The Atrophy and Redemption of Uchiha Sasuke

Chapter Nine: Images

Sasuke rose lithely to his feet, tossing Sakura his black shirt after spotting her torn one lying on the floor out of the corner of his vision, which was training most threateningly upon the Mist shinobi.

He was average in height and build, with observant green eyes and long brunette hair bound back by a hair tie. Tilting his head to the side but keeping the other ninja in the room well within his sight, he watched the brown-haired young woman pull the dark-hued shirt over her head. A roguish smirk dragged the corner of his mouth upwards when he observed the fearful shaking of her hands.

He then turned his attention to Sasuke and took in his appearance most arrogantly, "I'm assuming by your blatant show of concern for her modesty that you realize I've seen through your guise," he clicked his tongue as if in disapproval and took a step closer to the large futon.

Sakura further emphasized her nervousness by biting her lip, which was not very difficult following the revelation that this bounty hunter apparently knew who Sasuke was. But, judging by his disregard concerning her, for the most part, she hoped fervently that he still thought her to be nothing but an immoral, brunette civilian girl beginning to grow scared out of her wits.

Luckily, her plan seemed to be working effectively enough. She had already made up her mind to keep her identity a mystery for as long as was reasonably possible. Very early on, in the first tender years of her career as a kunoichi, the pinkette had been taught the importance of maintaining all cryptic information from the enemy, should such secrets serve to the advantage of her team and herself.

The Mist nin continued to pace tauntingly before them.

He openly sneered, "Really, I expected someone of your notoriety to possess something in your arsenal far superior to a mere henge," with another full glance at Sasuke's changed appearance, he scoffed. "Perhaps," he turned to leer suggestively at Sakura, who had backed away from them and into the far corner, "the fact is that you truly are tired, Uchiha-san?"

Much to his displeasure, the cruel taunts coaxed no response from the silent missing nin, and he reached ominously into his gray cloak, observing Sasuke with wary green eyes, until his hand resurfaced, a long kunai tightly gripped in his fingers.

"However, Uchiha Sasuke," his face crawled with cruelty, smirking, "if your henge form didn't so resemble your coward of a brother, I might not have recognized you."

Sakura's eyes widened, a gasp escaping her throat, feeling the air suddenly grow deathly cold and cause her to subconsciously back up even farther into the wall.

With fearful eyes that remained emerald green despite her henge, she looked towards Sasuke and felt her heart drop without warning. He had released his own disguise, and his usually stoic face was creased with lines of anger, an expression she could not remember seeing so clearly before.

Is this what had happened to him during his years away from Konoha? Away from her and Team Seven?

The watchful kunoichi swallowed. Her eyes darted to the messy heap of blankets resting on the futon by Sasuke's feet, where her weapons pouch lay discarded somewhere underneath. Her mind reeling through all possible scenarios, the pinkette carefully began to analyze each outlet—not that they had many—and covertly allowed her senses to reach out beyond the brothel walls in carefully controlled, hopefully undetectable tendrils of burning energy.

Her teeth worried her bottom lip. Her now brunette brow furrowed beneath her large forehead.

Both the entrance and rear alley of the whorehouse were being guarded by a considerable number of bounty hunters. She mused distractedly, thinking to herself that they were an odd, ragtag group, as bounty hunters usually were. Unlike the Mist nin being stared down by her ex-teammate, the rest of the nin were obviously not very experienced—their chakra signatures were nervous and alerted to Sakura that they were doing little more than pacing outside and intimidating people from entering the building. Her brow furrowed deeper in concentration. They were definitely not exceedingly strong, nor did they feel to be very skilled; the strength in each of their chakra signatures also varied deeply, assuring the pinkette that they certainly would not be able to work well together in battle if they were this unfamiliar with each other.

Feeling more confident after analyzing their surroundings, Sakura shifted and carefully made a slow attempt at moving back to the futon without again drawing attention to herself. Inside she almost wished the Mist nin knew she was a kunoichi; at least then she would not have to pretend to cower away in the corner, but her ex-sensei's voice seemed to be whispering in her ear, reminding her to take advantage of any and all knowledge unknown to the enemy. Again, it seemed that Kakashi's wisdom was coming to her aid.

Not that she would ever tell him that, of course.

And then the sound of Sasuke's voice, seemingly cold in tone—although the pinkette instantly recognized its shaking, rapidly mounting anger—forced her attention to return to the two males in the room.

