Naruto: Creatures

Chapter 4 – The Creature Exams! Days of Suffering!

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After completing the hand sign, the snake woman grabbed Sasuke's hair and forced him to move away from his neck.

"Don't!" Sakura called out, still winded out from the genjustu she was placed under.

"Let's see if you have an antidote for this venom." She smirked before biting Sasuke's exposed neck.

Sasuke let out a heartbreaking scream of pain.

"No!" Sakura forced herself up and lunged at the woman.

Orochimaru smiled and used his free hand to grab her by the neck. "Sss. Don't worry deary, you will prove yourself to be useful soon."

He knocked her out and tossed her over the tree branch where she crash landed on the ground. Once the seal was placed on Sasuke's neck, he tossed the Uchiha over the branch as well.

"The only thing that will stop the venom from killing him is awakening the first stage of his Sharingan." He looked down at the unconscious members of team seven. "His fate lies in your hands human."

XXX

Slowly coming to, Sakura opened her eyes and sat up, remembering what happened. Fearing for her friends' safety, she looked around to see Sasuke still unconscious. She looked up and noticed the sun peeping through the leaves.

"I have to get Sasuke out of the sun." She mumbled, getting up and picking Sasuke up. "Hang in there."

The nurse stumbled around until she located a well hidden cave with thick bushes covering the entrance. She managed to get through them and placed Sasuke as far back as she could. After sitting down on the ground, she opened her's and Sasuke's backpacks and went through them. Moments later, she founded a fire kit and started a fire.

"Sasuke..." She could see her friend struggling to breath. "What did that woman do to you?"

Sakura pulled out all the anti venom she brought and tested them all on him. Nothing was working. Not sure what to do, she punched the ground. "I can't lose you too!"

"Sakura..."

"Sasuke?" She spun around to face him. He tossing himself back and forth in his sleep.

Dark violet charka escaped his body. "Gah!"

"What's happening to him?" Sakura held him in her arms. "That seal on his neck... What is it doing to him?"

She squeezed him tighter as his fits grew stronger. "Nothing I have here will help him. I don't know what I can do."

Tears rolled down her face and landed on her teammate. "Calm down Sakura... You need to remain calm. Stop crying and focus."

Sakura wiped away her tears and placed Sasuke back on the ground. She reached over to her backpack and soaked a rag in cold water and placed it on Sasuke's forehead to cool him down.

"He's still running a fever." She frowned. "I don't understand why none of the anti venom potions worked. There must be some herbs here that will calm down his charka."

She studied the powerful aura around him. "I have to locate a cure and find Naruto. I hope I can find something that will help him."

She looked back at Sasuke one last time before leaving the cave, not knowing if he would stay safe or not.

XXX

"Stupid rotten snake." Naruto kicked the remains of the oversized serpent that he defeated. "That's what you get for messing with Naruto Uzumaki!"

He took several deep breaths and realized he was in the middle of nowhere. "Great. I have no idea where Sakura chan or Sasuke are at."

He glanced from one point of the forest to another point and got frustrated. "It all looks the same! How in the world am I suppose to find them?!"

"Are you sure we should follow this kid? He seems completely clueless."

Hidden in some bushes several yards away from Naruto, the leader of the group nodded. "You heard what Orochimaru ordered us to do. Kill Sasuke Uchiha. And this brat is his comrade. He will lead us straight to him."

"If you think so Dosu." The female sighed.

"No point in standing around. I need to start looking!" The demon started to walk.

"Yes, take us to your friend." Dosu chuckled softly. "And lead us to your death!"

XXX

After picking several plants around the cave, Sakura sensed a dark energy and tossed a kunai over to where she felt the power coming from.

"I know someone's out there!" She pulled out another kunai. "Come out!"

"Hm. Not bad for a human ninja." The same person that attacked Sasuke came forth from behind a tree.

"You! What did you do to Sasuke?!"

She shrugged. "I only gave him what he wanted. However, if the venom in his body doesn't stop spreading soon, he will die."

"Tell me what I can do to save him!" She cried out.

"Do you wish to save your friend? Then you must sacrifice some precious scarlet that courses through your body." A disguised Orochimaru walked over to Sakura. "And you better hurry, your team will be in a fight for their lives."

Not getting the answer she wanted, the nurse tossed the weapon at the woman. She let out a spine chilling laugh before disappearing in thin air.

"Better hurry to Sasuke kun before they come." Sakura could hear her voice still. "If you die, he dies as well."

"What does she..."

"Sakura chan!" Rushing over to her, Naruto relaxed to catch his breath.

