Chapter Three:
-Review of Chapter Two:-
Sasuke opened his mouth to retort when an icy voice asked from the shadows of the trees "What is taking so long, Sasuke?"
Looking over to the trees to find the source of the voice, the three found four sets of gleaming eyes staring at them from the darkness.
Four ninjas appeared out of the shadow of the trees including the one that seemed to have just spoken and walked to stand behind Sasuke.
"Nothing." muttered Sasuke. "I will take care of it"
Amused, the only kunoichi mocked "It seems that his teammates have come to stop Sasuke-kun from leaving them."
The largest of the four chuckled at the scene "How cute, but we do not have time. How about we help Sasuke deal with this?"
"Okay, but the pink haired brat is mine!" the kunoichi yelled she launched, fist extended, in the direction where Sakura was standing.
"Sakura!" Naruto and Sasuke exclaimed as they recognized the danger and tried to intercept the attacking ninja but were held back by two of the other ninjas and lifted up off the ground a few inches by the collars of their shirts, rendered unable to do anything as Sakura who was too slow to dodge was sent flying into a tree and knocked out on impact.
"SAKURA!" Sasuke yelled, entering a mad rage at the sight of her unconscious body.
A loud snap was heard.
Sasuke widened his eyes in disbelief and stared at the sound-nin in front of him, his cheek stinging. "Pull yourself together! Aren't this the bonds that you complain make you weak? The bonds you need to break?"
Unable to speak , Sasuke just glared at the Orogakure shinobi. 'Kuso! He's right! These bonds are the very ones that are dragging me down' Sasuke thought angrilly transferring his stare to Sakura's limp body.'but... I can't stand seeing them hurt. I want to break these bonds, but not like this.'
His decision made, he looked to the side where Naruto was also being held up by the scruff of his jumpsuit and was intently watching Sasuke's interaction with the Sound shinobi.
Sasuke smirked. "Hey, Dobe? he asked, playful arrogance evident in his voice.
Naruto's eyes widened in surprise at the Uchiha's smirk and tone, wondering how Sasuke's mood had changed so fast. He quickly realized Sasuke had made his decision, Sasuke had chosen which side he would fight with.
Naruto put on a mischevious smile and asked in the same playful arrogance that Sasuke had "Yeah Teme?".
"We have some butt to kick and a teammate to protect." Sasuke answered as he kicked the stomach of the nin holding him, thus managing to get loose and jump away, landing in a defensive crouch a few feet away from the two stunned looking Sound ninja he was nearby before.
Sasuke heard Naruto land a few inches behind him and felt his back lean against his while the blonde whispered "What do we do?"
Sasuke looked at the four Sound shinobi that had now assumed taijutsu battle stanced and surrounded the two crouching leaf genin. "I do not think they will use ninjutsu or genjutsu since they are concealing their chakra in order to prevent alerting others of their presence, but even without ninjutsu or genjutsu, they are easily a Jounin level and outmatch us as well as outnumber us." Sasuke paused to stop for a while before continuing "I think that our only option would be to distract them long enough for one of us to get Sakura to safety and call for help, or for someone to notice the disruption.
Naruto nodded, the opponents did look a lot stronger than the pair of genin and the speed in which they had struck Sakura and restrained them was amazing. 'Well, at least one of us will survive.' Naruto thought as he prepared to summon his kage bunshi.
Seeing Naruto prepare to start the fight , Sasuke hurriedly whispered "Naruto wait!" causing the blonde ninja to look his way questioningly.
"Huh?" Naruto asked
"Open my pack and pass me the hiate inside." Sasuke stated, taking his pack off to allow Naruto to quickly search though it.
Naruto smiled, understanding what Sasuke meant and he quickly rummaged through his pack until he found it and passed it to Sasuke.
Nodding his thanks, Sasuke threw his pack out of the way and put on hiate, the symbol that indicated that he was a shinobi, loyal to Konoha
Standing up and assuming the Uchiha style's taijutsu stand and activating his two pronged sharingan he stated "Now, we can go."
Four poofs were heard as Naruto performed the kage bunshin no jutsu, when the smoke cleared three other Narutos were standing by the two original genin.
Grinning, Naruto launched at one opponent along with Sasuke while his three clones set off to distract the other three Sound shinobi.
