Title: The Fox-Demon and the Noble Angel.
Chapter: The Chunin Exams part 3
Warning: This chapter contains graphic depiction of rape…
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Naruto series.
A/N: Hi, guys! I am so pleased with the reviews I've been getting so far and the number of favs and follows is more than I could ever have hoped for! I hope that you'll like this chapter as much… ON WITH THE FIC!
Sakura's camp.
Dawn.
Sakura opened her eyes sleepily as she felt Sasuke's body shift under her, his leg rubbing against her sex. "Good morning, Sasuke-kun…" she yawned. 'CHA! I SLEPT WITH SASUKE-KUN!' Inner Sakura was up and ready to go. "Shut up… I can't begin admiring Sasuke-kun's amazing… body…" she had subconsciously begun rubbing against Sasuke. She threw herself off of him using all of her willpower. 'NO! I can't… I must prove my love to him! I must protect him…' she rose to her feet slowly and stretched. "Naruto, you had better not be peeking at me, you perverted piece of…"
No reply.
Sakura looked solemnly at her feet. "That's right… he's…" her bottom lip quivered and she clenched her fists. She then went to sit by Sasuke. "I know that you hate Naruto… I guess we all hated him, huh?" she began talking to Sasuke's quivering form. "But… despite being a weird, dirty creep… don't you think he deserved a little slack?" still no reply from the Uchiha. She gave him a sad smile. "I guess… I guess it is useless now, huh?" her smile quivered and turned upside down. "I… I don't… I don't know what to do…" she was now sobbing. "I… I was never good at any jutsu… I am terribly scared of fighting… and I have no practical experience in the field…" her tears began dripping down onto her groin, dampening her pink sex-hair. "hehe… I don't even have decent breasts… absolutely useless…" she bit her lip before crying again.
A kunai then came and hit the ground right in between her thighs, almost hitting her in her sex. "Ohh… how naughty. Deciding to take a nap naked with Sasuke-kun, despite all the terrible and dangerous shinobi around? It is as if you wanted someone to see you nude…" the raspy voice came from one of the Otogakure ninja. He was hunched over and had bandages covering all of his face except for his left eye.
Another ninja came out of the bushes. "But Dosu… this girl has nothing to show apart from her curious pink hair… I didn't know it grew that color, hehehe" another sound ninja said. He had spiky brown hair and a scary glint in his eyes.
Sakura froze. "W-what do you w-want?" she managed to say.
"We have come for Sasuke-kun… on behalf of our master…" said the hunched ninja, Dosu. "Get in our way… and Zaku can have his way with you…" he said with a huge, mad grin under the bandages covering his face.
Sakura gulped, as if she was swallowing all the dread and fear she felt. "And… would that master be… Orochimaru?" she asked nervously.
Dosu's eye grew wide. "If you know his name… then I'm afraid… you must die" his icy voice sending chills through Sakura's body.
"Can I have some fun with her first, Dosu?" said the brown-haired sound nin while he licked his lips.
"Why not… just don't get too attached, we WILL kill her after." Dosu said.
Zaku then moved forward towards Sakura. "N-no… get back!" she then moved to take a kunai from her ninja tool kit but was stopped by Zaku who quickly threw himself on top of her and pinned her down. "Get… get off of me!" she screamed.
"Ohh, yes… scream… it turns me on!" he said as he bit into Sakura's left nipple, making her scream in pain. She tried punching him, but all she managed to do was flail her arms hysterically. "Let's see if this little girl can play with the big boys…" he brought his hand down to her abdomen and then her groin, curling the curious pink pubic hair around his fingers. "Who would have guessed with your tiny tits?" the perverted oto nin said with a wicked smile.
Sakura bit her lip. 'Am… am I going to… is he going to rape me!?' she moved her head so she was looking away from the man on top of her. "Please… Sasuke-kun… help me…" she managed to mutter. Of course there was no reply from the sleeping Uchiha.
Zaku inserted his index finger into Sakura's sex and continued until he came into contact with her virginity. "Ohh, a virgin… should have known with your breasts… hey, Dosu, you wanna join in? she is wet!" the disgusting young man yelled over his shoulder.
Dosu was busy inspecting the large metal device on his right arm. "Nah, I'm too good for this Konoha slut… maybe you want to join the fun, Kin?" he said to a kunoichi with long black hair and piercing black eyes.
"You kidding? She's so pathetic that it makes me almost shameful of being the same sex as her… I think less of Zaku now…" she said as she balanced a needle on her middle finger. "Why don't we just kill the Uchiha and get on with our mission?" she asked irately.