The last Uchiha was positively seething, muscles twitching under the pressure of his clenched jaw, "Don't you dare speak of my brother."

Realizing he had successfully crept his way beneath Sasuke's skin, the bounty hunter narrowed his leaf-like eyes, concentrating on the dark-haired young man standing so threateningly in front of him, "Lost your temper have you? You aren't quite as impenetrable or . . . self-disciplined as I had been led to believe." another cruel sneer testing against his lips, he turned blatantly to look at a shocked Sakura, who immediately halted the unnoticeably steady slide of her foot against the floor.

She cursed inside her head, eyes growing wide, but was thankful that the Mist nin did not seem to notice her new position closer to the futon or think much of her torn apron, which he seemed to pass off as a skirt rather than medic gear.

A Foolish mistake, Sakura thought curtly to herself, being too focused on the quarry to notice your surroundings.

Then he moved to the side in a sudden blur of gray, away from Sasuke and towards the pinkette.

She hissed when he gripped her around the arm and yanked her body harshly to his chest. But even through the brown hair obstructing the jostled kunoichi's view, Sakura could see Sasuke retrieve her weapons pouch out from under the covers before launching his body forward, brandishing one of her kunai, only to come to a stop when the Mist nin savagely twisted her arm behind her back and pressed his own blade to her neck.

"That's right, Uchiha, stay where you are," he threatened right next to Sakura's ear.

She winced when the man pulled harder on her twisted arm and remembered to let out a pained whimper that would be expected of a civilian girl. It was difficult to quash her kunoichi instinct of masking her pain, but it was definitely easy to make it seem realistic. The shocks of pain coursing through her left arm were beyond real, a stark and humiliating reminder of her still tender shoulder. But her mind remained as an intricate machine.

Her emerald eyes never left those of her ex-teammate, waiting patiently for any indication that they had a chance of getting out of here alive, even if they attacked despite being drained of chakra. It was painfully obvious that neither of them had recovered since they left the mountain prison, yet even there the last Uchiha had been injured, having exhausted most of whatever chakra he had stored in order to bolt from captivity with his lightning jutsu. The young medic herself had already been travel-weary, but she smothered her frustrations over the past few days and tactically sought a way out of this mess.

Sakura admitted grudgingly to herself that her strategizing had backed her into a corner. And now she was being held hostage with a kunai pressed into her neck.

But it only took one measured look from Sasuke to reassure her that he too was thinking of all the drawbacks and possibilities, just as she was. Ironic how in tune they were with each other after all these years.

Chuckling jeeringly, the bounty hunter took sick satisfaction at the look of alarm that briefly consumed his quarry's face at the sound of his female companion's agony, "How interesting," he murmured while looking sideways at the mousy-haired girl, whose eyes seemed to be tearing up in distress, "that such a wanted rogue shinobi would willingly endanger himself to visit a place like this."

Sasuke's grip on the kunai tightened until his knuckles became ghostly white.

The Mist nin continued with a determined, dark gleam swirling in his crazed eyes, "Perhaps . . . perhaps you come here often, hm? To . . . unwind?" he felt the girl in his grip begin to tense up, as if she were preparing to escape, and he heinously tightened his fist in preparation to pull, "Is that how it is then? She's your favorite?"

This time when he wrenched at Sakura's arm, she would not have been able to restrain the scream that left her lips, posing deceptively as a civilian or not.

Eyes squeezed shut, she bit into her lip in reflex, drawing blood, and was forced to fall to her knees under the onslaught of pain monopolizing nearly every single nerve that was alive in her left arm. A violent grimace marred her features. She could nearly hear the tearing of tendons and the unnatural twisting of muscle throughout the abused limb.

But even above the sound of her screaming was the sharp thud of metal splintering deep into wood, followed—much to the pinkette's relief—by the absence of the sharp, menacing pressure against her throat, as well as the complete release of her arm.

A haggard gasp escaped through her teeth and she looked up from her trembling hand, just in time to see Sasuke toss her weapons pouch towards her collapsed form. She reached out deftly. Her tired mind finally released the henge. Once she caught the materials in her good hand, she was rolling across the floor and nearer to Sasuke, cradling her arm protectively against her chest.

"Dammit!"

