Whoa...haven't updated this in like, a gazillion years. Haha, have fun and review nicely!
Chapter Seven
Someone to Protect
"You SAY you don't need comrades," Naruto spat back at the boy who was aiming a deadly knife at his throat, "but I think you're just pretending. You can't EVER mask your real personality with this bastardlike one you're wearing now, Uchiha."
Sasuke hesitated before smirking once more.
"I see you and Haruno have completely abandoned the whole 'Sasuke-kun' act."
"THAT was no act," Sakura said, finally speaking up for herself. "Don't you dare accuse US of acting- when all along, it was going to be you who BETRAYED Konoha just for some useless power!"
Sasuke looked at her, averting his grip from Naruto, who massaged his throat to get some air.
"It wasn't useless," he stated calmly.
"So you're saying you need the power because you don't HAVE it?" Naruto provoked. Sasuke gave a deathly glare at his old comrade, but resisted in knocking him out to the solar system for the time being.
Actually, for the first time during their battle, Uchiha Sasuke was silent and out of words to say.
Sakura and Naruto raised their eyebrows in half confusion, half surprise.
"I have better things to do than to waste my time on old reunions," Sasuke said, swinging the kunai knife in his hand, and returning it to its proper pouch.
Sakura and Naruto's eyebrows were so high that they were...well...uh...much higher than normal.
"In other words- you're taking place of a boy who's too afraid to harm his friends?" Sakura demanded. Sasuke's previous sentence made her mind swarm with questions. It was almost like he didn't even want to be there, poised to kill, and fighting with Naruto.
Was there such thing as a change of heart when your mind had been poisoned with the wrong idea of righteousness for the past two years?
"You..." Naruto muttered, his eyes closed his fury. His clenched fists were slowly shaking and a bead of perspiration ran down the side of his young face. Sakura glanced at him in alarm as a blast of chakra emitted from all around him. The dirt swept up and cleared out, running into the small crevices of the alleyways between the houses.
Kyuubi Naruto was waking up.
"HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT CRAP TO US AFTER ALL WE'VE BEEN THROUGH TO DRAG YOU HOME!" Naruto bellowed, as the faint whisker markings on his cheeks grew more pronounced and firey. His ocean blue eyes turned a dangerous red and the pupils grew dilated and thin- like a fox's.
Sakura, too, was livid and angry. They had sacrificed SO MUCH for this friend- including Naruto's potential promotion to a chuunin- and the only way that Sasuke was thanking them, was to shake them off without even a respective battle!
How dare he!
Sasuke stopped, his back to his teammates. Calmly, and a little hesitantly, he said,
"Remember what happened last time, Naruto?"
They froze.
"Having your comrade attempting to kill you isn't exactly easy to forget," Naruto said, shaking.
"I need that power," Sasuke continued. "I'm not Orochimaru's pawn. I will not be his piece to play and alter so that he can obtain his control over me."
"So you're saying that if THAT'S the only way to get power, you'll go for it?" Naruto growled.
"Yes," came the flat reply.
There was that eerie silence between Team 7 once again.
"NO!" Sakura snarled. "YOU DO HAVE THE POWER-YOU JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO RELEASE IT!"
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her.
"Just like Naruto," she whispered. "He would still be weak now..."
"...if he didn't have anything to protect."
Sasuke listened.
"The reason you can't defeat your brother isn't because you don't have enough hatefulness."
Naruto stopped his anger submersion long enough to glance at Sakura. Small tears had made their way down her glowing face and her eyes grew brighter.
"I remember," she began slowly, "that time after the Chuunin exam, when Gaara attacked me, you insisted for Naruto to solely focus on getting me out of the forest. You insisted that you didn't want anymore people who were precious to you- you didn't want to see them die."
Sasuke was silent.
"I know your childhood tragedy was caused by your brother!" Sakura screamed out. "But don't try to avenge your parents! It won't bring them back! That's the last thing that will ever happen! There is no jutsu, no spell, no chakra transplant, that can even come CLOSE to reviving the long, lost, dead!"
Sakura clenched her fists to keep them from trembling.
"Please..." she whispered. "Kakashi-sensei once told you that the ones who sought revenge weren't satisfied and it only ended in tragedy. He's lost many people close to him before, and we've never seen him give the slightest attempt to hunt them down."
Sasuke looked from Naruto to Sakura, who was wiping her tears.
Damn...
It was either Itachi...
...or his closest friends.
"Sakura," Naruto said. "He's not going to listen. We're going to have to beat this information into him if there's any chance of bringing him back to Tsunade."
With a flick of her wrist, Sakura wiped her tears.
"I'm ready when you are, Naruto."
Sasuke's expressionless face continued to stare them down as his black eyes glistened.
"You have no idea what I've been through," he spat at them.
"Don't pull that pity talk on us," Sakura snapped back. "You think I'm spoiled just because I have both parents alive? That's nothing near being spoiled- it's just life. You deal with what comes, and there's no turning back!"
"My parents are dead because of my brother!" Sasuke yelled. "WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW, NARUTO! I ASKED YOU THIS VERY SAME QUESTION BEFORE, BUT YOU DIDN'T ANSWER! WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT LOSING SOMEONE SO CLOSE TO YOU, YOU'D BE WILLING TO KILL YOURSELF TO HAVE THEM BACK FOR JUST AN HOUR! WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT IT!"
