A/N: Wow! It's uh… been over a month! Impressive, right?!
…yeah, sorry. Things happen. Like, distractions. And my terrible attention span.
And oh my god, the support. You guys are amazing. I'm about to hit 300 reviews, and I swear to god, I'm going to cry! I really can't believe the amount of support I get, and although I am definitely lax on the side of responding to reviews right now, I appreciate every single one (even the mean ones, because hey, you're upping my review count!).
My beta Ekusukallybaa's firm stamp of approval on this chapter makes me puff out my chest in pride. I've just read his most recent draft of Actions and Words, and he puts the most delightful twists on the most dull events. It's one of those things you've gotta see for yourself.
Thank you all for the amazing feedback. The wait ends now.
Uzumaki
Chapter 11
Sakura undid the knot and released the pressure on the wound, and Satsuki hissed, expression tense with acute pain.
"I'm going to pull the last layer off now," Sakura said, looking up at her.
Satsuki nodded, her knuckles turning white.
Sakura peeled the fabric away, and the sight made her stomach turn. She had roughly and tightly wrapped the wound to staunch the blood flow whilst she tried to lay Naruto down, and now as she undid it she regretted her lack of attention. The wound had left a jagged fleshy outlook from where Satsuki had ripped the sword from her flesh. A thick gunge pushed through the chunks of tissue, platelets and blood mixing to make uncomfortable pink.
From what Sakura could tell, Orochimaru had not intended to kill her. Her arm did not appear broken, and the blood flow was under control.
Sakura looked up to Satsuki. The girl was biting her lip, tears pooling in her tightly closed eyes. She was shaking.
"I'm almost done," she said, slowly peeling away the bandage, and Satsuki gasped. It came off slowly, Satsuki's breathing heavy as the bandage finally peeled off of her skin.
Sakura reached into her bag, and brought out a small bottle.
"This'll sting," she said, and rubbed some alcohol from her pack on the wound. Satsuki visibly winced, but didn't say anything.
Sakura unrolled some fresh bandages on the wound, tight but not tight enough to stop blood flow to Satsuki's arm, and tied it roughly.
"Lie down," Sakura said, and she cleared a space behind the girl, trying to lie her down comfortably next to Naruto.
"Thank you," Satsuki said, delirious with pain.
Satsuki turned her head to Naruto. He was sweating, visibly shaking, eyebrows knotted as though deep in the throes of an argument.
Her expression tightened, and she closed her eyes tightly.
"Goddammit, Naruto," she said. "He'll be fine. He's Naruto. He could never be anything else."
Sakura nodded, diverting her gaze from Naruto's pained form.
"Of course," she said, biting her lip. "Naruto'll be fine."
"I won't sleep."
The wood was dark, night having settled a choking blanket of sky over Sakura that should have reminded her of the open night beyond; instead, the darkness enveloped her, every rustling leaf suspicious and every distant figure an enemy. The stronger fear than that was sleep, the sleep that pulled at her eyelids and clouded her senses.
Sakura dug her nails into her knees, the pain barely rousing her from an almost slumber. She looked to the side.
Naruto lay on one side, Satsuki on the other. Satsuki's arm was wrapped in bandages, fresh white material that she'd replaced just an hour ago stained with a deep red. Sakura was not keen to rewrap her arm; they had limited resources here, with no way to obtain more bandages without ransacking another team's supplies, and Sakura knew there was no chance of that.
And the pain. Sakura knew Satsuki to be stubborn, refusing to show emotion or weakness, but when she touched that arm, peeling fresh material from the skin, Satsuki bit her lip to stop from screaming and wept.
It shook Sakura.
"I won't sleep," she said, staring at Naruto's pained form. "I won't sleep."
He was no better, but there was something horribly, horribly eerie about it. Naruto was not gravely injured, or didn't appear so; all there was was a strange patterned seal on his stomach, three tomoe on top of a swirl, glowing bright as though it were red hot. And his expression was disturbed; as though trapped in a fitful nightmare.
