03. Not Today
"Tenten-san, are you okay?"
She didn't feel okay at all. Somehow, everything hurt, and she was dizzy and what the hell was even going on...
Opening her eyes, she was greeted with ginormous dark and concerned eyes, framed by equally ginormous eyebrows which could only belong to her other teammate.
"Hey, Lee-kun..." She greeted him, smiling lazily, before suddenly keeling over and throwing up, thankfully not hitting anyone, herself included.
"Yes, she seems fine," a completely unconcerned, slightly sneering voice contributed that could only belong to Neji. Lee was meanwhile being a good friend and held back the strands of her hair that had come loose, while patting her back and cooing soothing words at her. If she ever got seriously ill, she'd demand him as her nurse. He even let her take a sip from his water skin once she was done!
"So what's going on now?" She asked, leaning back against her tree and watching funny patterns dance in front of her eyes. "Why do you have time to babysit me? Not that I don't appreciate it, I just thought there'd be more going on right now..."
"Gai-sensei's order," Neji explained stoically, without missing a beat.
"I feel so loved," she retorted, rolling her eyes. Ouch, very bad idea.
"And because we're your team mates and we care about you!" Lee hastily added.
"It's okay, Lee," she managed a slight laugh. "So what happened to the war? And the snake. I hate that snake."
"The snake is currently occupied with Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama and their respective summons," Neji explained. "Far enough from the military encampment as to not cause any more collateral damage. We're regrouping for a possible sneak attack on Orochimaru and the snake, but there have been no further orders."
"Alright." Tenten tried to get back on her feet, but was a little too fast, apparently, as the pretty patterns took over her head entirely, and she kind of lost track of where the ground was, until her head hit what smelled like Neji's shoulder, and Lee caught her by wrapping his arms around her middle.
For an uninvolved bystander, the scene must have looked hilarious.
"You seem to have a concussion," Neji noted, eyebrows raised.
"Oh, reeeaaaally?" Tenten replied, leaning into Lee's support.
"We need to get you to the healing tents!" Lee concluded and hoisted her up, bridal style, before hurrying off. She could practically feel Neji's smirk burning into the back of her head.
Oh, well. There were worse ways to get swept off your feet.
Sakura had a hard time telling how long she and Naruto had been wandering around aimlessly. Though after some time, they actually did run into an Oto Nin, wearing the standard uniform, hiding everything but the eyes grey leo print. They overwhelmed them before even thinking about it, but he bit off his own tongue and choked on his own blood before they could interrogate him.
Naruto stared at the corpse, looking crestfallen.
"Why... Why did he do that?" He asked after a while.
"Loyalty," Sakura explained. "It's what we're all supposed to do before the enemy can torture information out of us."
"But... We're the good guys..." Naruto frowned. "Aren't we?"
"Not for the Oto Nins," Sakura answered. It hurt a lot to be the one to break this to Naruto, but there was no helping it at this point. "To them, we're just destroying their home and out to kill their leader."
"But... I would have taken him along!" Naruto argued. "He could have helped us, and then we'd have taken him to Konoha with us, and... Things would be better..."
Sakura briefly wondered why he only worried about that now; he'd been fighting and most likely killing enemy ninjas for the better part of two days now. Though those were probably conceived as more of a threat, since they were also attacking his friends at the time, so... Maybe it made sense for him to only worry about this now. And this place was most likely dragging him down as much as her, just that she had always been a little more aware of the broader context of what they were doing.
Or maybe this one isolated incident had just been the last straw.
"Well, I know you prefer talking to you opponents over killing them," she carefully tried to console him. "And you're pretty damn good at it. And don't get me wrong, I'd infinitely prefer that over violence, as well, I'm just not as talented. But you need to understand that not everybody will want to listen to what you have to say."
"Then I'll have to make them listen," Naruto concluded, deeply determined again. Sakura was relieved.
"That's the spirit," she encouraged him. "Let's move on, there might be other people where he came from."
"So here you are," a gruff, bored sounding voice sort of interrupted them, making them jump. The way they had come from was Pakkun, the smallest of Kakashi's dogs, looking quite annoyed with everything. "Figured you'd get yourselves lost."
Her little brother Penghe was definitely not someone Tenten would request as a nurse should she ever need one. She realized that he was new to this and everything was rushed and confusing, but really? No need to be that stressed out over something as minor as a concussion.
"Come on, I bet you healed crazier stuff today," she tried to encourage him, as he was almost too afraid to apply any pressure to her head, even though at least a little bit of that was needed to get any kind of healing done, as far as she knew.
