BLURRED SOUND
Sasuke Uchiha met Naruto Uzumaki when he was seven years old; a twist in the time line, and he meets her again five years later during the Chunin Exams – as an Otogakure Genin. SasuFemNaru. AU/AT. Dark Naruto.
CHAPTER EIGHT
- - MISERY BUSINESS - -
'A true friend stabs you in the front' – Oscar Wilde.
Naruto stared up at the Kazekage sitting beside the Third Hokage with a blank expression; her gaze was silently returned, not that it would be noticeable with the other participants. They were looking up as the Hokage delivered the opening speech too.
At one end of the line, she could see Sakura sending her a look filled with mix suspicion, nervousness, and a great number of questions. Beside her, Sasuke seemed to be giving her words some contemplation; he wasn't even listening until the proctor started explaining the rules of the third stage.
Heading for the stairs, she found herself debating the invasion for the first time, not because of any lingering feelings towards Konoha, but some lingering feelings towards Sasuke. Somewhere along the line, she had turned this mission into something... personal.
She wanted him to take up the offer, not for Orochimaru's sake, but because she wanted him in sound with her. She had never expected an outcome like this. Was this why Orochimaru had chosen her for the job, to test her? Well, unfortunately for him, her own reasons for luring Sasuke away didn't mess up her own plans, and nor his, so if he thought she was going to show a weakness, he was sorely mistaken.
Temari and Shikamaru's fight was very surprising, and it made her wary. Shikamaru was a bright spark she hadn't been quite as careful around, and his own unrevealing gazes were far more worrying than Sakura's when he returned to the participant's viewing platform.
It was no help to her at all; Sasuke's match was starting, and she needed to concentrate, and form some more seals without being seen. He had a perfect opponent in the form of the chakra sucking Aburame boy, but unless those bugs got to him...
Naruto walked over to Temari, and started what appeared to be a casual conversation; it was a pre-arranged password word for Gaara and Kankuro to start a distraction of some kind. It worked perfectly; Shikamaru and the others became too distracted in trying to calm the two, seemingly fighting brothers down to notice her weaving a few quick hand signs halfway into Sasuke's fight.
Sasuke dodged a blow from Shino, flipping in the air and landing crouched down several meters away; Sharingan or no Sharingan, those bugs were a pain.
He had to doge them, but at the same time he needed to get close to Shino for his attacks to work; the boy had pulled out an unexpected water technique against his fire one, and one he had managed to land didn't seem to have affected the bugs at all. They were impervious to his fire techniques...
Physical attacks were his best option, as was the Chidori; if he could trick Shino into using one of his water techniques, he could use it to magnify his lightning element, but he would still have to be close up for that to work. Leaping towards him again, he dodged the waves of beetles, and actually succeeded in landing a punch on him this time.
Shino reacted pretty quickly, throwing up a punch towards his own that nearly caught him off guard; it was a pain not activating his third tomoe yet. He couldn't predict movements without it. Still, he wasn't completely off guard, and he managed to counter.
One thing he could see with the Sharingan was the tiny bugs, and when they started aiming for him; the problem with attacking Shino up close was that the bug could crawl directly onto his skin, and that was what they did. He had managed to avoid it for the last few encounters, but one blow from Shino managed to sneak past his quick attacks.
The evil little insects blasted forward, biting at his skin in increasing numbers; he tried infusing his whole network with fire natured chakra – just enough to put them off as he batted away at them, but they really were resistant. He switched to lightning as his supply of chakra dwindled.
Damn bugs! They were numerous, and impervious to chakra natures,and even seemed to have defence against actual natured techniques; he should have mad his stupid teacher teach him more at defending against the Aburame clan rather than Naruto! He wasn't in danger from Naruto!
'Remember what I told you Sasuke.'
Remember what she told him? What did she mean by that? Why was he remembering that now? All she had told him about was Orochimaru's cursed seal and the Kyuubi! What good was that going to do him when his chakra was being sucked...
Wait a minuet... His chakra had been different when had used the seal in the second stage hadn't it? But Kakashi had put that stupid restriction seal on him! Would he even be able to use it? The chakra had certainly felt good, but if Naruto had stopped him like that, it had to be nasty right?