Her voice quivered in her mantra.
"I won't sleep."
The underbrush rustled, and Sakura flinched.
A face of a man attached to the squirming body of a snake crept from the undergrowth and let a slick tongue trace its lips. Its voice sent shivers down Sakura's spine.
"Won't you, Sa-ku-ra?"
She was awoken by her own cry of fear.
The night moved, and Sakura's heartbeat rang in her ears.
"Who's there?!"
The world was empty.
It wasn't. Naruto was in fact, surrounded by people; with faces contorted by prejudice and hatred. It felt the same as being alone. He would have preferred it.
But in the distance, he could make someone else out. Someone distinct from the vaguely similar and hateful faces.
"I hate it…"
Naruto blinked, looking to make out the figure.
It was him. A younger him, at that, in a top and shorts with his hands clutched to his face. Tears dripped down, and Naruto, even from this distance, could hear the hitch of his breathing as he cried.
The distance between them somehow grew smaller, and Naruto could see the younger boy with greater clarity.
"I hate it," the boy said again, voice a distraught whisper. "I hate being on my own."
Naruto tried to speak, but found himself voiceless.
The boy sank to his knees.
"What did I ever do?" the boy said, his tone rising with hysteria and distress. "I've never hurt anyone…!"
The hateful whispers around them grew, the insults and jibes barely recognisable, but the disgust in their tones clear. The boy scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hands, and his tone grew quiet.
"Hand over your scroll," the girl said, voice cold and expression colder.
Sakura flinched, knees shaking as she stood before Naruto and Satsuki resting forms. The hand that held the kunai in front of her was trembling.
'If I don't stand up here… then…!'
"Are you deaf?" she said sneeringly, stepping forward with her hands outstretched. She spoke demandingly. "Hand over the scroll, you stupid girl."
Sakura, moving her head mere inches, looked at Satsuki's pained expression. Her voice rang out fresh in her head.
'You hit hard. Let's go again.'
Sakura dug the balls of her feet into the dirt, and smirked.
"Come get it, then, you bitch!"
"I've never had anyone," the boy said. "I've never had parents. I've never had friends. I've always been alone…"
In a near instant, the boy before him grew older, childhood fat thinning out to leave a thinner boy clad in an orange jumpsuit. His expression was bitter.
"I had nothing to do with the Kyuubi inside of me," he said, voice low. "I was hated for something that wasn't my fault. Labelled as the demon inside of me… wouldn't a real demon just… kill them all? A real demon wouldn't have let them isolate me all those years… a real demon wouldn't have let them do what they did to me."
The boy reached up to his jaw, and dug his nails into his flesh, peeling away the flesh of his jaw and then his lips to reveal a snake like tongue and grin as he smiled.
"Let's show them what a real demon does."
Naruto stepped back, horrified and defiant. "D-Don't say shit like that with my face! I'd never think anything like that! I've never wanted to hurt the villagers for what they've done to me-!"
"Mizuki-sensei…"
Naruto stiffened.
"Mizuki-sensei was a traitor to your village… the very same village that killed him for trying to help you. The only man to ever care for you… it's hard to call him traitor, isn't it?"
Naruto's blood ran cold.
'Who is this guy…?!'
"I want to leave Konoha, I want revenge on the people who took Mizuki-sensei from me… I want to be powerful… I want people to fear me and respect me," the imposter before him said with a smirk of satisfaction on his lips. His tongue enunciated every word with a tone dripping with arrogant pride.
Naruto's lips trembled, stuttering angrily with words he couldn't even find. The boy before him chuckled darkly. "Those are your true thoughts, aren't they…?"
"S-Shut up!" Naruto said, gritting his teeth and advancing upon the boy with fists clenched. "Lying like that, putting words in my mouth… you piss me off!"
Oddly, the closer he attempted to walk, the further the boy appeared.