"I don't like working with heads," he explained. "One wrong move, one bad chakra wave, and you brain is mush."
"Thanks for telling me that." She tried not to laugh. Her little brother had always been a little jumpy with responsibility. "I hope every patient gets this much honesty from you."
"Shut up." He seemed flustered now. He was not even a whole year younger than her and so had just a little less experience. Then again, he'd only been training as a medic nin for about nine months now, when Tsunade had started picking up system ninjas with good chakra control for her program, so he was probably doing quite well. Who was she to judge.
She sensed what was coming even before she heard it. Not sure how, but somehow, there always was a certain... Tension building immediately before something bad happened. Bad in this case meant the sudden outburst of renewed combat noises from outside the tent, screams that were quickly muffled, and the sudden presence of way more people than there had been before.
"We're under attack!" Came the announcement for anyone who may have actually been wearing ear plugs due to suicidal tendencies. If it was loud enough to get through those, granted. She wouldn't know; she'd never worn any.
"Am I good to go?" She formally asked her brother, in a tone that left no doubt that a) she wasn't really asking and b) his answer wouldn't matter anyways.
"Yes, you are," he said, sounding terrified. She couldn't blame him; ambushes were bad when you got surprised by about ten people as a four people cell. Ambushes on a scale of hundreds, as it sounded like, were about infinitely worse.
She jumped to her feet, this time with neither her feet nor her head in particular pain, grabbed her scrolls from beside her and left the medical tent in a hurry, with about every other ninja who'd been receiving treatment right now and was still able to walk and hold a weapon. Outside, she was greeted by Gai-sensei, who was acting as a commanding officer under Kakashi and currently yelling out his instructions.
"Units B and C to the south, Two to the west and Three to the east!" He bellowed, looking more serious than she'd ever seen him in a combat situation. "Move, people, but do not despair! Our youthful spirits will prevail!"
...Or maybe not. Whatever worked for him.
Truth be told, there was no actual way to really spread out the combat units at this point; the ambush had come in from all directions, just that the north was still occupied by giant animals wrecking up the forest and taking quick care of any additional enemy. But since most of the Konoha forces had been resting, the circle drawn around them by the new assailants was so small, actually defining directions was nearly impossible.
Tenten soon found herself battling quite a few new enemies on the same clearing she'd been fighting on earlier; just that this time, the enemies seemed to be coming from Kusa, judging by what she saw of their forehead protectors during battle. Which wasn't too much, all things considered; the clearing was positively crowded, and from what she gathered, there were snipers in the surrounding forests targeting them as well. It seemed that all of Kusa had found its way here, but why?
Last thing she'd hear of Kusa was that they were actually more on the diplomatic end of things, and they had been on sort of friendly terms with Konoha the last few years... So what the hell was even going on?
They followed Pakkun, who was navigating them sure-footed through all forks and crossroads for about twenty minutes, this place was seriously gigantic, before the little dog froze on the spot.
"What's wrong?" Naruto asked, after almost tripping over the little dog.
"Something smells like it's burning," the pug answered, sounding even more displeased than usually. "Smells like human."
Naruto and Sakura exchanged a disgusted glance.
"Does it smell like Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, though that wasn't very likely. Sasuke-kun was a fire user; surely he wouldn't let himself get burned.
"Not... Really." Pakkun sniffed the air noisily. "Familiar, but not like that Uchiha boy. Meh, what's burning probably can't kill you, so let's just move on."
And true enough, a few more corridors down, another corpse was lying on the ground. It was also on fire. The fire was black.
"What the hell..." Naruto muttered confused and bent down, careful avoiding the strangely swirly black flames. "Is that... Is that Kabuto?"
"Let's hope so..." Sakura bent down beside him. It seemed as if the burning flesh was... growing back under the flames, only to be burnt off again. "Do we know anyone else down here who can regenerate himself?"
"I don't think we know anyone down here besides this guy and Sasuke," Naruto countered.
"Fair enough," Sakura admitted. "Do we know anyone who burns people with black flames?"
"Huh..." Naruto seemed lost in thought for a moment. "I think I do... Like, I've seen flames like those before... I just... Nah, I don't remember anymore. Probably wasn't important."
Sakura was about to point out that black flames at some ominous point in his past re-appearing right now, down here, during this critical mission probably were quite important, but caught herself when she saw his worried expression. Right. There was no use in getting Naruto's spirit down right now. In fact, that would be completely counterproductive. She knew full-well that their success in getting Sasuke-kun back depended entirely on him.