She had given him it, and she had reacted pretty badly after all – it was his best bet of getting rid of the bugs though, so usable or not, he had to try. He didn't really know how to bring it up, so he just tried concentrating on it; the burning of the mark told him he was doing the right thing, but there was that stupid restriction holding it back!
Kakashi said it worked in his will power, but he had the distinct feeling that was a lie; nice to know how much faith they had in him. He kept concentrating, feeling his chakra slipping away from him by the second. Finally, something seemed to break the restriction seal enough to let the seal break through.
It didn't come from him though; it had to be Naruto, and he couldn't thank her enough when the overwhelming sense of power flooded his coils, his senses, close to filling his mind. There was so much of it. Raw, and untamed, but if he could just get control of it then...
He forgot everything else as he lunged towards Shino, completely free from bugs. It was only when he had a kunai pressed against the boy's throat that he allowed himself to push the seal back into confinement.
Naruto was waiting for him as he started upon the stairs, seated in the middle of the third flight looking a little chakra depleted and irritated. He stopped a few steps below her, meeting her eye level, and she returned the steady gaze with one of her own until he asked his question.
"You said that this seal is incomplete... What's the finished version?" he asked, his hand going to the tingling mark on his shoulder.
Oddly, despite the sting from breaking through the seal, it didn't ache like he had been expecting it to. It actual felt good to let it out all by itself. More controllable. Naruto frowned, trying to think of an explanation.
"There's a second level to it; I can't really explain it very well. Your appearance will change, but it's different for everyone so..."
He frowned at her explanation; that wasn't exactly the answer he had been looking for, but it appeared that Naruto was still trying to think of a decent explanation. She was biting her thumbnail, and she only did that when she was seriously stuck for words.
"I've never gone through the process itself, so I can't explain it, but... what I can do with the Kyuubi is very similar..." she replied, and his interest perked up.
She turned her gaze back to him once again, and he noted that her eyes had turned red. He could feel the vast quantity of chakra bubbling beneath her skin, but then it began to cover her skin, not thickly, but enough for the instinct of flight to rise in him.
It felt far worse than that he had witnessed the night before, but he could feel the raw power in it. The raw strength mixed into the killer instinct and aura of pure destruction it emitted.
"Usually, I get a tail of it too, and the number of them increases the more I let into my system, but if I use any more someone'll come nosing. I shouldn't have used that... The cursed seal is a little stronger than that when you first use it, but it gets bigger if you know how to use it right..." she informed him, the chakra disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.
The second half of the cursed seal was stronger than that? He could have access to a power like that? A part of him wanted to accept the offer right there and then, but another part, smaller, but still quite loud, objected; leaving the village for that and giving up his own body in return was a price too large. Too much like Itachi...
"There's more than that though; Orochimaru is a genius. Bit obsessed with snakes and a manipulative git, but he's one of the best teachers you'll get. Illusions, techniques, physical combat... He's got pretty much everything in the highest level, or people who can pick up his slack..."
She hopped to her feet and turned away from him heading up the stairs; he heard her words, but he couldn't be blamed for having some strong reservations on hearing them.
Betraying his village for power sounded very much like something his brother would do; in fact, Itachi had told him so that horrible night when the clan had been killed. He didn't want to do the same thing he had, but... he still needed power to kill him.
He had it right under his nose too, but the internal conflict was huge. Naruto was asking him to become a traitor, to abandon Konoha. That wasn't a small thing to do on a whim... He was so distracted by what he had heard and what his conscience was telling him to do that he didn't notice Naruto had turned around until she had kissed him again.
His surprise was momentary, before he started to kiss her back, taking another step up, to get a bit more hight over her, his had going to the small of her back and pulling her toward him as she ran her tongue over his lips. His own slipped out, brushing hers as he probed between her lips.
This was... this was another reason in favour of abandoning Konoha for Otogakure; he wouldn't say he didn't have friends in Konoha. Sai was a friend, albeit a weird one, and he could sort of include Sakura when she wasn't being all freaky-fangirl, but... they weren't Naruto.