"I know full well you aren't so disillusioned that you could ever truly lie to yourself. You may behind a smile of lies, but you know I'm speaking the truth." The pseudo-Naruto smiled widely, with eyes that sparkled gleefully. "Naruto-kun… Orochimaru has a gift for us. Power."
"I don't want anything like that," he said, trembling. "I don't want power, and especially not from you!"
"A traitor in the eyes of your village, and he was killed for his crimes," the boy continued. Naruto could only describe the tone as parasitic in its timbre. "But the tale doesn't go quite like that for you, now, does it? He could have escaped, but he lost his life begging you to come with him. He lost his life trying to bring you to a better life."
"Sh-Shut up! Those… that's not what I-!"
"He was a traitor, certainly," the young boy said, slippery and smooth. "But can he ever be just a traitor to you? He was the only one who told you the truth. The only one who tried to help you. Your only friend…"
"I have friends now," Naruto said, "I don't need power! I don't need anything like that! And especially not from scum like Orochimaru!"
The young boy before him laughed. The noise was sickening in its delirium and hysteria, before it simmered down to leave only a smirk.
"Oh," he said, voice sliding past Naruto's eardrums, "But he's powerful. Power takes, power gives, and power reigns. And power, as you'll soon learn, is a very, very intoxicating thing… Naruto-kun."
Sakura moved her eyes to Rock Lee's unconscious form, and her chest tightened.
'Even he… with that move, even he's down. What chance do I really have against these guys?'
A forceful yank of her hair from behind sent waves of pain through Sakura's scalp, and she looked behind her with a snarl of anger to see the girl of the team with her hands firmly tangled in Sakura's hair and her face bearing an unkind smile.
"You seem so proud of this hair of yours," she sneered, ragging it closer to her. "A kunoichi shouldn't spend so much time on her looks."
("Satsuki-san thinks long hair is pretty!")
Sakura could see Naruto and Satsuki from where she was knelt, pained in their expressions.
'God… all I've been doing all this time… just watching their back, or standing at the sidelines. Thinking, Satsuki is so strong! Or, maybe Naruto's not as much of an idiot as I'd thought… when I don't have the right to say anything until I stand up on my own.'
"No wonder you're such a failure," Kin said, her laugh malicious, and Sakura closed her eyes.
'Satsuki… Naruto… I'm sorry. I've been such a useless teammate up until now…'
She reached into her pocket slowly, drawing out a kunai imperceptibly and strengthening her grip on its handle.
'I won't just stand and watch your backs anymore…!'
"Maybe," Sakura said, teeth gritted, "you should stop underestimating me!"
When Kin went flying backwards, hands filled with tresses of pink hair, Sakura felt that in the truest sense of the word, a weight had been lifted.
The clearing burst with blood red chakra, and the enemy and Sakura's allies alike flinched in fear.
Sakura became wide-eyed.
'This chakra…! The intent to kill is so strong… who could this possibly...?!'
"Sakura…"
The air stilled, and though Sakura recognised the voice well, her blood ran cold. Her head turned.
Naruto stood in the clearing, a red hot pattern of wave-like swirls stretching up the jutting shapes of his collarbone and encroaching onto his jaw, burning waves licking up to touch Naruto's unnatural grin. They turned black, as though cooled.
"Naruto," she whispered, knuckles whitening.
'God… no, this can't be him! Not with chakra like this…!'
"Sakura," he said again, and his voice was unmistakable. "Are you hurt?"
Sakura couldn't force words past her throat, and the whole clearing, enemy and ally alike, was still.
"He's alive," Zaku whispered, voice stricken with shock. "How the fuck did he…!?"
Naruto moved a step closer.
"Sakura," he said again, and his voice sent chills down Sakura's back. "You're hurt, aren't you?"
When he moved again, Sakura resisted the urge to up and run under his hungry regard.
Naruto looked her dead in the eyes, and her stomach turned.
