A Terrifying enemy, But a Comforting Ally
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"There's nothing to fear, but fear itself." – Franklin D. Roosevelt
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A/N
Heyy everybody! :D chapter 2 is DONE! Mwahahahahaha! Finally! I've been mulling this thing over and over in my head all week! and it's finally out! whew! that was more difficult than i thought it would be. took longer to get everything sorted too!
And if not for the amazing EbonyEye it might have taken much much longer! (i have no help aside from her...) Thanx Ebony! hope this one is to your liking!
Oh! and i forgot to mention if any of you out there were curious, this takes place during Shippuden :D
AND A great big thanx to my first ever reviewers!
The Phoenix is Immortal - I hope you like this one Phoenix XD and that you stay interested!
EbonyEye - Thank you, Thank you, Thank You! Your help and opinion really count on this! Praise be to thee!
Twizzlerspin - hehe I love your enthusiasm :) hope this update came soon enough!
NOW ONWARDS TO THE STORY! (hope you like it ;)
Chapter 2
They were a day out from their destination, and Sakura knew if they traveled through the night they might have a chance at getting there early the next morning. But even those remote hopes were dampened as Narutos whining broke through her thoughts.
"Sakura-chan, Can't we take a break? We were on our feet before the sun was this morning!" He complained. "Besides, I'm starving!"
"Naruto, when aren't you hungry!" She growled at the Kyuubi container. Continuing to jump through the trees she let out a groan when she heard his answer.
"After I eat, of course!" he stated with a cheery smile on his face.
She put her fingers to her temples and began to gently message them in small circles. With a sigh she finally relented and jumped from the branches to a nice clean spot in the grass. There were flowers here of yellows and purples and whites, spread out in the sunshine. She could see from where they were that the forest would end soon, and maybe they would be free of their tag-along stalker.
She could only hope that to be the case, for if she had to travel with that thing chasing them through the high grasses on the last leg of their journey, she might just go insane. She shook those thoughts from her mind as she turned her attention on Naruto.
"Alright we will take a short food break here, but you better make this quick!" she said scanning the area for any hostile signatures. The feeling of being watched was constantly there, and she was starting to get paranoid about it popping out at them any moment.
She watched as her friend began digging in his supply bag only to start chunking stuff out as he began talking to himself.
"No, no, no!" he repeated to himself, looking more and more distressed.
"What is it now Naruto?" she asked staring at him with an annoyed expression on her face.
"It's all gone, ALL GONE!" He started freaking out as he continued his frantic digging in his bag. Sakura just rolled her eyes and asked.
"What's all gone baka?"
"My instant ramen, I swear I packed enough for the trip there and back! Where could it be!" he moaned.
"Maybe our little friend dropped in and took his share too." She said sarcastically. She was rewarded with a grimace as he looked out into the woods.
"Oh for Kami's sake, Naruto I was only joking! You ate all your instant ramen already!" she said trying to calm him down.
"But I swear I packed enough…" he trailed off. Through Sakuras eyes he looked like a puppy who had just been left on the side of the road in the rain.
"You had too much in your pack so you had to take some out, remember?" she told him as she placed a hand on his shoulder. Any other day she would have been angry at the knuckle head that sat before her, but after the past couple of days on the road with that thing following after them she couldn't bear to be angry with him now.
She sat down her own pack and rifled through it, pulling out a small cup with bold letters decorating its sides. She motioned for the broken looking blonde to take the cup from her hands, and it didn't take him long to figure out what it was that he was holding.
"Are you serious! I can have this!" He asked dazedly, staring at the cup of instant ramen he now cradled in his hands.
"Yes, just hurry up and eat so we can get moving again, okay?" she said moving away from the drooling boy to her pack once more.
"Hai, Sakura-chan! Thank you very much!" he answered her enthusiastically as he set to work making his meal.
She just smirked as she took out her newest batch of food pills; she had finally perfected her recipe of the energy sustaining tablets, now they were both tasty and effective! She quickly popped one into her mouth and savored the delicious flavors as they rolled passed her tongue.
Sitting down she rested her back against the trunk of a nearby tree, leaving her eyes to search out any sudden movements past their location. Even though she could feel the eyes still on her, she couldn't pin point in which direction they were in, so she kept her senses peeled as she waited for Naruto to finish with his food.
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She felt somewhat disoriented traveling through grass country, with a severe lack of trees and decent cover, they were completely exposed.
The green and golden-brown blades reached well above their waists and they basically had to wade their way through, gathering small cuts from the innocent looking sharp edges.
And as they did so, Naruto complained the whole time about how he didn't understand how anyone in their right mind could live in a land such as this.
Sakura just kept pushing on, ignoring him when she could, and shutting him up herself when she couldn't.
She cracked her knuckles for the hundredth time within the time period of a few hours when she heard another groan escape from the blondes' mouth.