Naruto flinched inward as he stared at the ground, and then spoke his words.
"I know how it feels too. And so does Sakura-chan."
Sakura stared at him in slight alarm. What did he mean?
"When you left," Naruto said softly, "did you even think about the people you were hurting in the process?"
Well, Sasuke had thought about it, but not like that.
"I wouldn't know squat about having my parents die before my very eyes by the hands of an older brother," Naruto stated coldly. "But..."
"But?" Sasuke sneered.
"But at least you had the first five years of your life with them. At least you know you have a blood-related brother you've looked in the eye once. At least you got some relations. But me?"
Naruto shrugged and sort of did an awkward gesture of spreading his arms out to the side as if trying to welcome in what little he had left.
"And Sakura-chan may have both parents, but she doesn't exactly brag about them, does she? She learned her lesson when you told her off about whining about their lectures."
Sakura guiltily rubbed her forearm in cold comfort of that old memory.
"Be lucky you even had parents, Uchiha," Naruto went on. "And before you complain about your life, think of the ones who had to actually be sent to their deaths by their parents- or what Gaara had to go through being known as a monstrous freak."
Sakura tightened her forehead protector that had been braced around her pink hair.
"Winner is the right one," Naruto said, clasping his hands together in a hand seal.
"Fine with me, Uzumaki," Sasuke said, cutting his words. "Don't blame me when you find yourself bleeding to the death next to that girl."
"You should talk."
Shikamaru spat out of the corner of his mouth and wiped his brow. Although they hadn't been physically battling, summoning a bunshin extracted a lot of their chakra. Plus, Chouji would probably last no more than another hour or so.
"I assume you have a plan," Ino said loudly.
"I SAID Plan B, didn't I?" Shikamaru said, annoyed.
"Wait, Plan B as in Triple Plan B or in Single Plan B?" Chouji said.
"Triple," Shikamaru whispered. "Get out the pills, Chouji. I hope you two are ready for some serious pain."
"I should be asking you guys that," Chouji remarked as he pulled out a small case with three pills the size of gumballs.
"Oh, c'mon," Ino started, "are you seriously going to make me swallow thos-PHRUHURGHK!"
Shikamaru had shoved one down her throat rather quickly. He took a pill, and cracked it between his teeth, feeling the bitter dust settle on his tongue with no water to wash it away.
"C'mon, Chouji. This is our final go- now or never."
"ORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Yumi readied herself with the mirrors, but Ino was too fast. She exploded forward, firing a punch at the Sound ninja, but it missed by a foot, and she slammed against the ground.
"INO!" Shikamaru yelled. "GET UP! NOW!"
"Hey," Couji whispered sharply. "The shoe."
"WHAT!"
"The shoe, you idiot!"
As he suddenly grasped the concept, Shikamaru wasted no time. Chouji went first, aiming a kick dead-on towards Yumi's head. It connected rather suddenly as she flew back. Shikamaru bit the end of a spool of thread in his mouth and then tossed it to Ino, who caught it in her bloodied fist.
"Your heel, Ino!"
She took the spool and wrapped it around the heel of her shoe six times, but before Yumi could turn to her, Ino had snapped.
"GAHHHHHHHHHH! IF SAKURA-PIG DIES BECAUSE OF ONE OF YOUR LITTLE BUDDIES, YOU ARE SO DEAD, YOU UGLY WITCH!"
"Uh..."
"..."
Ino snapped her ankle as she slammed her foot into the ground, and flung the spool of string so that it looped around one of the mirrors, just as Yumi performed another water-bullet ninjutsu.
"NO!"
The bullet ricocheted off the mirror, reversed the direction and caught Yumi square in the stomach as Chouji caught her in the neck with a rope.
"WHAT'S YOUR PLAN!" Shikamaru demanded as he had done before in the Interrogation Corps. The ninja struggled under Chouji's grip, but he was overpowering her.
Yumi spat and it hit Shikamaru in the face as he growled at her.
"You're in no position to bargain, lady," Ino said, coming up, with a hand on her waist, and breathing harshly. "My ankle's broken, thanks to you, and we really can't waste anytime on freeloading Sound ninja."
"Where is the kid named Uchiha Sasuke?" Chouji said roughly. Yumi opened her mouth in a snarl, but a piercing loud screech emitted from her open lips.
The three of them clapped their hands over their ears as the screech went on until audible words came out.
"NO! NO! OROCHIMARU-SAMA, I AM SORRY! GIVE ME TIME TO-"
Silence.
The Sound ninja collapsed to the floor as the cursed seal on her neck began to corrode in a disgustingly sickening sight. Ino retched.
"Ew."
"Shut up. C'mon, we have to drag the body to the gates."
"We have to touch it?"
"Ino! You just punched her like, fifty times already. C'mon..."
"Ouch..."
Sorry for the shortness...i think! I don't know...but yeah, please review! Don't uh...expect any uh...sooner updates. (hehehehe) I KNOW! I know...i'm really neglecting this one, but it WON'T be on hiatus, just on a break. Don't worry...breathessssssss.
By aNdreaa