"Would you move on sometime soon?" Pakkun had already continued through the maze. "It's not far now!"
And sure enough, only three turns and four hallways later, they came to the entrance of an illuminated hall, and there were voices coming from the hall. Sakura motioned for Naruto to at all costs remain quiet and stay where he was; simply rushing in there could ruin every chance they had of ever even finding Sasuke down here. So they slowly, as silently as they could, approached the entrance, trying to stay out of view.
"It seems safe to say that Kabuto-sama isn't coming back," someone in the room said. "It's been an hour."
"Are there any news from the surface at all?" This sounded like the person in charge at the moment.
"None," a third person answered. "We must assume the worst."
"But had the defenses been breached, wouldn't they have stormed down here?" A fourth voice asked.
"Orochimaru-sama is out there fighting," the person apparently in command reminded them. "They probably need to concentrate their forces on that... Nevertheless, we need to escort you out of here, Sasuke-sama."
The name sent shivers down her spine. So Sasuke-kun was here, after all, just a few feet away, so, so close... She almost made a sound, could hardly keep her feet on the ground, so strong was the urge to just run in there... But then she saw Naruto, struggling with the same urges, and her senses returned to her. Storming in there now would not be any better than it had been a few seconds ago, so she motioned frantically for Naruto to stay where he was. As hard as it was for both of them.
"I don't need an escort."
Sakura stifled a gasp. Now she really had to force herself to stay calm. Just knowing he was there was nothing compared to what his voice did to her. It was a little deeper, a little rougher than she remembered, and slightly hoarse, but still... This was Sasuke-kun talking. And she was acting unprofessionally. Dammit, she'd wanted to stop doing that.
From the other side of the entrance, Naruto shot her a glance, eyebrows mockingly raised. She rolled her eyes to hide her embarrassment and waved dismissively. Naruto grinned.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke-sama, but we have strict orders..."
"I don't follow your orders."
Now Naruto had to stifle a laugh. Sakura had had to, as well – she just wasn't as obvious about it. Sasuke-kun had never been easy to handle, and the way the commanding officer was acting like a doormat around him wasn't helping in the slightest.
"But we're here to protect you!" These people really didn't know how to talk to him. It was hilarious.
"I can take care of myself," Sasuke-kun informed them. "Or I wouldn't be here anymore."
"Yes, we know that, but you shouldn't have to!" This was a new voice. "Our orders are to keep you out of sight, and the defenses may be breached any minute! The special units have already left; you need to get out of here before Konoha people find you!"
"I don't need to do anything." His bluntness made several people in the room gasp. "There are already Konoha people in here, at the door, and I don't feel like running."
It took a while for these words to register, then Sakura realized he was talking about them. So their efforts to keep from laughing (or gasping, and maybe a little swooning, just a tiny little bit) hadn't been too successful.
"We have infiltrators?!" Thankfully, the other people in the room were even slower on the uptake. "Where? Show yourselves!"
With a shrug, Sakura signaled Naruto that disobeying the order probably wouldn't make much sense, so they entered the hall.
It was the biggest one they'd encountered so far; the walls lined with torches, and two big columns supporting the ceiling. Also in the room were ten Oto Nin, all in the regular attire but with a few strands of colorful hair showing here and there, and... Sasuke-kun. Of course. Who was now looking at them displeased.
"On the other hand, I don't feel like listening to them, either." He then announced to the still stunned Oto Nins, who were probably trying to figure out how they could have missed the intruders all this time. All of two minutes, maybe. "So do what you will."
With these words, he turned and left through a back entrance on the opposite side of the hall. He left. Oh no. Not happening.
"After him!" Sakura yelled, and Naruto bolted, running past her towards where Sasuke-kun just had been, had been so close, but when she tried to follow, the Oto Nins awakened from their stupor and started attacking. She shook off the first two who lunged at her, dropping and rolling to make them crash into each other successfully, and jumping back on her feet to tackle another one who was trying to attack Naruto from the back.
They both went down to the floor, Sakura kicking him repeatedly so he stayed down, and when she came up again, Naruto had left, too. Good. So it fell to her to guard the door to keep her boys uninterrupted.
There were nine Oto Nins left standing, two of them standing again, and one of them holding a profusely bleeding ankle. So Pakkun had been able to at least cause some damage before vanishing. So it was only her.
