Hey all, Slyvia here!

I love the reviews! Keep them a coming!

Here's the next chappie for all my fans of this fic! I hope you enjoy it!


"Sasuke, where are you?"

'Sakura?'

"….Sakura?" Sasuke whispered as her voice echoed through his mind, "Sakura?"

'What's going on? What's happening to her?' Sasuke wondered as Sakura's voice continued to call out to him.

"Sasuke, come back, please!"

'What's wrong?' Sasuke thought as an image of Sakura flashed before him.

Sitting at the window and staring at the rain, she called out to him.

"Sasuke…" She trailed as a tear ran down her face.

'Sakura?' Sasuke wondered as the scene changed as a shadowed figure loomed over her with a kunai.

Yellow eyes. Yellow piercing sick eyes gleamed down at her. Sakura sat on the ground, crying as the kunai was raised above her head.

"Sakura! Move!" Sasuke tried to call out.

The figure stepped into the hazy moonlight and smirked.

"Your too late," he growled, "your always late."

"Sasuke, help me…" Sakura cried as the kunai came down into the side of her neck.

"No! Sakura! Sakura!" Sasuke yelled as her body fell to the floor.

Blood, bright crimson blood pooled around her body as her eyes stared at him. Stare, all he could do was stare at her bright pink hair, glistening in her sticky blood. Her body stopped moving with each breath as the blood washed over her face. Consumed by the flowing red liquid she was lost in it's wake.


"Sakura!" Sasuke yelled opening his eyes.

'What the hell happened? Sakura…' he thought as he tried to sit up.

Groaning at the pain, he pushed himself up off of the ground, staring at where the forest he had been fighting in used to be. Branches of tree lay strewn across the clearing as massive craters dotted the ground where he had been walking.

'That bastard…' Sasuke thought as he struggled to move his legs.

"You can't kill me Sasuke," he haggardly laughed, "…….because you're already dead."

Sasuke remembered Kitaro's last words before the giant explosion went off.

'He set us up,' Sasuke inwardly cursed, 'he knew we were coming! Damn it!'

Sitting fully up, Sasuke doubled over in pain. His shoulder gushed blood as part of a branch stuck out from his lower side.

Grunting, the Uchiha grabbed the branch lodged in his abdomen and, biting his lip, pulled the piece out.

He adjusted his eyes as five other dark blobs littered the area. He noticed one particular black and orange shirt and crawled over to it.

"…Naruto? Naruto?" Sasuke whispered, moving his blood caked lips.

No answer.

Naruto laid still on his stomach as Sasuke nudged him.

"Wake up! Come on you idiot! Wake up!" Sasuke hoarsely yelled, trying to hit Naruto harder.

No reply.

Blood seeped around Naruto's face as Sasuke growled in frustration.

"Come on dobe, Sakura's in trouble! Get the hell up!" He screeched shaking Naruto as hard as he could.

'Come on, I can't do this alone!' Sasuke pleaded, 'Sakura, that bastard's going after her! I have to stop him!' Sasuke continued to hit Naruto until he heard coughing.

"…Sas-…Sasuke?" Naruto coughed, spurting blood from his mouth.

"Come on Naruto, get up, we have to go, now!" Sasuke yelled, trying to flip Naruto over with his one good arm, "Move!"

"Sasuke," Naruto panted, wiping the blood away from his mouth and eyes, "What happened?"

"We were caught in an explosion," a lazy haggard voice said from behind Sasuke.

"Shikamaru?" Naruto asked as the shadow ninja limped over to the two lying on the ground.

"Troublesome…" he muttered.

"What about the others? Can they move? Sakura's-"

"We know Sasuke," Sai's emotionless voice choked.

"Sai?" Sasuke asked looking over to the artist trembling to get up.

"It was a trap," Shikamaru's voice shook as he swayed to the side, "we thought we'd have the enemy by surprise but…" he started coughing up blood as he cradled his chest.

Blood seeped through his fingers from his wound as he continued to struggle to stand.

"We fell for it," a deep voice whispered from behind Naruto.

"Neji?" Naruto asked as the Hyuuga crawled over to where Kakashi was trying to sit up.

"He lured us to this spot to kill us," Neji continued.

"Uhhh, not that I'm not happy about this but…." Naruto crookedly smiled, "shouldn't we be dead then?"

"Hn…" Sasuke glowered at his teamate.

"Yeah, we should," Sai tried to fake smile, "but, if Neji hadn't seen the explosives a second before they went off well…I think you can guess."

Naruto's smile dropped as Sasuke looked around at them, all trying to make their bodies move. Each of their brains trying to send a signal to their legs to move. Their arms, their eyes, their hearts. Each move they made, they seemed to be fighting the will to fall back down and go to sleep.

Death. They all were fighting death.

"We have to move, he's going after her!" Sasuke yelled.

Ignoring the pain in his side and shoulder he stood up shakily, stumbling to and fro. Gravity was against him.

He shook with pain but thought back to his dream: Sakura was in danger. He swore to protect her. He promised.

He staggered as blood oozed from his dirty wounds.

'Hm, even my own body's against me…' Sasuke thought bitterly.

The calm of death and darkness ebbed in the back of his mind. It tempted each of the shinobi. But Sasuke wouldn't listen. Sakura's face kept him going, if he was going to fight death to see her smile again than he would do it. If he had to stare down death, he would do it for her love. To be held in her arms one more time, no, forever. He wouldn't give up, not now. He had come too far to watch everything fall again.

"We have to go, we have to help her!" Sasuke yelled hoping to turn around and see Naruto fully healed with Neji activating his byakugan and Sai, Shikamaru and Sai planning a strategy.