Sasuke was dodging a punch when he caught a glimpse of orange, sneaking amidst the trees and bushes and towards where Sakura was. Sasuke smirked as he suddenly realized that Naruto had summoned four, not three kage bunshins (shadow clones) and was using them as a distraction while the real Naruto went to grab Sakura.
Sasuke continued dodging incoming blows from the four Sound-nin who by now had dispelled the other three clones and were engaged in a four versus two taijutsu battle with the genin when his eyes widened in shock as he realized that a particularly strong punch was directed towards the last Naruto clone, who had left the attacking to Sasuke and until now had dodged all the hits.
'If he gets hit our plan will be ruined!' Sasuke thought and did the only thing he could: jumped in front of Naruto and received the punch himself. The punch pounded him down to the floor... hard.
Sasuke winced as he stood up, he hurt his right ankle from the landing of the punch but he had to keep going, he straightened up and began going through hand seals.
"Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu!" he yelled as he brought his right hand up to his mouth and blew out a large ball of fire towards the sound shinobi, causing them to have to stop their current assault on Naruto and jump out of the way to dodge it.
Sasuke sighed, if they had kept attacking Naruto, he was sure to get hit and the clone would disappear. When a poof was heard, Sasuke grew cold with dread as he saw that the clone had been hit with by the fireball attack and had disappeared into a cloud of smoke from the burn.
Unable to think of anything else, Sasuke withdrew four kunai and launched them towards the enemy 'If I keep them busy maybe they won't notice Naruto's gone' Sasuke hoped.
He however had no such luck, all of the sound-nins easily caught the kunais between their fingers and the one with the icy voice who had spoken first spoke again "It is time to stop playing. Come from behind the tree brat." she said looking over to where Naruto was currently hiding.
Naruto sighed, it seemed they had seen through the plan even before Sasuke had accidentally dispelled his last clone.
'Well, only one thing left to do.' Naruto thought as he slowly walked around the tree, fixing his gaze on the kunoichi with the icy voice, Naruto launched to rush her, smirking at everyones shocked expressions.
Naruto's eyes widened when the targeted ninja suddenly disappeared, then he felt a sharp pain on his side, where the shinobi had reappeared and punched him down.
"Agh! I think he broke one of my ribs!" Naruto cursed under his breath as he broke his fall with a roll. Naruto stood back up in a defensive stance with a little help from Sasuke who had ran over to make sure that he wasn't attacked while he was down.
"Naruto, next time we both go at her at the same time, maybe we will be able to land a hit that way" Sasuke whispered softly so the enemy would not heart them.
Naruto nodded but then asked in an equally low voice "What about the other three?" tilting his head where the other sound nin where standing.
The nin with the icy voice stared at them in what seemed to be sick amusement before saying "Jirouchou, Kidoumaru, Sakon. Go on ahead and prepare the container and the seals, we will be there shortly."
"Alright, but do not wakes us wait too long Tayuya." warned the largest of the Sound shinobi before he disappeared into the darkness along with the other two.
Naruto decided that this was the best time to attack since Tayuya seemed to have left her guard down. "Let's go!" he growled to Sasuke who nodded back.
"Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" Naruto muttered and ten bunshins poofed into existence.
"Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu!" Sasuke jumped in front of the recently-made clones and let loose the ball fire.
"Tch. Old tricks will not beat me." Tayuya said jumping out of the way to the side of the fireball with ease. Tayuya turned back to face Sasuke and the Narutos who were now running towards him when she felt a blow hit his back, wincing at the unexpected pain she turned back to see a badly burned Naruto preparing to kick her and strike again.
"Ah, I stand corrected, that was quite ingenious. However it sitll won't work" Tayuya said condescendingly as she grabbed Naruto's leg and spinning it around using the force of the kick as impulse he threw Naruto towards Sasuke and the clones.
Most of the clones managed to dodge Naruto's flying body but three were not fast enough and were hit, dispelling them. Those clones that managed to dodge charged at Tayuya and attacked.
Instead of dodging, Sasuke went towards Naruto trying to stand firm and catch him but with the great force with which Naruto hit him, his right ankle gave way and they were both sent flying a couple of yards away.
"Thanks." Naruto groaned as he got up , breathing heavily.
"Hn." Responded Sasuke also getting up and testing out his ankle by putting some weight on it.
