Naruto watched the two as they dashed into the trees and fled into the forest.

He stood there stunned and disbelieving at their cowardice, but soon enough he gripped his kunai harder and growled in absolute frustration. After all the training he put himself into, all the nights he spent pondering this exact moment, and the promise he made to Sakura... After all the bullshit he endured to lead up to this moment, he was letting him escape and slip through his fingers?

"No, no way in hell." He thought on his last nerve. "I am not letting you go so easily."

He had his mind set and was just about to run after them, but suddenly two people landed behind him. He turned his head to see Kakashi and Sakura, along with the messenger toad he sent to notify them of Sasuke's appearance. They went up to him and their faces were visibly full of concern.

"What happened here? Are you okay?" Kakashi questioned him.

"Where is he?" Sakura asked.

The latter of the two questions greatly irritated him, but he decided to answer it anyway. "He ran away just now, if we hurry we can catch up to-"

"No." Kakashi butted in. "Let him go, we need to notify the Hokage of this immediately. Besides, you're injured."

Sakura looked at his bleeding injury in worry. "You're hurt badly." She said as she walked closer to him. He took a step back from her, and in a split second decision he turned around and ran into the direction Sasuke and Karin went.

Kakashi and Sakura yelled after him, but he was already gone inside the foliage of the forest. The messenger toad shook his head, then vanished in a poof of smoke.

Elsewhere...

Karin and Sasuke dashed from branch to branch while they made their way to a safer and far away place. The rogue shinobi had yet to say a word to her, and the blood that he kept spitting out of his mouth worried her to no end.

"Sasuke, let's stop so I can heal you." She said while they leaped to another tree branch.

He could stand his injuries, and he decided that getting away from his old team was much more important than relieving his pain. "We need to get away first." He replied emotionless.

Karin felt someone coming after them in the midst of their getaway. She recognized the chakra signature from before and knew it was the boy whom Sasuke battled with.

"Dammit." She cursed under her breath. "Sasuke he's chasing after us!" She said in a panicked manner.

Sasuke looked at her and frowned in exasperation. "When will this damn fool quit?" He thought as he glanced behind his back. "Where is he?" He asked her. She told him his location, revealing he was directly behind them and hot on their trail. He slowed down his movements and lagged behind Karin purposely with the intentions of unleashing a monster of a jutsu on their pursuer. He leaped one last time and landed on a tree branch, then he turned around to face the direction Naruto was coming in. He made the necessary hand signs and inhaled deeply. "Great Fireball Jutsu." He said in his mind, then proceeded to exhale and unleash an immense sea of flames into the forest.

The flames spread wide and far, engulfing any and every tree that had the misfortune of being in its way. The now blazing forest creaked and groaned while Sasuke continued the jutsu, but eventually it ended and he was left standing there watching the flames. There was no possibility that Naruto had the reflexes to evade something so destructive and large.

Yet despite his sureness that the blonde was no more, he stayed put on the branch and looked on at the blazing and hungry inferno. For the life of him, he couldn't help but give in to a creeping suspicion that the boy somehow managed to avoided his jutsu, as Naruto was largely unpredictable and persistent in nature, making even the most convinced person double-take to see if he were dead.

And for a moment Sasuke was glad of his suspicion, as what he saw next would have made his day even worse if he ignored it.

A hail of shurikens and kunais came rushing out of the burning remains of the forest, and he barely had enough time to react to it. He made the hand signs again and quickly released another barrage of flames to counter the projectiles.

The sharp metal was buried in another sea of flames. Once he was finished, the weapons didn't even scratch him, having likely been melted by the large body of fire. However, despite the grand scale of his technique, many of the tools managed to slip through the traveling inferno, even avoid it completely...

Karin continued to travel through the forest while Sasuke lagged behind. Soon after he was out of her sight, she heard a roar of flames hit her ears. He must have used a fireball jutsu, she figured. She landed on a branch and looked back to where she knew Sasuke was, and sure enough, she could see him and a fire that flickered wildly in the distance. She continued to look to admire the dancing flames, but then shortly afterward she turned around to continue her trek to a safer place in the forest.

She heard another roar of fire behind her, and a hint of confusion made its way through her body. Shouldn't one fireball be good enough? Last time she saw Sasuke use the technique the flames were remarkably huge and more than enough to disintegrate a large number of enemies from far away. She didn't think much of it though, and continued to jump from branch to branch.

Karin leaped to another tree, and midway through her jump her senses were in overload and screaming at her to take into account the many blades that traveled her way. She gasped, and her eyes went wide as she sensed them coming straight for her, but she couldn't do anything about it while she was in the air. She tried desperately to turn herself around, but it was too late.

Kunais and shurikens burrowed into her back. She screamed at the sharp pain and sick feeling of many blades entering her, and saw that many other projectiles flew past her and thankfully didn't hit her.

She fell from the air, and she couldn't do anything besides attempt to brace herself for the fast approaching ground. She fell flat on her stomach with a loud 'thud', and immediately she was seeing stars. Her body took all of that impact, resulting in a great loss of breath and the inability to breathe for some time. She squirmed while opening her mouth several times in accordance to the pain and lack of air she now felt, and she dug her fingers into the ground to battle the terrible suffering she felt from the scorching hot blades that were dug into her back.

She stayed on the ground while she tried to get air into her lungs when all of a sudden she sensed a familiar figure enter the area. She immediately recognized it as Sasuke's.

He came quickly into her direction, and soon enough she caught eye of him. Karin's arm reached out to his fast fleeting form while she struggled to find her voice, as the fall she endured heavily knocked the wind out of her.

"...Sasuke..." She wheezed out in a high pitched whisper. "Please..." The boy in question firmly landed on a tree branch and looked back from the corner of his eye. Their gazes met, and in that brief moment, Karin remembered the time he had saved her in a forest much like this when they were younger. She looked him in the eyes and grew hopeful that the boy who once saved her would come to her rescue once again.

He gazed at her with indifference. Sasuke knew she was beyond saving, and he wondered if there was time to make her heal him before he went on his way.

In the distance the rapidly approaching group of shinobi could be heard dashing their way towards the two criminals, letting him know that his plan for a quick healing session was out of the question.

He continued to look at the girl who was helplessly injured on the forest floor. He made a noise of disapproval, then he uttered the first thing that came to his mind.

"Useless."

He turned his head around and quickly made his way across the many tree branches of the forest, soon disappearing completely from view by the countless number of leaves.

Karin retracted her arm and a shocked, disbelieving expression made its way to her features. She couldn't believe it...

He left her behind.