Sakura's eyes darted in the direction of the Mist nin's outraged cursing. Her hair, which was a vibrant pink in hue once again, joltingly revealed her identity as a shinobi to the bounty hunter. The pinkette barely noticed her teammate placing an observing hand on her shoulder before rushing passed her, closing her eyes in despair at the realization that she had no chakra to heal herself.

His doujutsu's tomoe swimming and changing shape, Sasuke leapt at the Mist nin, all thoughts of and efforts to repress his ignited temper completely forgotten, and Sakura could do absolutely nothing to stop it from her current vantage point. The complete length of her arm was burning like hellfire; the pain pierced sharp, crippling, dizzying. Her ears, consumed by roaring panic, barely registered the slam of the main shoji screen being pushed open in haste.

Her hand moved on instinct. The kunai shrilly screamed as its blade grated against the metal of other weapons compacted together within the cloth pouch re-strapped to her thigh.

It was flung from her fingers before the action was even registered by her pained thoughts.

"Heh," she hissed in pain and drew her good arm back to protectively hover over her opposite wrist still pressed to her breast. Rather than look up to see if her weapon met its mark, the kunoichi vaulted onto her back and rolled rapidly across the floor, narrowly avoiding the barrage of shuriken that surely would have come raining down on top of her, if not for her body's quick reflexes.

She felt like rejoicing at the realization that the pain in her limb was slowly beginning to dull and fade away. Boot-clad feet wobbled uneasily when she moved to stand, only to be knocked back into the wall by a measured burst of crippling Wind Release jutsu, which caused the entirety of the building to rattle and a large portion of the roof to be blasted completely from its perch on the wooden ceiling beams. Sakura gasped when a new pain jarred her back and injured shoulder; she swore the bamboo wall had splintered violently behind her upon the abrupt impact. Shrapnel had glanced against her temple; blood trickled in overwhelming streams from the flesh wound.

A curse narrowly escaping her pursed lips, she cracked her bleary emerald eyes open to see three figures dwelling like shadows through the windswept dust, one of them—the wind user who had injured her—approaching her collapsed figure with a threatening gait, until he seemed to vanish altogether.

The pinkette's thoughts became awash with panic at the implication of the enemy nin had flash-stepping closer to deliver that final, fatal blow, and she pushed herself up against the wall with shaky hands, but with a firm constitution, and prepared herself for the attack—but it never came.

Letting out a relieved breath and warily retraining her gaze onto the other two back-up bounty nin remaining in the room, Sakura passed the presence of the third ninja off as a mere illusion. She did not dare expend anymore chakra in order to gauge her injuries, but from the telling ache that throbbed persistently inside and around her skull, the medic suspected that she had been, in fact, struck with a mild concussion.

With a groan, Sakura pushed herself up further. Exhaustion tightened its clutch, and her eyes welled with unbidden tears of pure, devastating despair. Nevertheless, she could still barely hear Sasuke and the Mist-nin engaged in heated taijutsu across the room, although much of her visibility was obscured by flying dust and debris from the steadily crumbling rooftop.

The two other bounty hunters hovered uncertainly by the now demolished rice paper screen, their trembling gaze transfixed on something near the fractured and jagged rubble.

Finally managing to push herself back up by steading herself against the wall, Sakura urgently began surveying the room now that her head was somewhat cleared against the chaos. Green eyes grew wide at the realization that she could no longer hear nor see Sasuke and his vicious opponent.

And it was at that moment that she saw him—the wind user, not an illusion, that had slammed her so unforgivingly into the wall—sprawled on the ground next to the heap of splintered wood and shattered, weather-beaten roofing tile in a nearly unrecognizable heap.

It was as if a kunai had been raked savagely across his face.

Horrified, Sakura instantly removed her stare from the bloodied corpse and the two remaining hunters, and looked instead for her ex-teammate, whose fight with the Mist shinobi seemed to have felled a wall and carried on into the next room.

How the hell had they caused so much damage when Sasuke was not even capable of performing a single jutsu?

Sakura gasped and came close to stumbling ungracefully over debris. Fear slammed into her stomach like a sharp stake, wrenching at her insides and managing to rouse enough strength to jolt her forwards into a surprisingly agile sprint, with barely any regard for her own safety.

Strange, how she had always valued Sasuke's life more than her own.