"Who did this to you?"
His eyes were blood red, and slit like a feline.
"I did," sneered Zaku.
Naruto's regard snapped from Sakura's to Zaku's, and Sakura, for the smallest moment, felt an ounce of sympathy for the Sound ninja; because whatever look Zaku received, made him stop in his tracks and freeze in fear.
In a moment Sakura couldn't possibly hope to keep up with, Naruto was driving his knee into Zaku's gut and sending him careening into a tree back-first, then grabbing him by his collar and lashing him onto the ground.
Naruto pressed his foot into the centre of Zaku's ribs, and the boy coughed blood, scrabbling with his hands at Naruto's ankles frantically. His breath was heaving.
"You seem so proud of yourself," Naruto noted absent-mindedly. "Yelling about what you've done."
He reached down, grabbing Zaku's hands and pinning them above his head. As Naruto took his foot off his chest, Zaku heaved for breath, gasping in grateful gulps of air, before he screamed them out of his lungs seconds later as Naruto crushed his fingers with the very same foot.
Naruto reached down, smile unpleasant as he hooked two fingers onto Zaku's lower teeth and used his other hand to push against the top half of Zaku's mouth. The boy began writhing, screaming-
Zaku's jaw snapped, and his shriek of agony made Sakura choke back a scream of fear, squeezing her eyes shut.
"No way," she whispered to herself. "No way is this Naruto...!"
Naruto turned to the young Sound ninja quivering against the trunk of a tree, and pinned her down with his gaze. "You're next."
Kin let out a small scream, scrambling to escape when Naruto grabbed her by both shoulders and slammed her against the bark.
Sakura watched, morbidly fascinated as she began to shake her head.
'That smile… that cruelty…' she thought, trembling, 'is nothing like Naruto!'
"Long hair," Naruto mused. "Funny, what happened to Sakura's?"
Kin was whimpering in his grip as Naruto grabbed a fistful of her hair, and she began crying out and begging.
"I didn't- she did it! I didn't cut it off, I didn't do it, I didn't, oh god please let go-"
Naruto laughed, and placed his foot on her shoulder.
"An eye for an eye."
He began to pull her by her hair, the roots ripping out clumps of skin and leaving fresh red blood to stream down her head in rivulets. Her scream pushed Sakura over the edge, and she stumbled to her feet with tears in her eyes.
"Stop!"
Sakura cracked him in the side of the jaw, and he tumbled to the ground, Kin scrambling from his grip to her teammate Dosu.
He turned towards her, with a shocked glint in his eye and blood on his lip, and she looked back at him with eyes filled with desperation.
"Please," she said, choking on her words. "Just stop it!"
With unbidden relief, Sakura watched as the seal that had consumed him receded and disappeared like globules of red hot lava trailing down his neck. He fell to his knees, unmoving and blank in his stare.
The ninja Dosu looked at them both with an expression that told of fear, and lay down their scroll with shaking fingers. "Please… please take this scroll. Spare our lives, and you won't see us again. You're too strong."
Neither of them responded, and Dosu held Kin supportively, who was choking back screams of agony, and moved to open-mouthed, swinging-jawed Zaku, who was doing the same, and ran.
Naruto looked down to his orange jacket, dyed red in splashes, and his hands found his way to the wet patches. His fingers quivered against the blood-stained zip of his jacket.
"This blood," he said. "I'm not hurt anywhere."
Sakura fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around Naruto, burying her head in his shoulder and trembling with the onslaught of tears. Her breathing hitched, and she spoke in a whisper.
"I know."
A/N: Oh dear.
I recommend RED, by Sherbet Mayhem. A tale of oppression, escape, and humans in dark places. Something you simply cannot afford to not read. A true gem.
Constructive criticism especially wanted here. I'd also like to let you know that leaving your honest opinion in the reviews really drives the story's direction. You guys give me a real indication of how I'm doing, so it's always appreciated. Thanks so much.
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