He just looked down and continued to push on, his mouth shut tight and his eyes focused on the never ending horizon.
'Hehe, Yeah! Bring it! I'll take you down boy!'
'Hush! I'm trying to concentrate!' she tried to quiet the voice in her head.
'Yeah? Well you're doing a poor ass job of that, just so you know.' She replied perkily.
'Shut up! Who asked you anyways! Go away!' the pink-haired girl snapped.
'I'll never go away! Besides, you need me shisuta-chaan.' Inner drawled tauntingly at her outer self.
'Psh! As ever!'
Pushing the ranting voice to the back of her mind, she kept her pace with her teammate. The sun was getting low in the sky, telling her that they must be getting close to their destination.
In the distance she could see the swell of darkening clouds slowly but surely making their way in the direction that the she and Naruto were determined to reach by early morning.
"It looks like those storm clouds are heading straight for us" Sakura stated as she stared off into the expanse of the plains they were crossing.
"Aww man! Why do we have to have all the bad luck! You'd think we were under a bachi!" he whined back.
"I agree with you there." She sighed, her mind traveling back to her feeling of constantly being watched.
It made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end to think of all the times they had frozen in place with fear when the creature was nearby.
'What happens when the next time we freeze, it decides to kill one of us?' she asked herself, dreading what the outcome of such a scenario might be.
'Do not dwell on such things.'
'Oh? Then what should I do?' She asked her inner sarcastically.
'Focus instead on reaching your destination, Kakashi is counting on you!' inner countered a little hotly.
She sighed, as much as she hated to admit it, her inner was right.
'I told you! You need me.'
'Don't push it…'
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They were running now, as fast as they could through the tall grasses that blocked their path of escape.
Only a few minutes earlier, Sakura had picked up the presence of something gaining on them.
There was no doubt in her mind that this same presence was their shadow stalker. They had yet to even catch a glimpse of whatever it was that was incessantly tailing them, and they had no clue as to what it might even be.
All they knew was, it was there, it was real, and it scared the shit out of them.
Sakura was yelling at Narutos' back,
"RUN Naruto! RUUN! Keep RU…"
A bone chilling scream tore through the grass, halting the two retreating ninja in their escape, and cutting off Sakuras shouts.
"Oh my kami." She whispered, covering her mouth slightly with her hand, her eyes growing big.
"Is someone else out here!" Naruto bellowed into the dark expanse of grass that spread out around them.
"It sounded like a woman screaming!" Sakura flashed him a frightened look, lost in the thought that the monster that was following them had got tired of its game and attacked someone more helpless instead.
"I'm going to go check it out, you stay here." Naruto said disappearing before she could tell him otherwise.
She stood there alone in the tall grass that swayed in the breeze. There was no telling where Naruto had gone, he was hiding his chakra signature as was she, to keep from attracting any unwanted attention.
The scream had taken her off guard, and she was well past frightened, she was terrified!
She jumped at the slight noise to her right and as she turned around she saw it.
The glimpse she caught was of its back, slinking through the grass with such grace and elegance that she nearly missed it completely.
It had stripes like that of a tiger in a row down its spine, starting at its shoulders and ending at the base of the tail. Below the auburn colored fur on the beasts back, she could see a golden pelt melt to white as it reached the the area of the stomach.
Then it was gone again, blended in with the colors of the grass-lands.
She held her breath.
'What was that!' her heart was racing and her breathing began speeding up as well.
'Maybe that was our shadow stalker.'
'Maybe I'm just crazy…' she thought, ignoring the voice in her head.
'If you were crazy you'd hear voices in your head that weren't really there, and then answer them when they spoke.'
'Your seriously not helping here!'
'And you're not paying attention to the mindset that's gunna save your ass! NOW MOVE!' inner screeched in her head, pushing the other Sakura out of the way and taking control of their body.
It was a strange feeling being pushed into the back of her own mind. She watched as inner Sakura began to move their body away from a blur of stripes and fur.
'Oh my kami, it's attacking us!' she screamed in her thoughts.
'No shit Sherlock!' inner answered.
'Don't get sassy with me!'
'Shut up and let me fight!'
Outer Sakura shut her mouth, while inner took control and kept them out of harms way.
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Inner Sakura was breathing hard now, this thing was fast! Fast enough that she couldn't really get a good look at it in the dark of the night.
The noise from behind alerted her to its position, as she swung around and threw a shuriken in that direction.
She grabbed two more out of her weapons pouch and stood at the ready for the thing to charge her again.
Naruto was still nowhere in sight, and she was beginning to worry about his safety.
If only she could get close enough to hit this thing with a chakra laden punch, then she might have a better chance. But the beast was clever, and darted away when her fist began to glow.
She turned to the left and was searching for any disturbances there, when a giant paw came out of the wall of grass and swiped just in front of her face.
She had been surprised but kept it off of her face, trying to suppress her fear and fight to her best abilities.
