And thick dark chokes the animal flame
The sky breaks open and spills out its' watery entrails over the limp body of Sasuke's teammate, and Sasuke faltering overhead. His right arm swings freely, loose out of the socket; Sasuke grunts. He clasps the elbow tight to his ribs with his remaining good hand and drags himself fully upright. He takes one staggering step towards the forest, towards the border of Rice Field Country, another. A third, but though the cloudburst is dwindling, the footing remains treacherous. Sasuke treads heavy into the mud and his feet slip from under him. He throws his weight back, twists, catches himself with his left hand out for balance before he can topple down- And glimpses a scrap of orange darting at the edge of his vision.
His instinctive skid back for better line of sight combines with a throb at the base of his neck and the dead weight of his bad arm to have Sasuke down on his side. That livid orange is, as suspected, the orange of Naruto's jacket, Naruto's pants, but his teammate is still prostrate where he fell. A second Naruto is crouching above him, checking for breath, for a pulse. With the shock of the ground it takes Sasuke nearly half a minute to comprehend: a clone.
Apparently satisfied that the original yet lives, the clone draws itself erect. It has a strange grace, some tension of the spine Sasuke has never before seen in his teammate. It comes nearer to him on light feet. A heavy weight presses down on his shoulders; the mud sucks with hungry mouths at his hip as he struggles to stand. It halts not three paces in front of him, watching. Sasuke snarls at it, scrabbling at his weapons pouch. He sends a fistful of shuriken hurtling at the doppelganger.
It doesn't dodge, just tips its' head to one side as the shuriken rush past. "I don't think you heard me, Sasuke," it begins. Past its' shoulder he catches sight of a second clone stealing out from behind Senju Hashirama's stone ankle. A third, a fourth- Sasuke loses count and his gaze snaps back to the nearest as it cracks its' knuckles. "I told you," a flicker of red flame blooms in the back of those blue eyes. "I'm taking you back to Konoha even if I need to break both your arms and legs.