"Because what's better than killing your master's enemy?" he asked, receiving a shrug from the black-haired kunoichi. "Killing him after shaming his girl…" he said as he unbuckled his belt.
Sakura was now on the verge of hyperventilating. "No! Get away!" she was now trying with all her might to get free. "Ino! Kiba! Shikamaru!" she began calling out. "Someone!" she continued screaming. 'Oh, god… I'm… I'm really going to… am I really going to…?' she gasped as she saw the erect manhood of the defiler.
"C'mon… give it a small taste!" he said as he grabbed Sakura by her hair and brought her face up to his hard organ. Sakura refused but the feeling of having his hot member rubbing against her cold cheek made her skin crawl. "No? Alright… you know, you should thank me! I'm gonna make the last few minutes of your life something amazing!" he laughed as he went down and positioned himself to take her virginity.
Sakura cried and sobbed in pain. She had had enough. The guilt for having treated Naruto like dirt, the regret that she would never be able to say sorry to him, the exhaustion from carrying Sasuke for three kilometers across the tree-tops and now the deep dread of being savagely raped by a complete stranger while her precious Sasuke slept peacefully was just too much. "Please… help me… Naruto…" she managed to mutter as she felt her defiler enter her slowly.
"Leaf Whirlwind!" came a thunderous voice as a green blur came and threw the perverse oto-nin into the air. "you…" said the blur as it came up an struck the shinobi in midair "will…" another blow "never…" the blur then pushed him with its foot "touch…" several more blows "SAKURA-CHAN AGAIN!" a foot then came hammering down on top of the sound ninja's head, making him crash into the ground with a terrible explosion of dust.
"Who the hell?" Dosu asked as he tried to see into the cloud of dust.
When the dust cleared there was a green-clad young ninja with bushy eyebrows. "I am Rock Lee… and I am not amused!"
Somewhere in the woods
Just after sunrise.
Naruto stumbled through the trees, looking at his compass. He had been walking for a couple of hours, ever since he had left Hinata, and it was now past sunrise. "Damn… I feel exhausted…" he said as he panted uncontrollably. "I… need a… break…" he then sat down against a tree and started looking at his equipment. 'Ok… so I have one kunai, two paper-bombs and three smoke-bombs… damn!' he sighed at his terrible situation. "Don't even have any hentai to entertain me… heh, not like I could do much it if I had any… only fools drops their guard and sexually stimulates themselves in highly dangerous areas like this…" he then heard something approach. He quickly jumped to his feet, mentally thanking Kabuto for the ability to move, and took out his kunai. 'I only have one… I need to plan my moves carefully'
All that came from the bushes was a squirrel.
"Fuck… all that worry for nothing…" his stomach rumbled. "I'm so hungry…" he looked at the little furry animal. He moved his hands slowly into the hand-seal for shadow-clones. "Kage-Bunshin no Jutsu (shadow-clone technique)…" in a cloud of smoke appeared five other versions of him; all surrounding the furry rodent. The all jumped on it at once and Naruto killed it by ripping its head off. He then collapsed onto his knees from chakra exhaustion. 'damn… whatever that bastard did to me has completely drained me of my chakra…' he then started devouring the squirrel, his teeth ripping through it quickly. There was another rustle in the bushes.
Naruto left the bloody pile of bones and guts on a rock next to him and pulled out his kunai. "Hm, as sure as you were that you'd kill me before and now… you scare so easily, like the other mindless little boys that fancy themselves men." Came an icy voice filled with pain and solitude.
Naruto's eyes widened. 'I know that voice…' Naruto gripped his kunai with more strength. "Your name is… Gaara… Gaara of the Desert." He said as he looked to make sure there wasn't any sand nearby.
"I see that you remember me, Uzumaki Naruto…" the red-haired sand shinobi then stepped out of the bush opposite Naruto. Naruto took hold of the scroll he was carrying in his belt. "No… I do not wish to take your scroll…" Gaara said with a small, sad smile.
"Then why have you come?" Naruto said, not taking his eyes off of the redhead.
"Before… you looked at me with coldness… an icy darkness that snuffed out all signs of life and happiness…" the curious young ninja said while looking into Naruto's eyes.
The other two Suna-nin then came stumbling after their brother. "Damn… the hell happened to you? You look like shit!" laughed Kankuro. "Not so tough now, huh? And where is your headband?" he said looking at Naruto with scrutinizing glances.
Naruto was about to speak but he was cut off by Gaara. "He gave it to that girl…" he said, smirking at the look of confusion he received from Naruto. "Your eyes changed when she touched you… they were warmer, happier… as if something gave your life meaning… what makes that girl do that?" he asked curiously.