"Naruto!" Sakura smiled. "You're okay!"

"Not for long!"

A powerful burst of sound blew Naruto and Sakura to the ground.

"What a fool!" The female feline of the group laughed. "He led us to a girl!"

"Don't worry Kin, Sasuke shouldn't be far from here." A second feline came out of hiding.

"They're after Sasuke too?" Sakura got off the ground with her teammate. "What do these creatures want from him?"

"How about this?" A Mist ninja held out his hands. "Tell us where Sasuke's at and I won't have to blast you fools into a million pieces."

"Never!" Naruto made a hand sign. "Ninja Art: Shadow clone justu!"

Around ten clones appeared around the Mist ninjas.

"Sakura chan, I will handle them." Naruto looked over. "Go find Sasuke."

"But Sasuke is..."

The demon began fighting off the three felines. "Hurry! Before they find him!"

She nodded and hurried away from the fight. As explosions went off, Sakura came closer and closer to the hidden cave until a large gust of wind blew her into the cave. The powerful wind also caused the entrance of the cave to collapse, blocking the only way out and trapping Sakura's leg stuck under all the rubble.

"Ah!" She cried in pain, trying to move her leg.

"..." Sasuke fluttered his eyes but the pain caused his to pass out again.

"This is bad." Sakura struggled to think clearing. "Sasuke's going to die if I don't think of something soon."

*"Do you wish to save your friend? Then you must sacrifice something precious scarlet that courses through your body." A disguised Orochimaru walked over to Sakura. "And you better hurry, your team are going to be in a fight for their lives."*

Sakura then looked down at her veins going through her arms after remembering what the woman said to her. "Is it that obvious?..."

Using all her strength, the cherry blossom pulled her leg out from underneath the rocks. She tried to stand on it until she realized it was broken and fell back to the ground. Not giving up, Sakura army crawled all the over to Sasuke and held his head up.

"Gah..." She flinched in pain as she pulled out her last kunai, using it to cut a small straight line on her wrist. "Wake up Sasuke."

His head fell limp in her hands. "Sasuke!"

The harsh charka surrounding the vampire started to attack her. "Don't let it take over you!You're stronger than this!"

Tears fell down onto Sasuke's face. As the aura continued to fight Sakura, her grip on the Uchiha tighten, refusing to let go.

"Sakura..." Sasuke's blurry vision slowly returned to normal when it focused on the crimson stream of blood dropping on his clothes.

"Drink it." She brought her wrist closer to his face. "It will stop the pain."

He turned away from her wrist and looked up at her neck, reaching for it with freezing fingers.

"Here." She helped him up to get closer to her.

"Sakura..." He closed his eyes as he brought his mouth over to her throat. "Thank you."

Sasuke wrapped his arms around his teammate and sunk his fangs into her neck, taking deep drinks of blood. The more he drank, the better he felt. As he returned to normal, he regain his strength and realized what he was doing to Sakura and stopped.

"Sakura..." He examined her and noticed her injured leg. "Who did that to you?"

"It doesn't matter." She softly smiled, feeling faint from all the blood she lost. "I'm just happy you are okay."

Sakura closed her green eyes and fell asleep in his arms. He covered Sakura with his cape and picked her up gently. The Uchiha noticed something was different about him. There was new power coursing through his body. Was it from the seal the mysterious woman placed on him? Or was it from the blood he drank from Sakura? He looked down at her and knew it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was killing the one who broke her leg.

XXX

"Dammit!" After all of Naruto's clones were defeated, he became completely out of charka.

"End of the road twerp!"

Before the three Mist ninjas could attack, an intense power brought everyone to their knees.

"This power..." Dosu coughed up blood from the pressure. "Where in the world is it coming from?!"

Coming from out of the shadows, Sasuke emerged over to the battlefield with a wounded cherry blossom in his hands. "Which one of you did this?"

"Sasuke?" Naruto looked up at him, not believeing all of this power was coming from his friend that was covered in black marks. "What's wrong with Sakura chan?"

The vampire then activated his Sharingan. "Which one of you did this to her?!"

"I don't want to brag..." When the charka pressure calmed down, the spiky haired member of the Mist stood up. "But most of this damage is from me."

The leader noticed who the vampire was and knew they were no matched for him. "Shut up Zaku, you fool!"

"Naruto," after the blonde stood up, Sasuke handed Sakura over to him, "watch over Sakura."

"Okay..." Naruto slowly backed away from the Uchiha with Sakura in his arms.

In lighting speed, Sasuke appeared behind Zaku and grabbed both of his arms, pulling them towards him as he kept a foot on his back.