The medic looked warily over her shoulder and back towards the two other nin, only to discover with relief that they had already fled the vicinity, mostly likely to calm and muffle the occupants dwelling in the front room of the establishment. She could hear Yamada's indignant yells of outrage at the now damaged state of his business.

Carefully dodging the wrecked fragments of the shattered wall and part of the damaged ceiling, Sakura looked back again at the mangled body of the brutally killed bounty nin. From her position in the other room, she could barely make out the position of the body. The sounds of clanging metal pervaded through the settling dust. Then she turned around and stumbled farther into the building.

Her heart's pounding echoed upwards and into her throat.

Even though Sasuke was still battling the hunter shinobi from the Mist, there was no doubt in Sakura's mind as to who had massacred the wind user.

He flipped through the air with a martial finesse that would make any seasoned shinobi envious. But it did little to mask the steady drainage of his energy. His chakra reserves had been dangerously scant to begin with, and the tenacity of his opponent was certainly not granting the Uchiha any favors.

Sasuke executed one last somersault to relocate himself a satisfyingly safe distance away from the Mist nin, whose ninjutsu attacks were thoroughly destroying everything in the vicinity. One end of a large wooden beam at least a meter in width, that had once run the entire length of the ceiling, plummeted to the ground with a devastating rumble. Frightened civilians' screams echoed down the hallways and through any walls that remained standing amidst the destruction.

The Uchiha's eyes widened in alarm. All at once, he redirected his trajectory of free-fall and landed in a crouch upon the now diagonal beam. Yet even at that height, dirt wafted in taunting clouds around his body, forcing him to instinctually slow his breathing and suppress a cough. Only the crimson of his Sharingan allowed him to see through the dust and smoke polluting the air.

Deafening silence surrounded him just then, and an unbelievably irritating train of thought—initiated by the sting of a deep gash that ran down his left bicep and seeped drops of blood, drip by drip—slowly drifted to the forefront of this already whirling mind.

Sakura.

He had sacrificed his focus, the result of which being the recent flesh wound marring his limb, in order to demolish the most potent threat to that annoying kunoichi. And to instill fear in the other two, if only for the chance that they would think twice about attacking.

His eyes narrowed as he continued to scan the floor that lay at least twenty feet below him. In brief retrospect, he did not even remember rationalizing through any reasonable thought process. It had been like a reflex. To lash out in blind anger after seeing her brutally hurt and thrown into such a callous surface by that nin's jutsu.

Sasuke subconsciously placed a hand over his bleeding wound. She had better not get herself killed and make him regret his decision.

"Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu!"

The sound of surging water thundered in his ears before the water jutsu even made itself visible and reared its massive head against the ceiling. Sasuke leapt backwards off of the wooden beam, his perfect vision enabling him to dodge every rapid strike of the snarling water dragon as it soared after him.

The Uchiha smirked.

He had expected as much. Takigakure was aplenty with waterfalls.

He landed nimbly on the ground. The jolt ran into the soles of his feet and up his legs. Steadily backing away from the room's spacious center, Sasuke calmly gauged his surroundings. The water dragon was nowhere to be seen.

The raven-haired shinobi loosened his fingers around his wound and brought the bloody digits to lie over the summoning seal of his wrist guard. It angered him that he lacked enough energy to perform a single jutsu.

"Hiding, Uchiha?" The voice echoed from wall to damaged wall.

In response, the missing nin backed slowly behind a mound of debris. His fingers tapped the seal. Ice-cold metal weighed down his palms, web-thin wire running sharply along alabaster fingers. Expelling a harsh breath, Sasuke leapt up, somersaulting over the splintered wood and the menacing rush of water, the powerful torrents of which could have shattered the whole of his ribcage had they made contact. Eyes wide with his bloodline limit, Sasuke targeted the mist nin.

Green eyes manic at the prospect of killing the last Uchiha and reaping the rewards from both Fujita and the shinobi nations, the bounty hunter stood confidently on the massive beam of fallen wood the rogue nin had just abandoned.

The blunt wire slid heavily against the skin of Sasuke's strong hands as he jumped off of the ground, slamming his foot into a piece of wood to gain momentum, all motion around him slowing drastically as he watched through spinning Sharingan irises.

His favorite fūma shuriken was a mere glistening glare spiraling across the room's expanse, cutting through the advancing water jutsu that towered above, and embedding into the chest and abdomen of the bounty hunter from Mist.

