his neck and shoulder, he decided as he twisted on his heel, avoiding the third, aimed toward his lung. It hit the wall with a solid thwack as he back bended away from the forth, it a hair's breath away from his throat. The fifth stormed down faster than her expected, and he pushed off his hands and into a flip, avoiding it and getting closer toward something that had caught his eye.

There…!he thought, after landing lucidly on his feet and swung his left fist back, his knuckles whacking a tree, sending splinters, shards of wood and debris through the air with a bang. The walls of the stadium bounced and flickered like a broken television, returning to the lush green forest he remembered being in. Found it…

Just as quickly as he saw it, it disappeared, and his back slammed against the concrete walls of the genjutsu produced stadium walls, hard pressure around his throat, a gloved hand constricting his neck, a sword embed into his gut. Reflexively his hands snapped up to grab the wrist of his holder, his other gripping her throat.

She sneered at him, her eyes dark red and filling his vision.

"You're very stupid...to think that I was just going to stand there the whole time and watch you look for weaknesses."

"It was worth a try."

The wind blew again, and she shook her head, yanking her own katana out of his flesh easily, placing it back into its holder, eyes curious. "You're a bad ninja, too. You'd be dead in a second if you were raised in Sound."

He laughed, "Same goes for you."

There wasn't even a second left for her to think, because as quickly as the damn clone poofed away in cloud, a punch as strong as her own was sent in her direction. Turning quickly on her heels, she thrust her hand up with a grunt, barely keeping the fist from crushing her skull. She felt the bones crack inside of her hands, and with a quick assumption, she could safely say she had a few broken fingers, her joint was on its way toward snapping, and it would if this Konoha bitch kept pushing.

Ignoring the pain, she pushed back, her feet digging into the ground. If there wasn't a single moment she wished she had more chakra, a single moment where she wished she were a guy and just had strength and size on your side, naturally, she wished it now.

She met his struggling gaze and wondered why he wasn't using any Hyuuga branch techniques. He could use Byakugan so why not bring even more honor to his clan's name by—then it hit her, right when she saw the swirling blue chakra coming in to her direction from up high, two doppelgangers that he must've made earlier holding the massive orb.

She quickly swiped her hand away from his, and twirled on her foot, sending her right around in a roundhouse kick that sent her enemy Chuunin far away from her and slamming into another wall, a huge crater forming in the concrete.

Wind filled her ears seconds later and she fell to the ground, rolling away, missing the spiraling chakra by millimeters. "Goddamn it," She cursed, the huge distraction enough to send her genjutsu flickering. She had nowhere near enough to fix it back up as well as it was before and kill her opponent, and if it dispelled fully, she had all those other annoying Konoha-nin to worry about.

Her eyes widened as she caught a metal kunai speeding her direction with her Sharigan, and her breath hitched when she did a back handspring onto her feet, the sharp blade shaving off a couple strands of her dark purple hair.

She swiped out her own kunai, eyes murderous. Where is he?

A flash of blue caught her eye, and she looked around, circling for another, steadier chakra signal that came with the form. Since the punk could use clones, he was making it difficult, especially so since they were spread randomly, chakra spread evenly. He was making it hard for her to find him, the original.

He watched her circle around from behind a tree, chakra cloaked, eyes calculating her chakra levels. She had about one more jutsu in her, if exhaustion didn't kick in first, but he couldn't talk. He was in the same boat and, if she was drowning, so was he.

"Come out! We're not playing hide and seek!"

A small smile cracked on his face. No shit, they weren't playing hide and seek. It's called hide and ignore the searing pain of stomach acids pouring into your flesh while managing to stay alive. He covered his eyes trying to remember that healing jutsu his Mom taught him a while back.

She let her voice fill the empty void of silence, it echoing, as she stared at a particular tree. A sudden spike came from over there, and she knew there was something special about it. She kneeled to the ground and felt several clones lean closer to her, waiting to pounce, and she smiled triumphantly. She found him, but just to make sure…

Her hand gripped the pebble on the ground and hurled it toward the tree, and as soon as it hit the ground, the chakra fell back to its previous level.