And nine Oto Nins.
She did not like these odds.
Tenten couldn't see. It had gotten dark, and it was raining, and her bangs were in her eyes half of the time, and everything was wet and nasty. From what she heard, despite the overwhelming numbers of the Kusa ambushers, they were somehow winning, or at least here they were, but she couldn't tell for sure. She had also completely lost track of how long she'd been doing this and how many people she had killed or knocked out or anything. It all had become monotonous in a way; slash, slash, kill, dodge, slash some more, ouch.
At some point, she had received a shallow cut down her right leg, which she hadn't even noticed until it dried enough to make her pants sticky, and hurt when she moved. Not enough to make her stop, though; these bastards had dared attacking them when they were almost done here and mostly resting, how dare they?
(Yes, they had attacked Oto without a warning too, as far as she knew, what's your point?)
Sometimes she was distantly aware of knowing someone who was fighting beside her. That was good; that way she knew her team mates weren't dead. Not that she expected them to be – her own odds were much worse. Slash, dodge, dodge some more, kick off feet, and lunge. More blood on her.
The only way they were able to tell Konoha ninjas apart from Kusa ninjas was that the Konoha people were generally bloodier and dirtier since they had been doing this for way longer. But the rain had transformed the clearing, where the ground had already been trodden soft by the previous battle with the Oto Nins and people splashing around with water jets, into something more like a swamp, so Kusa Nins got just as dirty as the Konoha Nins in no time.
Dodge, roll, ew mud, slash, slash, oh, good sword, get up, slash. If this went on for much longer, they'd all be in serious danger of drowning in mud. And blood. That, too.
Something knocked her over again, making her meet the mud once more. At least she convinced herself that she was imagining the metallic taste it left in her mouth. Maybe she'd bitten her tongue a little. Reflexively, she dodged the incoming attack by turning around and blocking it with her sword, knocking the Kunai right out of her opponent's hand. Clumsy, really. Why hadn't he thrown it? She tried jumping back to her feet as she had done countless times today already, but the mud wouldn't let her. Instead she just splashed some of it, giving her the idea to kick more mud into her opponent's eyes before he could draw another Kunai or perform some sort of jutsu.
The small moment of confusion gave her enough time to draw her legs under her so she could get up the slower and less impressive way, but at least she was on her feet again. That became harder the more often she fell down, considering how soaked with mud (and nothing else) her clothes were at this point. Everyone around would have pneumonia in the morning, she could tell. Well, not her opponent, she amended, as she jammed her new sword sideways through his chest, unsure if she'd hit the heart, but she definitely pierced a lung, and that was enough to be sure this bastard wasn't getting up again.
Wiping the hair out of her eyes and smearing her face with totally-just-mud in the process, she had a brief moment of quiet to look around. Fighting was still going on everywhere around here, but someone had apparently taken care of the snipers. She could also still make out the silhouette of a giant snake and a giant toad battling. Huh. Where did the slug go?
She shivered. There was a roar. A deep, weird roar coming from the very ground, uhm, mud she was standing on, er, in. Then there was a weird vibration in that very same puddle of mud, shaking her to her core... What the hell?
When she heard the first crack, Tenten knew she should have gotten out of there, but her feet were deep in the mud and she didn't react quick enough to pull them out in time, before suddenly, the ground somehow... Collapsed.
There were screams, so many screams all around, piercing her ears even worse than the groaning and roaring and rumbling of the ground did, as she... Slid down instead of fell, trying to hold on the ground behind her, or was it above her now? Hand full of chakra, she crawled upwards, trying, trying to escape whatever was going on here, and coming out on top of... a part of that chunk of ground that was sinking for some reason. And weirdly dry. Dry was good. She could stay on dry.
Then her chunk broke off, and she fell.
She caught hold of other chunks, left and right, oblivious to the people falling and being buried alongside her, just trying to get to somewhere that wasn't moving right now, her hands slipping off the muddy parts and the parts getting wet from the rain and whatever else. She couldn't see where she was going, just went by the sounds and the smell, and it seemed like she had made it, at least almost, when something heavy fell on her hips and pinned her in place. Ouch.
Then something else hit her head, and the world got even darker.
There had been days when Sakura had cursed Tsunade for focusing a large part of her training on nothing but dodging. Today was not one of these days.