Naruto remained silently gripping his kunai and simply looked at Gaara with his icy glare.
"Ha! The punk is scared shitless…" Kankuro snickered.
"No…" Gaara said, smirking. "He is standing his ground… he gave her the headband as a sign of farewell… he is prepared to die." Gaara looked Naruto deep in the eye. "But he is also vulnerable… his killer intent isn't nearly as much as it was then." He then turned around. "I will fight you… when you show me how much alike we are…" he then walked off into the bushes with his two siblings behind.
The blonde sighed in relief as he dropped the kunai to his feet and fell back against the tree behind him. "Damn… I need to get back to Sakura and Sasuke… I'm sure that they are ok. Sakura isn't stupid and Sasuke… well… I guess he'll be alright if he gets ambushed by crazy fangirls, hehe" he coughed as he laughed, causing a lot of pain to his burning lungs. "I'm not cured of my fever yet…" he then picked the Kunai from the ground and began walking northwest again…
Sakura's location.
Just after Lee came and rescued her.
I am Rock Lee... and I am not amused!" said the bushy-browed young ninja as he took an offensive stance. "You shall pay for the un-youthful actions you enacted upon Sakura-chan!" he then bolted forward in a flash of green, kicking Dosu in the stomach.
Sakura was shaking. She wanted nothing more than to cover herself but the icy fingers of fear kept her in place. 'Did… did he…?' she looked down to her pink sex. "No blood… so he didn't take it…" she managed to sigh and relax… if only a little. She then managed to reach over to grab her panties and dress and hastily put them on.
"Are you ok, Sakura?" Lee asked, not once relaxing from his elegant stance.
Sakura was not alright. She felt dirty, filthy like some kind of whore. She wanted nothing more than to die in that moment for just looking at that disgusting guy's cock, let alone actually touching it. "I…" she puked, yellow bile gushing onto the green grass.
"Do not worry… you need not speak… I will make them pay!" he said as his eyebrows contorted into a frown.
Dosu's visible eye grew wide with amusement. "You!? Defeat us!? Hahaha" he soon had a laughing fit. "What a joke!" he growled as his laughter died down. "you are dead!" he then charged forward.
Lee calmly looked at his adversary and analyzed his movement. 'hmm… he moves too openly and he is slow… he has confidence in his attack… and… I feel something ominous about that thing on his arm…' He then dodged the slow, clumsy blow and jumped back.
Dosu smirked. "Gottcha…"
Lee then felt the force of a powerful taijutsu punch hit him in the stomach. "What is… gack!" he coughed up blood, staining the floor red with blood.
"Ha! You can dodge my blows but not my sound… that sonic boom is the same as a wind release jutsu!" he said as he rubbed the metal device. Lee fell to his knees. "And now to finish you off…" he moved his hand so it was right next to Lee's face.
Sakura gasped. 'a blast that close will… I… I cannot sit here!' she hastily grabbed a kunai with a shaky hand and tossed it at Dosu.
The hunched ninja parried it with his metal device. "I'll take more than that…"
Lee snapped to attention and gave a swift kick to his adversary's chin, sending him skyward. He then appeared right behind him in midair "Leaf shadow dance…" his bandages then started wrapping Dosu up like a mummy. "Front Lotus!" he yelled as he turned Dosu upside-down and smashed him into the ground.
"Zaku, did you soften the ground for…" Kin then looked to her unconscious comrade. "Uhh… pathetic!" she then saw Dosu in a mess; his head was bleeding and he was obviously unconscious.
Lee then reverted back to his original stance. "Back off… or face my flames of youth!" yelled Lee with a burning passion. "I give you a chance because you are a girl and obviously took no part in the shameful activity that befell Sakura…"
Kin sighed. "Fine… but this isn't over, pinky!" she then threw her two comrades over her shoulders and disappeared into the forest.
Lee fell to his knees. "Oh, Gai-sensei! I hope I have made you proud!" he said while balling his fist in victory. He then turned to Sakura. "Sakura-chan… are you ok?" he asked with concern.
Sakura was shaking. She looked absolutely terrified. "I… I just…" she managed to stutter. She looked at herself and felt utter disgust. "I… I should have died…" she said, taking a kunai.
"No, Sakura! You are brave and strong! You have much spirit within you; I just know that you will overcome this!" Lee said with passion.