"Gah!" He cried, not able to move.

"Looks like you're very attached to these arms." The vampire evilly smirked. "Let's see you do any damage without them!"

"Sasuke..." Sakura fluttered her eyes, looking up to see the blonde demon was holding her. "Huh? Naruto?"

"Sakura chan! You're alright!" He hugged her.

"I'm fine." She balanced on her other leg to keep herself from moving her injured one. "Where's Sasuke?"

Naruto pointed over to the vampire, seeing that he was ripping the arms off of Zaku. Sakura's eyes widen, who was the ruthless monster attacking that Mist ninja? It finally hit her that it was Sasuke... No, that person using that much intense power wasn't the Sasuke she knew... Was this scary power from the curse mark?

"You bastard!" Zaku squirmed on the ground. "I swear you'll pay for this!"

Sasuke dropped Zaku's ripped arms next to the bleeding Mist feline. "Who's next?"

"This mission is going downhill fast!" Kin was frozen in fear. "He'll kill him if I don't do something quick!"

The female Mist ninja saw Sakura away from the blonde brat and teleported over to her and grabbed the human by her long pink hair.

"Lay one more finger on Zaku and see what happens to your friend!" Kin snickered. "What a stupid girl. Instead of spending so much time on your hair, you should had been focusing on detecting ninja like me!"

"Sakura chan!"

Kin pulled out a kunai and held it to Sakura's neck. "Don't! I'll cut her open right here, right now!"

"My leg!" Sakura winced in pain, collapsing onto the ground.

The raven haired girl chuckled. "Game over girl."

"No..." The human looked at her kunai pouched, remembering she had one kunai left. "It isn't..."

Sakura pulled out her kunai, making Kin laugh. "Oh please! That won't work on me!"

The Mist ninja tugged at Sakura's hair. "This kunai isn't for you."

"What do you..."

With one stroke of her kunai, Sakura chopped off the hair Kin had a grasped on and pushed her back. Catching her off guard, the Mist ninja fell over and looked up to see Sasuke Uchiha hovering above her.

"Don't Sasuke!" Naruto called out. "She's not worth it!"

"Chidori..."

"No!" Sakura wrapped her arms around him before he could activate his attack. "No more Sasuke."

The Uchiha glared over his shoulder, seeing Sakura crying. After taking a deep breath, the curse markings disappeared and he fell to the ground with her.

"It seems we underestimated you. We surrender." Dosu picked up Kin and Zaku. "I don't understand how he expected us to defeat such a powerful foe... Farewell."

The Mist ninja disappeared from the scene, leaving team seven confused and wounded.

"What did I..." Sasuke looked down and his blood tattered hands. "What did I do?"

"Sasuke..."

"Here Sakura chan!" Naruto ran over to them and handed Sakura his backpack. "I'm not good with medical stuff, but there's stuff in here for your leg. Right?"

She softly smiled. "Yeah."

"Hiss!" The Uchiha shielded his face with his hands, trying to block the sun that was peeping through the leaves. "Dammit!"

"Naruto, get Sasuke into some shade!" She ordered.

"What about you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'll be fine. Just do what I just told you."

Naruto dragged the teammate over to the same cave Sakura and Sasuke were trapped in before returning to his other friend, not believeing what he was seeing.

"What's going on?" Sakura held her hand out in the sun, feeling it burn. "Gah!"

"Sakura chan..." Naruto stared into her eyes. "Your eyes... They're red."

She looked down at her pale white legs. What in the world was happening to her?

XXX

"Tsunade sama," a zombie woman moaned and groaned into the pixie's office, "how is research going?"

"Look at this Shizune!" Tsunade held the book out, pointing to a small paragraph about humans. "It says here that humans aren't able to become a creature. However, when they get in physical contact with one, the human gets the creature's powers for at least an hour."

"That's interesting." The zombie nodded. "But why would the Akatsuki need that ability?"

"I'm not sure." Tsunade sighed, slumming back into her chair.

"And by 'physical contact', you mean like a bite or a scratch?"

The nurse shrugged. "Yeah. Or if they are intimate..."

"Lalala!" Shizune blushed and covered her ears. "I don't think we need to worry about that! Sakura's only fourteen years old!"

"True." Tsunade placed down the book and picked up another one.

Shizune recognized the book cover. "Isn't that the history book on former Hokage Minato's and the ninth spirit's battle?"

Tsunade nodded. "I hope to find the answers we need in this book."

"Me too..." Shizune pouted. "It's alarming no knowing what they are up to..."

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