Something told her that facing nine different people whose abilities she knew nothing about in a vast room like this with the objective to keep all of them from going through one tiny door was kind of a flawed plan. Fortunately, nobody had informed these goons about that, who were all too eager to attack her at once. Maybe sort of sneaking up on them had wounded their pride. Maybe they had to let out all the pent up aggression caused by Sasuke-kun disrespecting them.
Either way, it was working out for her. If you could call being attacked by nine people at once working out. Which... In a way you could. Wow.
If Tsunade could see her now, dodging and evading punches, kicks, weapons and were those claws from all sides while guarding a door and making them all punch, kick, slice and claw at each other in the process, she would have been very proud. Probably proud enough to not have her take any dodging lessons for the rest of the week...
Her only problem was that while she could keep dodging uncoordinated attacks for a long time, she couldn't build up momentum to actually finish someone off on these close quarters; not without risking someone slipping past her and being a hindrance to Naruto, and something told her he didn't need any of those right now. Also, what happened if these people started coordinating? And was that another pair of claws?
She narrowly evaded what clearly was a pair of claws attached to weirdly brown-purplish arms. Oh god. She'd heard of this. That was what the cursed seal did to you if you moved past the black swirls and purple glow she'd seen on Sasuke-kun. She'd heard all the horror stories from mostly Kiba and Shikamaru and sometimes Chouji about what kinds of things these people were capable of once they activated it. Oh god.
Luckily for her, activating the Juin also made her opponents bulkier, giving her the opportunity to build up enough momentum to kick someone hard enough to break his shin. Two down, eight more to go. Five of them now with unhealthy looking skin and way too much hair. Oh god.
Another claw lunged at her; she ducked and drove a Kunai straight up a not-yet transformed abdomen, blood splashing in her face, seven more to go. Six of them transformed.
Seizing the opportunity, she flung the gutted body at one of the transformed people next to the last untransformed one, giving her a clear shot. She first kicked him in the stomach to make him bend over, then brought her elbow down his neck, hearing a satisfying crack. Four down, six purple-brown abominations to go.
Her odds hadn't improved much, all things considered.
A few kicks told her all she needed to know about these Juin people; she wouldn't be able to take them down, immense physical strength be damned. These people's skin was made out of rock, if rock was more flexible and less easy to shatter. She had to rely on something else than her strength... Well, for the second time today, being able to perform Genjutsus instead of breaking them would have been nice.
A claw grazed her shoulder, sending a sharp pain through her arm, as she had tried dodging three attacks at once and missed a fourth. Dammit. At least nothing important had been cut. And at least they seemed less interested at chasing down Naruto and more interested in taking her down first, giving her more room to maneuver in more distance to the door. Okay. That was good.
Then someone grew a thorny whip from his arm, catching her by surprise and creating a significant gash across her own abdomen.
The pain almost made her pass out then and there, but she had enough of a mind to evade the next lash and start healing herself a little; it was bothering her too much to keep her focus. Notably, at the second she was clear of the whip, someone's spiky knee was jammed into her spine, luckily not breaking anything. Yet. And then the whip hit her square across the other arm as she was cowering on the ground, still healing. Then the laughter and the kicking started. Oh god.
She had to come up with something quick or all they'd ever find of her was a kicked-to death, whipped up corpse with battle torn clothing from the thorns, and she had imagined a slightly more dignified way to go.
She managed to keep evading the whip some more, as the kicks did significantly less damage. Maybe crack a rib or two. Then the room was shaken from an impact further down the corridor, and a bone-shattering scream.
Oh god.
That was Naruto.
Fortunately, she was not the only one whose bones where chilled by this; her assailants were also briefly thrown off track, giving her time to slip through their legs and get up on the other side. Luckily, they were focused on her again immediately, instead of now running towards the fighting noises luckily still emitting from further down. Okay. That was good. Neither of them were dead yet.
She had to get out of here now, and somehow take down all these abominations first, or she would be done for, and soon... But...
Sakura looked around the room frantically to figure out a way to get that done. Hm... There were columns holding up the ceiling here... But not in the tunnels... So most likely, breaking them would make the ceiling come down, but not cause a total cave in. And even if it did, did she have any better options?
The answer lashed her across the legs almost immediately after thinking that. She bit back a cry of pain and instead drew her tanto and managed to catch the whip, pinning it to the ground. Hearing that bastard cry out in pain was the most satisfying sound yet.
Now she had to figure out a way to make them all come as close to the center of the room as possible, for maximum impact. Immobilizing them first would be a plus...