Dropping down from his turn in midair, Sasuke landed and yanked harshly on the wire of his weapon, drawing it back towards him and resealing the large shuriken into the summoning source of his wrist seals. Its four elongated blades tore gruesomely at flesh as it was pulled from its target.

Released, the suiton collapsed to the floor like cold rain, the exhausted Uchiha's heavy knees buckling against his will and following.

The aftermath of the battle rang unforgivingly in his ears. All corridors within the building echoed only silence, having been long-vacated by its occupants. Distracted—and nearly delirious as temporary adrenaline abandoned the pulsing, deafening rush in his veins—Sasuke observed from beneath soaked ebony bangs, that the fight had continued on passed the brothel and into a much larger, empty building. The bounty hunter's blood mingled gradually with the water, swirling like crimson paint on a soaked canvas of crystallinity.

A weak groan carried eerily across the room. Sasuke's head snapped up from its tired bow, all predatorial instinct he had ever acquired starting to rise alongside his already tenuous temper.

He looked on emotionlessly as, struggling to draw in even one single, raspy breath, the Mist nin crawled across the submerged floor with a blind and hopeless destination.

Images of Sakura screaming out in pain, her arm being twisted and its muscles torn from their places mercilessly, filled the wild storm of Sasuke's thoughts. Memories of his brother, his aniki's face staring lifelessly up into the heavens as the ominously gray storm clouds shook with thunder and the rain spilled forth. His brother leaning his forehead against his own, telling him that he would love him forever. Him. Sasuke. A dishonored Uchiha with a tainted past and a cursed legacy.

He stood, his movements slow and calculated over the water, until he stopped directly before the dying man clinging to life before him.

At the sight of Sasuke's boots, the Mist shinobi ceased his crawling.

His shredded body shivered piteously—in pain or in fear, Sasuke could not be sure.

Neither did he care.

With the dark tomoe and crimson hue fading slowly from his eyes—the reappearance of his natural obsidian gaze was somehow more cold, more intimidating than that of his bloodline—he met the dying ninja's own suffering gaze, watching as the man spat blood from his mouth and struggled to speak, cruel and despising, regardless of his perch on the brink of inevitable darkness.

He hissed through clenched teeth stained sickly red with blood, "T-they'll kill you, Uchiha . . . they'll find you. . . . You . . . are nothing . . . but a murderer . . ." a mangled hand weakly extended from underneath his crippled body and clenched around Sasuke's pants.

The hardened Uchiha carelessly lifted his leg to remove the Mist nin's grip on his pant—

"A worthless killer . . .just like your brother . . . nothing but a worthless criminal," green eyes dulling rapidly, the dying hunter offered up one last nasty, degrading sneer. "You and your whore."

—leg.

Something vital within Sasuke severed with a resolute snap that seemed to thunderously rupture his eardrum—the last and only remaining vestige of patience that tethered him to his sanity. It threw him into an abyss of anger bereft of all rational thought.

His senses were dead. Not dormant, not stressed, not depleted. Just dead.

Had they not been, perhaps Sasuke would have been able to see the blood, the sheer amount of red that erupted from the already lifeless body on the receiving end of his fury. The sick laughter spilling unrestrained from his own mouth. He had not felt this way since under the influence of the curse seal, and since he had fought Danzo.

Then—

At the very corners of his perception, of his consciousness, he could feel her.

Could hear her feet running and sloshing through the water. Could hear her kicking and throwing debris, anything that barred her from him, out of her path.

Could sense her chakra and feel her presence and hear her voice and smell her scent.

Sakura . . .

Arms wrapped, pleading and shaking ardently, around his torso.

And he could feel her, warm and soft and gentle against his heaving back.

"Stop! Please!"

He gasped. His body sagged underneath her touch.

"Please, Sasuke-kun. Please stop."

A/N:

Wow, I just loved that part during the Chuunin Exams . . .

That part where she's running to him, I feel like that's how much of her relationship with him has been: seeing him being his own worst enemy and running against all odds to get to him, to stop him, and to just take care of him.

I am so very sorry about the long wait! I want to thank you for reading this story, for reviewing, and for giving me such a lovely response for the last chapter, despite it not being especially lengthy or eventful. I'm overwhelmingly grateful, and I hope that this chapter made up for it because it was admittedly so difficult to write.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading.

Please, do review!