She swiped back with a kunai and met the claws of the beast, having to use her chakra induced strength to hold herself against its power. Its claws were hooked around the edge of her blade and kept her from sliding out of its grip to swipe at its exposed face.
Her only choice was to fall back without the blade.
She was just about to follow through with this when she caught sight of the brutes' eyes.
They were a deep emerald with spots and flecks of topaz, big and wide, with a black trail running from the corners of its eye to just past the base of its nose.
'All the better to see me with.' Inner thought to herself, smiling at her clever pun.
For a moment she seemed to lose herself in the mystical pools of the creature. They just continued to stare into each others eyes, when they were both broken out of their reverie by a scream just south of them.
They both looked in that direction, completely forgetting their fight.
'Wait, if the creature is right here, then what was that?' Sakura asked from the confines of her mind.
'That scream… NARUTO!'
Inner turned back to see the beast staring back at her once more.
But there was something else in its gaze that kept her from going on the attack.
Neither of them moved, not letting their gaze stray from that of their opponents.
As their eyes stayed locked, Sakura could feel something tugging at the back of her mind. Some important thing she could not remember as she stood there almost hypnotized by these eyes.
It was like there was a locked door at the back of her mind, trying to rattle and shake its way open.
Outer Sakura went to check it out; not knowing what could be causing her such turmoil in the back of her mind.
When she reached the door, she heard the claws raking their way across the wooden entrance, and stopped herself from opening it when a deep male voice said from the other side.
'Long time no see little cherry blossom.'
She jumped as she heard the old familiar voice from her childhood coming from behind the gate in her mind.
'Why don't you let me in? It's rude to keep company waiting.' It told her mockingly.
"What… Who are you?" she asked out loud.
'Why I'm hurt, Koneko, that you don't remember me' the voice said from behind the door.
'We are Family after all!' it purred.
She stopped dead, her breath hitched, and her palms became sweaty.
To the south of them the scream sounded again, and then the beast was gone, wrenching the kunai from her hand as it disappeared.
She slumped to the earth, losing her stability when the beast had vanished.
Outer Sakura came to the forefront of her mind and took control once more, sending Inner to take a breather.
Naruto was back within a minute of her knees hitting the ground, catching her before the rest of her body could hit the dirt.
He held her like that for a moment unsure of what he should do, when she shook her head and climbed to her feet.
"Where were you!"she shouted at him.
He flinched at her raw mood, and held up his hands in defense.
"I was trying to find the source of those screams, but there was nothing. Every time I thought I was at the spot I had heard it from, another scream would sound from the opposite direction."
"Never mind any of that, let's just get to Kakashi ASAP." She said tugging at his sleeve and pulling him back in the direction of their mission.
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Lightning flashed and thunder crashed as they continued to force their way through the wall of grass. The wind itself dared to push them over with its power, and had them using chakra in the soles of their feet to stay rooted to the ground. The grass whipped them as they went, leaving cuts and lacerations up and down their arms, legs and faces. Any skin that showed was punished by the thrashing blades Mother Nature was using against them.
As the rain began to pelt their faces, and their feet began sinking in mud and tangling in grass, they saw the lights of a village ahead. Hoping and praying that this was the correct place, they pushed on towards the lights.
The wind was stronger than either of the two had ever encountered, ripping away their voices when they tried to speak. In the land of fire, trees kept the wind more controlled and docile. But here where they hadn't seen but few trees spread out across the horizon, the wind ruled without mercy.
They finally broke out of the grass ocean, reaching the border of the small town. From here Sakura could see the lights that had guided them from the heart of the storm.
There was a large round roofed hut in the center, with a large window covered with what seemed to be plastic to keep the storm out.
She pointed there for Naruto to see and started in that direction. Trudging through the mud and puddles that littered the so called street of the little township they finally made it to their destination. Knocking on the door, they stood hugging themselves against the wind and rain.
When a small square was removed from the door and a face appeared in its spot, they looked up somewhat surprised. Then the square was replaced and the door swung open to reveal none other than Sai.
"What took you so long dick-less? And Ugly, I didn't think you could get anymore hideous, but you have proved me wrong once again!" he smiled one of his fake smiles and moved to let them in out of the cold.
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Those words that you may or may not know
(P.S. if any of these are wrong or anything tell me... i had to roughly guess at a few from an online dictionary.)
Shisuta-Chan – Basically means sister
Bachi – a curse
Koneko –means Kitten. The voice was calling her kitten, like a pet name or nickname.
Hehe well that was exciting :) what do you think the creature ment when it told Sakura they were like family! And what was that scream?
Tell me your opinions! cuz i wanna hear them! and you never know :) you could inspire a twist in the story with just a simple review XD those are always great! hehe
so leave your comments, questions, concerns, or random ideas and i'll get back to you! :D
i'll never leave you hangin!
Until the next chapter! (or your review)
This is Jaylee-Rebel
Over and Out!