Sakura looked at her reflection in her kunai. All she saw when she looked at her beautiful, long, pink hair was that damned Oto-nin grabbing her by it and making her do his bidding; it disgusted her to no end. She quickly took a clump of it and cut it off; the individual strands falling to the ground. She kept cutting off hair until it was around shoulder-length. "There… I… I can't get grabbed by my hair anymore…" she said with a shaky voice.
Lee looked at her with concern. "Sakura-chan… if you want, you could come with me… my team could help you." He said, hoping that she would come with him.
"No… I can't just leave Sasuke-kun… I… I'm sorry for what I said to you before… I was so stupid and… I hurt a lot of people…" she said solemnly.
"What are you talking about!? You? hurt me!? NEVER! my flames of youth can never be extinguished by mere words!" he said with his fiery passion. "And… if you ever did hurt someone… you can fix anything with an apology, yosh!"
Sakura looked into space. "What if… what if that person is gone?" she said, regret heavy in her voice.
Lee looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean…?" he then looked around. The only one there, other than Sakura and himself, was Sasuke who was naked. "Say… wasn't Uzumaki Naruto on your team?" he asked while scratching his head.
Sakura let alone tear fall down her face. "yes… but…" the tears were now falling freely down her face. "but he… died… protecting Sasuke-kun and me!" she then sobbed loudly.
Lee stood up silently. "He was a brave shinobi… the fires of youth burnt strong within him!" he then put his right hand on the left side of his chest in a salute. "but you…" he then took Sakura's hand. "must honor his sacrifice and live! You must prove that the fires of youth burn just as strongly in you!"
Sakura squeezed his hand. "Yes… I… I can't be a broken little girl…" she rose to her feet. "I… I am a kunoichi of Konohagakure! I will protect the one I love and I will honor Naruto's sacrifice!" she then looked towards Sasuke. "I… I still am his..." she said, making Lee slightly hurt inside.
"I am glad that your flames of youth haven't been extinguished…" Lee said as he walked off into the forest.
"Lee!" Sakura called to the green-clad shinobi. He turned to face her. "Thank you… I… I hope that… we can become… friends?" she gave him a sad smile.
Lee grinned ear-to-ear and jumped, punching the air. "YES!" he yelled, making all the birds in the trees take flight. "Sakura-chan, you have made me very happy! I will always come to the rescue if you need me… this I promise!" he then raised his thumb and gave her a dazzling smile. After that he disappeared into the trees.
Sakura then turned and dressed Sasuke. When she finished she slung him over her shoulder. "Ok, Sasuke-kun… I will prove my love to you!" she then began walking towards the tower.
Naruto's position half way between the tower and the large fence surrounding the forest.
Nightfall.
Naruto had found a small clearing that contained a pool of water that then went into the river. He fell to his knees. "I'm… exhausted…" he said while taking in gulps of breath. "I guess I should make camp… I can't see in the dark as well anymore…" he then sat down on a rock that was sitting on the edge of the pool. "I bet there are some nice fish in this pool… and I could take a bath…" he then looked around the nearby trees for a vine and checked his surroundings. "Ok… there is nobody around me as far as I can tell…" he took off his shirt, revealing all his recent scars. He had never had scars before since all his wounds healed almost instantly and he found it curious how the blood dried. He then took off his pants and boxers.
The water was cold and made him gasp as his lower body entered it. He had had the good sense of threading the vine through his only kunai and tying it around his neck. "Now let me see if I can't catch a fish…" he coughed slightly, his fever not entirely gone. After several failed attempts of catching his dinner, he finally managed to get his hands on a fish. "Gottcha!" he then bit into its slimy, wet head; killing it instantly. "Hmm… I've never tried sushi. I wonder how it tastes…" he said, licking his lips.
Meanwhile Hinata had been keeping an eye on him using her Byakugan. Her team was already almost a full kilometer away and in the morning Naruto would be out of range. She blushed as Naruto striped and examined his wounds more closely. "Hmm… Naruto is hurt…" she looked at his forehead protector, that she had kept secretly from Shino and Kiba, and sighed. "Please, Naruto-kun… please be ok…" she said as she deactivated her Byakugan.
Dawn.
Naruto opened his eyes sleepily and rose to his feet. He washed his face in the pool's water and reattached his ninja tool kit to his right leg. "Ok… time to go!" he then began marching further into the forest. He noticed that he could think more clearly ever since the extra seal was placed on him; as if all his anger, rage and bloodlust had dissipated.
He heard a cracking sound and took hold of his kunai. A girl then came out from behind a tree, holding two bodies. "Who are you?" she asked. She was an oto-nin with long black hair.