He stopped abruptly, eyes snapping open, Byakugan gone. He didn't have enough chakra to keep it up and attempt to patch up his stomach some. All he knew was that that wasn't a normal katana, that there had to be some sort of poison on it. No normal cut would've felt as acidic.

Kneeling to a crouch, he narrowed his eyes to thin slits as he looked through the heavy foliage for the pretty kunoichi. Just as he realized she was no longer in the center of the stadium, a strong hand yanked him up quickly and swung him back down hard, his head banging against the dirt ground. A body fell onto his, a fist slamming into his face.

His vision dotted white, but he mustered enough strength to heave himself up, so they were switched positions, and he was straddling her, the katana that he'd swiped from the holder on her hip ghosting over her throat.

"I could kill you now," He informed hoarsely, trying to keep from coughing up blood though it was really becoming inevitable.

She glared, blood red eyes melting into forest green. "Well? Do it. I'm not stopping you."

The air tensed between their struggled breaths; the genjutsu flickering uncontrollably. There was no point toward keeping it up. If she would, she would no doubt die, instead of pass out chakra deprived.

"I can't."

Her sword clanked to the ground loudly, and she was left confused when he got off her, leaning against a nearby tree.

He was leaving the sword right next to her to grab, and he was just sitting there against the tree, breathing carefully, coughing blood onto his hand, and not even putting up any type of defense.

She sat up, noticing the particular strain on her right side. She gripped it, blood pooling onto her hand. That had to be three broken ribs, maybe a fractured lung. "What…do you mean…you can't!" She demanded through strained breaths, eyeing him with hard green eyes.

He turned to face her, face bruised, eyes tired, blood rolling off his chin and onto his clothes, dirt clotting the wavy blue hair that was sweat and blood plastered to his forehead. "Just that. And you had your chances, too."

She stared at him, silently asking him to continue, heaving carefully before coughing. The blood, red and bright, covered her hand, the hand that she could see the bones popping out of, and onto the sun-dried dirt, painting it. White dots danced over her vision, but she refused to blackout without getting an answer.

He laughed quietly, eyes half-lidded, the world becoming darker and darker by the second. "It's not important…"

"Don't!"

His eyes snapped open. "What…?"

She blinked the annoying signs of exhaustion away from her vision, and forced her brain to stay awake, her last bits of chakra to heal the worst of her wounds. "What's your name?" She asked before the last of her will blew away with the coming wind.

And with it, she swore she heard a tired reply of, "Kichiro. Uzumaki…Kichiro…"

The genjutsu fell, returning the two bloodied Chuunin to a field, Sound-nin lacerated across the darkened red grass along with the dying Konoha-nin, them piled a top each other, the sounds of thunder and lightening, hurling wind, pelting rain, and panicked allies filling the air.


"Search for survivors," Sasuke ordered monotonously to a group of medics, his own eyes roaming over the field covered with ninja, hitai-ate from Konoha, Sound, everywhere spread on the grass covered in blood, the metal cracked, symbols crossed.

He searched for recognizable faces, hair, skin, eyes, clothes, anything.

The medic closest to him caught his attention by clearing his throat. "Sasuke-sama, are we still looking for Kohana?"

His shoulders tensed, back straightened, and jaw tightened. "Primarily, yes."

The medic nodded an affirmative before turning to the rest of his coworkers, telling them that they were still looking for the same person, but if anyone else was found alive, that they should scavenge for their lives, too. Kohana was top priority.

As they dispersed, Sasuke scanned the field one more time for even the smallest flicker of her chakra, then turned quickly turned on his heel, stuffing his hands angrily into his pockets, heading back to camp base.

He'd be damned if his little girl was gone because of Konoha.


A/N: OMG! Seriously, I don't know where this came from! But…I like it! LOL; I hope you like it, too.

Review and I'll continue! Anonymous reviews are accepted, and I answer questions unlike meanie people : ) !

(PS: If you didn't catch it, this is a Next Generation fic. Which means it is Naruto and the Gang's children…)

NaruBaby2496