She was the one who understood him; he'd told her of his goal once before, a few weeks before she had left, and she hadn't batted an eyelid. Everyone else, especially the adults, had frowned when the topic was brought up. They had discouraged him. Naruto didn't say a thing.
Heck, she was offering him what he needed to to just that! That wasn't the reason for the lure she held though. He couldn't lie about it – he was... attatched to her. Very much so. He knew that when she left after the exams were over, he was going to be very... irritated by her abscence.
If she didn't so obviously hate Konoha and the ground it grew from, he would have considered persuading her to come back instead. He knew that wasn't going to happen though. There was another reason she was here, and it had nothing to do with love for her old village. It was something to do with what she wanted, not Orochimaru's desires, but what?
The kiss ended sooner than her would have liked, but she didn't pull away; leaning her body closer she put her lips to his ear and gave a soft murmur of enticement – he couldn't think of any other word for it. None of her other offers had the same lure in them.
"There are other people who'll help you too..."
She didn't mean other people at all. She meant her own assistance. That was more appealing than everything she had mentioned put together. He didn't know about this Orochimaru guy, he had his own agenda, but Naruto meant what she said. She had her own aims too, but he was pretty certain they didn't involve possessing his body.
She started to turn away, and was halfway back up the stairs, when she turned on her heels and said something else that left him frozen long after the shadow clone had disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Hinata and Kankuro appeared for their own match.
"Konoha isn't just holding you back Sasuke, this village is well practised with lies, and it's lying to you. You come to Otogakure, and you'll find out what they are..."
She didn't mention Itachi at all, but he knew that was who she was talking about, and the possibility that there was more to his brother's actions than he knew of was very hard to ignore.
Sakura frowned as Sasuke came back up the stairs; Shino had been taken to the medics after almost half of his bug colony had been eradicated by the cursed seal's chakra.
She wanted to think that Sasuke had not used it willingly, but he had really been cornered, and she knew he had used it of his own accord. She knew Naruto had somehow meddled with the seal in order to let him do so too. She was certain she had been at his flat this morning...
No, she knew she had been. She had seen her shirt on the floor through Sasuke's doorway, and the obstinate secrecy he had been exuding was telling in and of itself. It stung to know that he liked Naruto the way she wanted him to like her, but the more worrying matter was that he did like her.
Maybe Sasuke didn't see that clearly yet, but that was what Kakashi-sensei had meant when he said Naruto was dangerous for him. Naruto wouldn't kill him – Orochimaru wanted him. She wouldn't kill him, but she would use everything in her possession to lure him away, towards the power that mark offered.
She knew exactly how to do it, and she knew how to avoid being caught; Sakura had told Kakashi-sensei (out of Sasuke's earshot) of her suspicions and he already knew, but he couldn't do anything. Naruto had spent the night with him, but she was a foreign ninja now. Otogakure was a new village, but they still demanded the same courtesies that the other villages did in these exams.
Konoha couldn't touch her until she made a blatant move against them, and no-one had any evidence of it. If asked, she'd say she was staying with an old friend while she could, and if Sasuke vouched for her (which he would), they couldn't do a thing. If it had been any other time, it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest, but this was the Chunin exams, and there were international laws surrounding them that made it impossible without strong proof.
Sakura glanced towards Naruto, who was standing at the other end of the balcony rooting for that puppeteer Sunagakure Genin as he and Hinata fought in the arena below them; she didn't understand how her best friend could have changed so much. She didn't understand how she could have just left like that, letting her think she had died.
Naruto had loved Konoha, but now she... She had killed that Genin so easily yesterday, and it scared her. Sakura knew there was a good reason – Naruto would only change like she had for a very good reason – but she couldn't think what it could be.
The only thing that didn't seem to have change was her strange relationship with Sasuke; when she had burst out of the trees and stopped him in the middle of the forest, it had been one of the first honest thing she had seen her do. Naruto had organised this on Orochimaru's behalf, she probably still was, but she...