Naruto tightened his grip on the kunai. "Me? I'm no one… just keep going and we can all walk away happy." He said while cautiously examining her movement. He was feeling somewhat better since the day before but he was in no condition to fight someone who was at their full strength.
The sound ninja placed her unconscious comrades on the ground next to her. "No, I've had a stressful couple of days and now I need to unwind…" she said as she pulled several needles from her kit.
Naruto gritted his teeth. "Alright… if you want…" he got into a stance, hunching down an all fours and holding his kunai back-handed. 'I hope that my basic taijutsu is enough… then again I have never really fought without the kyuubi's chakra…' a droplet of sweat rolled down his face as the tension rose.
Kin threw her needles at Naruto who jumped and deflected them in midair. He then jumped off of a tree and tried to get to her throat. She dodged and punched him with several needles in-between her fingers. "Ha! You were right… you are no one!" she laughed.
Naruto winced as his wound squirted blood. 'Damn… those needles can kill me if I'm not careful…' he then threw his kunai into the air and moved forward to strike his opponent. 'I hope this works…'
Kin prepared he needles. 'I'll hit him right in the eyes when he is close enough… then we'll see how well he can survive while blind!' she then threw the needles at the blonde genin.
Naruto smiled as he jumped up, the needles narrowly missing his feet as he ascended, and caught his kunai. "You are too overconfident!" he then came crashing down on the oto-nin, embedding his kunai into her arm and pinning her down onto the ground. "Now who's nobody, hmm?" he smirked.
She tried to struggle, but Naruto was stronger than he looked. "Heh, not bad… for no one!" she smirked. "Now what? You gonna rape me? Take my scroll? Or both?" she asked in a monotone voice.
Naruto looked at her curiously. "I don't do rape… and I don't even know where the rest of my team is… why should I take some stupid scroll that will way me down?" he asked in a cold voice. "I would appreciate it if you gave me a soldier pill, one of your needles and, if you have any, a small piece of wire…" he said while getting off of her and taking his kunai back.
She looked at him quizzically. "Fine… I can respect a shinobi who is strong." She then gave him the items. "Might I ask you from what village you are from?"
Naruto lifted his shirt and examined the wounds he had received from the needles. "I'm from the hidden leaf…" he said as he tied the piece of wire to the needle in his hand.
Kin looked at him incredulously. "YOU!? A strong shinobi like you comes from the hidden leaf?" she asked, holding back her laughter. "I was beat by a leaf shinobi… I am a disgrace…" she bitterly remarked.
Naruto painfully stitched the small, bleeding holes on his abdomen to the best of his abilities and then took a soldier pill. "No, you were just overconfident… my village is full of weaklings" he said with a bitterness that appealed to Kin. "By the way… you wouldn't happen to have crossed my teammates? We were… separated…" he said solemnly.
"The only leaf genin I came across was a weak pussy with pink hair and that lazy good-for-nothing Uchiha…" she said looking at her teammates. "And that thick-browed weirdo…"
Naruto grabbed Kin by the shoulders. "Where are they!?" he yelled.
Kin looked at him wide-eyed. "I… I don't know… I just ran… I think that they are headed for the tower…" she said nervously.
Naruto seemed to relax a little but he was still nervous. "Did… did you fight?" he asked.
The sound ninja swallowed, if she told him that her comrade had raped the pink-haired girl then Naruto would undoubtedly kill her. "We… we were going to kill the Uchiha but we were stopped by someone called Rock Lee…" she said nervously.
Naruto then started walking northwest again. "Thank you! Good luck with the scrolls!" he said as he disappeared into the vegetation.
Kin picked up her comrades. 'Orochimaru-sama… why didn't you tell me that there were real ninjas in Konoha?'
Sakura's position.
Sakura had walked all night and all day with her black-haired teammate over her shoulders and was now bordering on exhaustion. "I… I need to find a… place to rest…" she was very nervous about what to expect. The realization had hit her in that moment when she was forced to be that oto-nin's plaything. She was a girl, alone in the woods with dozens of guys roaming around waiting for easy prey. Every shadow was a stalker, every sound was an assault. She had tried to look tough for Lee but she was really terrified. "Once… you are awake… Sasuke-kun… things will get… better…" she said, trying to convince herself that it was true. She found one of the rivers that flowed through the forest and a cave near the bank.
She laid Sasuke down gently onto the floor and went out to the river. She felt so filthy, walking around with such ugly, messy hair and having touched… she wanted to just bathe a little and wash away all the pain and suffering. She looked at her reflection in the water and drew a kunai. After a while her hair was even and neat and Sakura took a moment to make sure that there weren't any bold spots; after she was done she took some water and washed her face and arms. She then heard a sound from within the cave.