"Let's go" Naruto said between breaths and he prepared to charge Tayuya who was dodging the clones' attacks.
At the sight of the clones' fight Naruto growled "She's just toying with us!"
Sasuke shot Naruto a quick glare. "It's expected dobe, our job is to distract not defeat."
"Yeah, but she shot our last plan down before I even touched Sakura! And she's engaging us both at the the same time so we can't just sneak away like last time... Do you have any plans, teme?"
"Just keep fighting, then when you get a chance, get Sakura and go for help." Sasuke stated simply.
Naruto's eyes widened at what Sasuke implied, "No you go! I'll stay and fight!" he protested.
"Naruto, this is the only way we can save Sakura, with my injured ankle I cannot run as fast nor as long as you." Sasuke grudingly admitted, then smirked "Besides, it is not like I will die or be taken, I can hold my ground until help arrives! Or have you forgotten that I am the rookie of the year, unlike you who the dead last?"
Naruto tightened his fist as he looked down, a sad expression covered his face. 'He's right, there's nothing else we can do.. but...' he quickly shook the thoughts of death and kidnapping away replacing the sad face with a fake smile and said "Fine, Let's go!".
Together, the boys launched at Tayuya who quickly dispelled the clones she was toying with and focused on the incoming attacked.
As Naruto dropped behind to give Sasuke space, Sasuke threw a quick succession of punches, all of them got blocked but the plan worked since Tayuya seemed to have forgotten about Naruto.
'Now is my change!' Naruto thought and got ready to launch in when he was interrupted by the sight of Sasuke being thrown high up in the air.
Naruto's face turned pale thinking 'if he falls from that height he will surely die!'. Preparing to jump to catch the falling Sasuke he did not notice that Tayuya was now heading towards him and received a strong punch to the stomach. 'I have to catch him' Naruto mentally yelled in frustration as he put his hand in a familiar seal and yelled "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" (Shadow Clone jutsu)
Two Narutos appeared and ran towards Sasuke at the fastest speed they could manage, getting there just in time to catch him they carried him back to where Naruto was now crouching recovering from the latest attack before dispelling themselves away.
"Stay here and recover while I distract her." muttered Naruto as he saw Sasuke's bruised and battered body jumping back into battle so fast that he did not give Sasuke time to protest against the action.
Naruto's punches were light but in a quick succession so that even one of them had a greater chance to hit, but even then none of them did. Cursing under his breath, Naruto tried the last trick he had up his sleeve... literally.
Naruto took out a kunai that had been hidden up his sleeve and while faking a punch he threw it, straight towards Tayuya's unprotected forehead, however the Sound shinobi noticed and managed to move her head in time so that the kunai did not strike fatally but only graze her cheek instead,
Naruto took advanage of the distraction the kunai had provided to kick Tayuya in the stomach and was prepared to do so again when Tayuya grabbed him and once again threw him across the clearing, opposite from where Sasuke was.
"Well kiddies, it has been fun but the time for play is now really over. If you two would please follow me." Tayuya said dusting herself off and walking towards where Sakura lay.
As Tayuya reached Sakura and stood over her, Sasuke screamed "Leave Sakura alone or..."
"Or what? You'll kill me?" Tayuya interrupted Sasuke with a sneer as she ducked down and picked Sakura up.
Sasuke froze; Tayuya was right. He did not have much chakra left, his whole body was covered in bruises, his right ankle hurt excruciatingly and he was pretty sure he had one if not more ribs broken.
Across from him, Naruto, who was more or less in the same state as Sasuke, was staring at Tayuya in horror as the Sound shinobi struck a kunai through her dress and pinned it onto the trunk of the tree, causing her to hang limply before turning to the two boys, no doubt to continue her tormenting.
Naruto and Sasuke's eyes slowly met and a silent conversation occurred at the end of which they both nodded and turned back to Tayuya.
'It is the only way' they both thought and commenced their charge.
A/N:Alright, again I apologize for the Tayuya confusion again for those who read this before it was updated, it should be fixed now but if you do notice I refer to her as a "him" please tell me where and I'll fix it.
Responses!
Simsen - Thank you so much for your review it made me laugh ^_^ you deserve two cookies! *gives them to you*. Sorry about the cliffhanger... but let's call it insurance to make sure you'll come back again