Sakura hadn't even known the two were friends, but it must have been important enough to have progressed to... to have evolved into the feelings of her own in such a short space of time. Especially to Sasuke. Naruto had been even more desperate to stop him than she had been, despite being the one who had landed him in the position in the first place.
It made the pending fight with Naruto all the harder for her to stomach; Naruto was a subvert enemy ninja, she was a danger, but... the Naruto she knew was still in there. She was well hidden, and very tied in with Sasuke, but the first person who hadn't cared about her giant forehead was still there.
Kankuro was knocked out below them, Hinata getting a roar of approval for her victory over the Sunagakure Genin, and Sakura turned back to glance at Naruto's face; there was nothing wrong with the friendly grin on her face as she approached, but it chilled her to the bone.
Naruto linked arms with Sakura, tugging her arm as she had when they were seven years old with a cheerful grin on her face, but as they headed down the stair, Sakura felt the hairs at the back of her neck rising.
She just wished she knew what from; Fear? Nerves? Anger at what she was doing to Sasuke? Or anger at the personal betrayal from the girl? The desire for answers was overwhelming, enough to make her stop just before heading through the exit into the arena.
"Why are you doing this him?" she asked quietly, unlinking her arm and stepping a couple of steps away from the blonde.
Naruto arched an eyebrow at the question, turning midway towards the exit; this was nerve-racking.
She didn't know how she was supposed to fight Naruto. This wasn't like with Ino, who she had wanted to beat. Naruto was just like her in that no-one had liked them very much; before her friendship with Ino, Naruto had been the one to draw her out of her shell, and the one to send her back inside it when she 'died'.
There was also the radical difference in their strength; she and Ino were evenly matched before the second exam, but the strength she had been working on with Kakashi she had only picked up after Naruto mentioned learning it by trial and error. She had other techniques now too, and she was probably fast enough to keep up with what Naruto had displayed during the preliminaries but...
She knew that Naruto had a lot more strength. It was very likely that she would not be able to beat her, but she couldn't just give up; she was her enemy, no, the enemy that was poisoning her team-mate. She couldn't just... not try to beat her. She couldn't, but she needed another reason to fight her old friend seriously.
Naruto stared at her for a moment, before letting some of her real personality show through in a triumphant smirk.
"I'm not doing anything to Sasuke. Nothing he doesn't want at any rate..." she replied.
It was a double blow; Sakura knew Sasuke wanted power to kill his brother, and she knew he was attracted to Naruto. The smug look on Naruto's face was horrible, and it was nothing like the person she remembered, but she knew that she was still alive somewhere too.
"That's not what you want to ask though, is it?"
Sakura ground her teeth together in an attempt to keep from answering, but it wasn't something she could help; she did have a different question, and she wanted an answer to it.
"Why did you just... disappear? You were my best friend Naruto! I don't understand why you would leave...! Why you would do all this to us...? I don't understand it..." she relied, her head sinking a little as she spoke the words.
Naruto was silent for a long moment, and daring to look her in the eye again, Sakura saw the old Naruto on her friend's face for a few brief moments. She saw the part that didn't like whatever she was planning rising to the surface before the new Naruto stomped her back down again.
"I left... because Konoha betrayed me Sakura; I couldn't live here after that." was her short blunt reply.
Confusion reigned in Sakura as Naruto started heading for the arena; Konoha had betrayed her? How? What had they done to her? She knew people didn't like her but to actually get Naruto to say they had betrayed her... That wasn't just those nasty looks. Naruto had just given them what she got with pranks for the glares...
To her surprise Naruto stopped before passing out into the arena completely, and glanced over her shoulder looking like the changes she knew were there had never occurred at all.
"...I guess you didn't though, and you have my thanks for that" she said quietly.
Then she turned he back and headed out into the arena; Sakura clenched her fingers as her eyes began to leak. In spite of the tears Naruto had just given her the reason to fight her that she needed, and she couldn't be more grateful.
Whatever happened, she'd would fight as best she could, not as an enemy, but on her own standards. Whatever happened, she wouldn't have any regrets on her best friend. Wiping the salty drops off her face, Sakura's expression hardened and she headed out into the arena.