She moved towards the cave cautiously, taking out a kunai and hiding it behind her back. She peeked into the cave, eyes darting side to side. "Sakura…" came a voice. The pink-haired kunoichi smiled and ran inside.
"Sasuke-kun!" she yelled happily, throwing her arms around the Uchiha.
"What… what happened?" he asked sleepily.
Sakura let go of him. "Well… that guy, Orochimaru, bit you and gave you some weird thing on your neck… you then passed out and I took you to a safe place and… kept you safe…" She said with a blush.
Sasuke looked at her curiously. "Is something wrong? Your hair is different…" he said while squinting at her.
"W-well…" Sakura took a deep breath. "I-I w-was…" she tensed her muscles and was sweating.
"Well? Out with it!" Sasuke said irately.
Sakura closed her eyes tight. "We were attacked and… one of the enemy ninja… started to… rape me…" she said as a tear rolled down her face. "If… if it wasn't for Lee… I would have lost my virginity…" she said solemnly.
Sasuke looked at her with a blank expression. "Well… you wouldn't have needed help if you were stronger…" he said matter-of-factly. "But I guess it isn't your fault… you aren't an Uchiha, so I guess it is expected… I pity you…" he said as he walked out of the cave.
Sakura smiled. "Of course! Anyone who isn't you would have been the same in that position!" she said happily, as if she took that stupid logic to heart. "Well… maybe not Naruto…" she said, her face saddening once more.
Sasuke turned around and grabbed Sakura by the collar, various black markings covering his skin as he did so. "I said… don't you EVER compare me to that joke!" he growled furiously.
Sakura looked at him with utter fear in her eyes. "Sasuke… you're… scaring me!" she cried.
Sasuke's markings retracted and he let her down. "So… where is the little shit, anyway?" he asked as he surveyed his surroundings.
Sakura looked to her toes. "I… I haven't seen him since he… he was defeated…" she said solemnly.
"Great… we'll be disqualified for losing a teammate… oh well; at least we won't have to have that asshole ruining my image." Sasuke said irately.
Sakura, for the first time in her life, felt like Sasuke was wrong… but she decided to remain silent. "So… I think we are close… about three more kilometers and we should be there…" she said, hoping that Sasuke would make all her uncertainty and pain go away.
Sasuke's stomach then growled. "First I wanna eat… then we move!" he exclaimed.
Sakura yawned and lied down. "You… you go catch some fish, Sasuke-kun… I'll… I'll just sleep for a while…" she said as she closed her weary eyes.
"Hm, lazy…" he said as he went to the river.
Sakura then fell into a deep sleep. "I love you… Sasuke-kun…" she said as she lost consciousness.
The tower.
Near sundown.
Kiba, Shino and Hinata all approached the large construct and took a second to relax before entering. "Phew, that was some walk, eh boy?" Kiba asked Akamaru, who then barked happily. "Hopefully that blond-haired loser is lying in some ditch with his throat wide open, eh?" he said with a dark smile.
Hinata tensed and stood up, glaring at Kiba with a ferocity that the Inuzuka had never seen before in the young Hyuga. "Don't say something like that about Naruto-kun, unless you want to be the one in the ditch…" she said in an equally furious voice.
"He will be alright, girl…" came an icy voice.
All team eight looked toward the origin of said voice. "Wait… I remember you… y-you were…" Hinata was now getting back to her usual shy self. "You are that shinobi from Suna…"
Gaara was leaning on his gourd, bearing a calm expression. "Yes… and you were with Uzumaki Naruto…" he then walked over to Hinata and looked at her closely. "What is it about you? How is it that… you could change him with just one touch?" he looked deep into her eyes.
Hinata felt very uncomfortable under the scrutinizing icy gaze of the sand ninja and tried to move away; only to be met by a floating wall of sand. "I…"
Gaara then gave a grunt. "Your eyes are special… I can't read them… is that why he changes the way he does around you?"
Kankuro rested a hand on Gaara's shoulder. "I think your scaring her, little brother…" a glare from the short redhead made the cat-eared sand ninja take a step back.
Gaara then backed away from Hinata. "I will see when he gets back… what makes him change… what gives him purpose…" he then started walking inside.
"That's if he is alive… he looked like shit before, hehe" Kankuro said while following his brother.
"People like him… don't die so easily…" Gaara said somberly.
Hinata looked quizzically at the group of sand ninjas. "Oh, Naruto-kun…"
Naruto's position; three kilometers southeast from the tower.