She drew one of her poisoned Kunais and sliced it up the whip, hoping it was connected to the bloodstream of her opponent, before running towards the whole bunch again. This time, she didn't care much about evading anything at first, just making sure she sliced everyone with her kunai at least once, then twice, blocking out the pain as well as she could. There were more important things going on.
She had to get each of them three times, switching Kunais for a higher dosage of poison per slash, before the paralysis kicked in. With regular humans, one slash usually took them out cold. She was starting to get the appeal of this kind of power, even if it did make you look incredibly creepy. And forget your actual target. Oh well.
In the end, their movements got sloppy, and then stopped completely. With a normal human, that would last up to an hour. With this bunch, she probably had about ten minutes max.
Even though it wouldn't break anything, kicking them still sent them flying if they couldn't block, as she had hoped, since it made getting the six Juin users into the middle of the room so much easier. When they were all assorted somewhere between the columns, the real fun began. Sakura ran towards the first column, up to the ceiling and gave it an inquisitive punch. It crumbled a tiny little bit, and that was close to a column. Okay. She ran along the ceiling, up to the middle between the columns, and slightly, just enough to make a little dust come down through tiny cracks, punched it once more. Perfect.
Under her, the Juin users were starting to shiver. Damn, that meant their paralysis was already weakening. She needed to get her time frames straight. No matter; Sakura ran along the ceiling to the second column, the one farther away from the door she needed to go through to get to Naruto and Sasuke-kun, and started kicking it down as she went, only slightly; she still had to make it back through the room, after all. Dirt was steadily trickling down from the ceiling now, the column ached. She paid it no mind. Only when she reached the other column did she finally use her whole strength to completely destroy it right at the bottom.
Nothing happened.
Some of her opponents were slowly crawling back towards her, or maybe towards the entrance where they would be save if something did happen, so she did the sensible thing; run for it. When she had almost passed the room, an earsplitting shattering sound signified the breaking of the second column, and with a deep groan that shook her to her core, the ceiling came down, first slowly, with a steady trickle of dirt raining down into the room, then faster and faster, crumbling to large pieces of debris, burrowing the six Juin users underneath them, until the entire room was filled with stone and dust and a surprising amount of mud, judging from the smell.
Sakura couldn't tell for sure; she was cowering in the next corridor, halfway to another fork in the road, covering her ears from the noise and shielding her face from the dust and debris coming her way. When the noise had died down, and she could be reasonably sure that nothing else would cave in, she got up again, staring at the purple-brownish arm transformed into a whip reaching out of the pile of debris that had formerly been the hall, and whose owner she had just crushed to death.
Breathing heavily, bleeding out of several cuts and gashes and whatever it was the claws and kicks had done to her, her head dizzy from blood loss and adrenaline, she turned around, facing the fork. Which way had her boys gone? Then she heard sizzling noises a muffled scream coming from one way, and the choice was clear.
How she made it all the way to the next hall, she had no clue. Several times she feared the narrow walls would swallow her whole or come down as well. Two times she staggered so much, she had to hold on to the walls for support. They didn't feel very supportive, especially after what she had just done.
When Sakura finally made it to the gigantic room, lit only by torches as well, the first thing she saw was blood. There was a lot of blood. Then there was Naruto, lying in all the blood. He had a hole in his chest. Her gut clenched. Her breath hitched. She'd have run to him, but she didn't trust her legs.
No, no, stay calm, the hole is in the right side of the chest. He lives. He's gonna be okay. You can make him okay again.
Then she saw Sasuke-kun. Or rather, the hole he had in his shoulder. At least she presumed it was a hole, since she'd seen what Naruto could do, and she wanted to think he'd at least gotten Sasuke a little.
Blood was squirting through his fingers, as he tried to make his way towards the entrance she was standing in. No good. Blood loss would knock him out soon. With no one around but her, he'd die. Naruto would die first, but Sasuke-kun would, too.
"Out of my way," he… Not quite coughed. He coughed up a lot of blood while saying it, but the actual sound he made was more like… Gurgling. Not good. Lung damaged. Blood in lung. Hard to get out. Not impossible, but it took some time.
Sasuke-kun staggered towards her, as if she was no threat. She probably wasn't. She was figuring out how to heal both of them right now. She really meant no further harm. There was so much blood already.
He was beside her now. She hadn't moved. He really wanted to get away? He wanted to get away. He wanted to get away!
Anticipating it about as much as he did, she rammed her fist into his stomach. He keeled over on her arm, throwing up blood and other things she narrowly avoided. But he wasn't getting away.
Not today.