"Begin!"
Sakura sprang forward with more speed than Naruto had been expecting, quite a lot more. Kakashi had really put her through her paces. She might even be a little trouble if she could keep it up. She whirled out of the aim of Sakura's punch, spinning round behind her as a large crack appeared in the earth she had just been standing on.
Sakura really had worked her ass of this past month – her use of Tsunade's strength technique was much better than it had been before; Naruto responded to the blows Sakura aimed towards her with quick jerks, spinning out of the way before sending her own fisted, chakraless, blow towards Sakura.
The pink haired girl smirked before disappearing in a puff of smoke, and Naruto's eyes widened. When had she made a clone? She glanced around the arena, searching for any possible attacks with her ears and nose as well as her eyes – they were a bit more reliable thanks to the Kyuubi.
Nothing... Why couldn't she hear anything? She was completely unprepared for the harsh uppercut that came from directly underneath the earth, and was sent flying towards the wall. Moment before crashing, she shook of the daze, flipped in the air and fixed to the wall with her chakra.
Oh, she was going to hunt Kakashi down herself for this! She had hidden beneath the earth, lowered her chakra as low as she could to mingle in with that already there! Normally she would have noticed that but... Sakura's chakra control was phenomenal. Kakashi had capitalised on her Haruno heritage, and gotten some good results.
She kicked of from the wall, darting round behind the pink-haired girl and aiming for her head with her foot; Sakura blocked the blow, and Naruto aimed for her open side with one fist, forcing her to let go in order to dodge the blow. She kept up the blows, trying to get a decent hit on Sakura, but her defence was as quick as her attacks.
God, she would not be beaten in front of Orochimaru! Not by Sakura! She'd never live it down; it wouldn't be long till the invasion started now, and she was determined to beat her before then. She could afford to bring out one of her bigger guns...
She managed to send in one last blow towards Sakura, and sent her back a few meters until she regained her footing; using her momentary distraction she began to weave several hand signs, and slammed her hands down onto the earth with a bloody thumb.
There was a puff of smoke and a salamander several sizes bigger than a large dog appeared in front of her; it had glistening black skin with a few patches of red and a red belly – those were his poison glands. Sakura's eyes narrowed as a rushing murmur went through the crowd, and she started darting forwards once again.
"Hisho, I need some sparks. I'll send you some worms along later today..." she informed the amphibian, weaving several hand signs as she focused on forming her wind natured chakra.
The animal scowled but nodded all the same, taking a deep breath; that was the problem with Salamanders, you had to beat them into submission before they would listen to the summoner. She had almost killed herself beating the boss summon, but she had managed it somehow.
Unfortunately that didn't mean they had to like listening to her – Hisho wasn't too bad though. Dare she say it, he was almost friendly in comparison to the other summons. She finished her own hand signs and let out a loud yell, blasting her gathered chakra through her voice into the air and towards Sakura.
"Uzumaki Secret Technique; Art of the Coral Winds!"
The air began to blast and twist, clawing small chunks from the earth and the sides of the arena as it headed towards Sakura in time to the blast of fire from the salamander beside her; the technique had been inspired by the winds surrounding her mother's home village, strong enough to rip chunks from the coral islands the village had been situated on.
Bludgeoning was as big a danger as the winds them selves; she waited until the smoke and flames had died away; she couldn't afford to be too cautious given that Sakura had actually kept up with her speed. She didn't know if she should congratulate the girl or swear when she saw the singed earthy armour falling away from Sakura's body.
Most people wouldn't have managed to learn enough control over their first element in a month, but once again Sakura's control had worked to her advantage; Kakashi must have had her doing control drills to heighten it before introducing her to elemental manipulation. Her reserves would have increased too...
"I have one more question for you..." Sakura called out; the exhaustion was clear in her voice, and her form wasn't quite as clean cut as it was before, but she was still standing.
"Ask away" she replied – her own breathing was a little laboured, but that was just from the activity – she wasn't anywhere near exhausted yet.
"If this is... if doing this to Sasuke so abhorrent to you then why continue? I know that some part of you hates this, this... so why?"