Sundown.
Naruto was feeling hot and tired; the painful stitches on his stomach having increased the strain on his body considerably. He tripped on something. "What the…?" he looked to see a severed leg lying on the ground. "What the hell happened here?" he looked around, seeing various scattered body parts and he inspected them closely. They were all either ripped or crushed off of the rest of the body and he found small patches of… "Sand… there shouldn't be sand here… so why is it all over the place? It is as if someone made a dessert out of nothing…" he then remembered something. "Gaara… of the desert…" he decided to keep moving, since there was nothing he could salvage.
He continued moving until he felt his legs grow weak. "I really need to get this damned seal that bastard placed on me under wraps…" he said as he put his hand on his abdomen. He then got up after his short rest and pulled out his kunai. "Ok… if I'm going to survive in this damned forest, I'll need to train myself to fight without the chakra boost…" he said as he targeted a tree. 'I was lucky back there… that oto-nin was tired from carrying her comrades and overconfident in her own abilities…' he kicked the tree and pushed himself off of it, throwing his kunai with accuracy before landing gracefully on his feet. It had hit the tree dead in the center of its trunk. "Good…" he then fell to his knees. "Ok… so chakra is… limited…" he said as he staggered to his feet. "Let's see about my plain taijutsu skills…" he got into his fighting stance and prepared to assault the tree. He attacked it quickly with weak punches and ended his onslaught with a furious kick that made a crack in the tree.
After a couple more hours of training the sun had gone down and Naruto had reached his limit. "Damn… that fucking bastard will pay… I swear it…" he said as he gasped for air. He hadn't been this vulnerable and weak for two years… The memory of what happened caused him to dig his fingernails into his palms, making them bleed. "I should go to sleep… I will reach the tower tomorrow." He lied down and closed his eyes. "I… will never be that weak… again…" he said as he fell into sleeps embrace.
Sakura and Sasuke's campsite.
The morning of day three.
Sakura's eyes slowly fluttered open and she sat up silently. She had dreamt about many things the day and night before. She dreamt about her encounter with Orochimaru, about her being raped, about Lee's brave actions, about Sasuke's terrifying outburst and… about Naruto. She had been thinking about him and about the way she had treated him. Her most noticeable memory was when she had pinned him down and beat him in the wave mission. 'I… I didn't want to admit that… he scared me… he terrified me… the way he acted, how cold he was and then… the way he liked killing…' she thought to herself. 'But… he protected Sasuke-kun and me… he saved my life… and… I treated him like dirt… now he's…' she had no more tears left, only an aching feeling in her heart remained; a burning guilt and regret that hurt her even more than being raped by that Oto-nin.
"You awake? Good…" Sasuke said as he sorted his things. "Whatever that asshole did to me, it makes it difficult to perform Jutsu… I'm afraid that even my amazing Uchiha prowess is limited for the time being…" he then turned to leave the cave.
Sakura rose to her feet and stretched. "Don't worry, Sasuke-kun… we'll get through this!" she then wrapped her arms around him.
"Get off of me!" he yelled.
She was taken aback by the anger in his tone but decided it was nothing. "I'm so happy that you are awake, Sasuke! I… I was really worried…" she said softly.
Sasuke started marching west without paying attention to his pink-haired companion. "Yeah, yeah; just don't fall behind…" He said irately.
Sakura followed Sasuke through the tough terrain, thinking about things as she went. 'What will Kakashi-sensei say? He… he was very close to Naruto…' she looked at the ground as she walked, bumping into Sasuke a couple of times.
"Hey, watch it!" Sasuke said as she bumped into him again.
Sakura was brought out of her thoughts by Sasuke's voice. "What will we tell Kakashi-sensei?" she asked nervously.
"The truth. We tell him that that loser died while I survived… I mean that punk had it coming… that's why I am an elite and he is just a common thug, a piece of trash that should serve me, not some equal teammate!" he continued to rant.
"But… he saved us… so many times and we…" she began to say with a broken voice. She had cried so much with the guilt and was hoping that if Sasuke comforted her… the bad feelings would just go away.
Sasuke, however, turned around and glared at her with his Sharingan; the black marks covering his skin once more. "Don't. Go. There. I can take care of myself… I don't nor ever will need that piece of shit!" to add emphasis to what he said he punched a tree, shattering it into millions of wood chips.
Sakura then remained silent for the rest of the walk. 'But… you saved me…' she thought as a tear went down her face.
After a few more hours of walking they reached the final kilometre. "Ok… we will need to go through this final stretch of forest… the tower is in sight!" he said while advancing.
Sakura felt uneasy, like she was being watched. 'it is just the trauma from the oto-nin…' she thought to herself. After a couple more hours of walking her feeling of being watched just got worse and worse until she was looking over her shoulder every few minutes. "Sasuke… I think we're being watched…" she whispered cautiously in his ear.
"Nah, if someone was watching us I would have sensed them…" he said, brushing off her concerns.
A half-hour later and Sakura was now panicking. "Sasuke…"
"Look, I told you that there isn't anybody around here! Now stop being a loser and keep walking!" he said angrily.
Just as the words left his mouth, several figures appeared and took shape. They were rain ninjas wearing diving suits. "Ahh, you should listen more to your girlfriend, boy!" said one of them.
"Wait… you jokers must be with that stupid Amegakure ninja that made the mistake of attacking us!" he said with a laugh.
"You punks killed Oboro? Good, we were hoping to repay the favour!" said another one.
"Come and try it… AHH!" Sasuke charged at the many ninjas, only to go right through them. "Clones… damn!" he then started slashing wildly at the group. At first his attacks were coordinated, going through clone after clone after clone singly, but after a while he started to attack franticly and was screaming hysterically like a scared little girl. "Damnit! Come out and face me you cowards!" he screamed.
There was a laugh. "But you are so fun to watch… I think we'll just sit here while you act like a woman who just saw a rat!"
Sasuke had had enough. These bastards were making a mockery of him and his proud Uchiha blood wouldn't take it. "Sharingan!" he activated his Kekkei Genkai and started looking around. "found you- ahh!" his curse mark started burning and he fell to his knees from the intense pain. "Shit…" he couldn't move.
One of the rain ninjas came running out of the bushes and kicked Sasuke, sending him tumbling into a tree. "Now there is just one left…"
"hey she's rather cute, Mubi…" said the second rain nin.
"You are right, Kagari…" the two ninjas began laughing and approached Sakura slowly.
"S-stay back!" Sakura was afraid. She was very afraid. These two were obviously going to try something and she wasn't sure if she could stop them. She began slashing from left to right in a panicked succession.
"Ha… she is adorable… and look, her boyfriend has abandoned her; how sad… she's all alone" Kagari said in mock sympathy.
"You forgot about me…"
Both rain shinobi turned around, receiving a slap in the face each. The owner of said hands then stepped forward toward Sakura. "A-a-a… PAPER-BOMB!" Mubi screamed before both explosive devices detonated simultaneously.
The explosion sent blood and gore flying in all directions, the light obscuring the one behind it in shadow. Sakura dropped the kunai she was holding and just stared in shock. "Na… ru… to?" she managed to say.
"Hello Sakura…" Naruto said with a smile.
Sakura just stared in disbelief. "Naruto?" she then lifted her hand and poked him in the left shoulder. "You… you are…"
Sasuke walked up to Naruto, having recovered from his curse mark, and marched up to Naruto. "Where have you been, you useless trash!? We almost failed because you were too lazy, or too stupid, to hurry up! Honestly… Sakura has been more useful to me than you have! Kakashi-sensei will be ashamed that, because of you, I almost failed!" he continued to rant about all he had been through.
"At least I wasn't screaming like a little girl…" Naruto said, not paying attention to Sasuke's rant.
Sasuke punched Naruto with all his strength, blood spattering all over Sakura. "Don't you ever belittle me…" he then walked over to what was left of the rain nins and took their scroll. "we're lucky… it's the heaven scroll." He began walking towards the tower without saying a word.
Naruto wiped the blood from his face. "Damn that bastard…" he mumbled before a hand stretched out to him. He looked curiously at its owner.
"Let's go… I will help you…" Sakura said with a sad smile. Naruto took her hand and was surprised to be enveloped in a tight hug. "I'm… sorry…" said the pink-haired kunoichi.
"Sorry? For what?" Naruto asked.
"For… everything. For treating you like I have after you were so nice… I realized that… I kinda… like having you around…" Sakura said with a blush. "Come on… lean on me!" she then put Naruto's arm around her neck and helped him walk since he was dizzy from the punch Sasuke gave.
Sasuke looked over his shoulder, his Sharingan blazing with fury as his skin was covered in black markings. "You bastard…" he muttered under his breath.
A/N: hi! I wanted to apologize again for taking so long last chap and so I wrote this super fast!
I also apologize to any of you who didn't like Sakura getting raped or who wanted her to lose her virginity… but she needed a reason to change and be ooc. (or at least more ooc than normal).
So… I guess I'll just ask you to review and stuff and thank you for reading!