The question had her thrown for a few moments; she knew her little display in the forest had been odd, but how had she... Sakura couldn't mean that one display! How did she know that she was feeling... conflicted? Sakura didn't move, waiting for the question to be answered.
Naruto mumbled a dismissal to her summons, straightening after expending so much chakra into her wind technique and facing Sakura head on.
"Because... it's necessary. For me and for him. And as for the fighting... Konoha's done too much for me to let it go that easily..." she replied.
She threw a few shuriken in rapid succession towards Sakura, before leaping up into the air, weaving hand signs as Sakura emerged from the ground below her again. She had a lock on her chakra now - she wouldn't fall for the same trick again.
"That and I have no intention of loosing to you when I have a point to make to him!" she grinned as she started falling back towards the earth.
Sakura started for a moment, then a grin covered her face and she started forming her own hand signs. Naruto gathered her wind chakra once again, sending it spiralling downwards as Sakura released her own in the opposite, conflicting direction.
"Earth Style; Art of Stone Spikes!"
"Wind Style; Art of Cyclone Blades!"
Sakura formed more hand signs, pulling her earthy armour over her skin once again as her spikes shot upwards to wards Naruto; the air around them blasted with short, fierce, sharp, swirling currents that left numerous tiny gashes in the pillars, the earth below and the sides of the arena as Naruto crashed back down to the earth, clutching a nasty gash on her side.
Her hand began to glow green, speeding the Kyuubi's work as she healed, but it was taking some serious chakra, and after that last attack, she should start to be more conservative. It wasn't her most destructive technique, but it took a lot of chakra – she had to form very sharp, very short gales over an extended period for it to work, and that meant using a good deal of chakra.
She had landed against one of the spikes, and it had acted like that fishy guys sword, flaking into sharp point and tearing into her skin; she'd kill Kakashi for teaching Sakura that technique! She'd enjoy it too! Kudos to Sakura for pulling it out though. She really had improved.
Once she had healed enough to mange her next attack, she darted towards Sakura; the girl exploded into a cloud of dust as her fist impacted on the earth clone, and Naruto turned towards one of the stone spikes protruding into the air, and crashed her fist into it.
Sakura burst forward, avoiding a crushing blow from her opponent, and started another barrage of her fists, aiming for Naruto's injured side. Naruto didn't consider it cheating at all – she would do just the same thing. She met the flurry of punches and kicks with blocks and attacks of her own, and eventually found the opening she needed.
Sakura's foot crashed into her gut, and use used the momentum as she fell backwards to her advantage; she seized hold of Sakura's wrists and pulled her over her head, sending a kick of her own into her stomach. Sakura was sent crashing to the dirt a few meters away.
Pulling herself to her feet; Naruto couldn't help but match the grin on Sakura's face as she felt the fluctuation of the Kyuubi's chakra amongst her own. Looking up, feathers began to float down into the stadium, and the grin on her face was tainted by the slow prominence of her canines over her lips and the darkening red of her eyes.
The invasion had finally begun.
Yay, update - I'm having a major update-a-thon right now. As promised, the invasion has started - there will be one chapter on it, and then things witll start getting a little darker, no thanks to Naruto and her nasty twisty plans for Sasuke. Sasuke is still resisting the cursed seal right now, but he is looking at the problem from all sides right now, and isn't being rash as such. That and he is very abhorrent to anything that would make him like Itachi. He has acknowledged that Naruto herself has a huge influence over him though, so that's some progress.
Naruto and Sakura have had a big part in this chapter, and Sakura has improved charecterwise a little; I gave her a big boost, but she needed it. Naruto hasn't gone all out on her, simply because she didn't want to give anything away just yet for the invasion. Sakura is going to have a big role in this story, especially if I continue to shippuden, so that will show up next chapter too.
I'm actually quite interested to know what you think of her in this, since I'm aware that many hate Sakura with the passion of a thousand suns.
Title is 'Misery Buisness' by Paramore - I couldn't help it. It fits the NaruSaku fight so well...
Hope you all liked!
Nat.
xxx