But that would've have been too easy. A dream, only a hopeful gallant dream.

Sai sat trembling on the ground, light touching a deep gash at the side of his neck and gasping for breath. His lungs constricted his breathing as his eyes lulled back and forth in his head.

Sasuke shook as he looked back towards Shikamaru. Still swaying, Shikamaru's leg glowed black and blue at the knee where he had tried to put the bones back in place. His shirt was the stained with his blood as he tried to pull his skin back over the large hole in his chest.

Kakashi. If anyone would be okay it would be him. Hopeful, Sasuke turned to his sensei only to see him leaning off of an unstable Neji. His mask was darkened with dirt and halfway ripped off of his face. In Sasuke's genin days, he would've paid attention to how the fabric showed almost half of Kakashi's entire face. But this wasn't the time. They jonin was soaked in blood, his sharingan eye was fluttering open with his natural black eye, swooning in and out of consciousness with the bright red gash on the side of his head.

If Kakashi looked bad, Neji was even worse. They byakugan user's usual white shirt was painted over in dark red blood. Neji panted as his mouth dripped of blood. His flesh hung off of his side as tiny rocks and a long piece of branch stuck through the skin.

Naruto. Naruto was Sasuke's last hope.

"Naruto?"

The kyuubi had already begun it's healing but, it wasn't enough. The blond ninja's face ran red with his blood as his once blond hair was stained. He clutched his left arm as more blood ran down it onto the ground beside him. Naruto, his only shot was in no better condition than the rest of them. The one hyperactive knuckle head ninja was out of commission.

"We have to move, we have to help her!" Sasuke yelled as the fire that burned bright in each of their eyes slowly died.

The anger they felt for what happened to Sakura diminished. Sasuke searched their tired faces and trembling eyes looking for their will. But there was none.

Finished. They had had enough.

"Sasuke…" Sai panted, grabbing a hold of his chest.

Death wouldn't stop him. He wouldn't love Sakura now only to die and leave her again. He wouldn't let her face her 'master's' rage and torture for a year only to stop now. He wouldn't let her be alone. Death. He laughed slightly. Death wouldn't keep him away from her, ever.

"No!" Sasuke screeched inching closer to them, "We can't leave her! He's going to go after her! He's going to kill her!" he screamed.

Shikamaru's eyes lowered to the ground, remembering Ino's words.

"Find him and kill him, that bastard, to do this to Sakura, I can't imagine what she's gone through!"

"Come on!" Sasuke yelled, more blood filling his mouth, "We have to help her! We can't leave her!"

Neji looked into Sasuke dark eyes, seeing the fear and terror. A shinobi should never show their emotions but now, Sasuke were presented for the whole world to see.

"Yeah….Just, find that guy," TenTen sighed shakily as Neji laid his head on top of hers.

"We will, I promise."

Neji tried to straighten his stance, never forgetting his promise to TenTen to help Sakura.

"We can't do this to her, not again, not again," Sasuke shakily shook his head.

Sai looked up from his position on the ground at his teamate and stared.

He could still hear Sakura's pain in her voice as she relayed one of the beatings to them.

"He wouldn't stop until I admitted it; he just kept stabbing and laughing at me until I said it."

Kakashi finally caught a clear view of Sasuke's fear stricken face. The day Sakura finally let them in on what Kitaro put her through made his heart bleed.

"How many times did he hurt you that time?"

"Thirteen," she whispered clutching the middle of her chest, "he wouldn't stop until I stopped screaming for help."

"We can't abandon her! Not like last time, we can't leave her alone again!" Sasuke screeched as Naruto's head shot up.

Naruto started to cry as he recalled the day she ran away from them.

"No you didn't! No you never cared! You left me with him! You just left me to die! You left me all alone with him! With him!" She yelled, "You let him do that, you let him, him," she mumbled.

"We have to go…" Sasuke whispered as he saw no difference in their eyes.

"Let's go," Naruto bit out stumbling over to Sasuke.

"Right," Neji coughed, "we're going to save her this time. We're going to stop him Sasuke."

"Yeah," Shikamaru agreed, "we'll kill him this time."

"Let's go, we have to hurry if," Sai gasped standing on his feet.

"Sasuke, we're not letting him get away," Kakashi drawled, wheezing with every strained breath, "He'll pay for what he did."

A long breath. A relived breath. Sasuke turned towards the sun peaking over the clouds and smiled. He would save her; she'd be rid of her nightmare. Once and for all.

"Come on," Sasuke called behind him, "It's going to take us longer to get back. We have to leave now!"

Sasuke started to move his legs when Kakashi voice cut through, "Wait! We'll never make it back to Konoha like this at least, not in time."

Without warning Kakashi drew a scroll from his chest pocket and ran a bloody finger down the middle of it.

"Summoning Jutsu!" he rasped as a puff of smoke splashed across the clearing.

Each shinobi staggered from the loss of visibility only to hear dog barks and panting.

"If we're going to make it back to Konoha, we're going to need some help," the copy nin laughed.

"Pakkun?" Sai asked incredulously.

"Hey, Kakashi sensei how is that little mutt going to carry us?!" Naruto screeched.

"I'm not you idiot!" Pakkun yelled, "they are!" he lifted his paw towards the other six dogs panting behind him.

Naruto shut up as Sasuke trudged over to one of the dogs and leaned against him. Without hesitation the dog laid down and let Sasuke sit on his back, dampening his fur with his blood.

Each other dog did the same to the others as they all boarded their dogs and glanced around at each other.

"Let's go!" Kakashi called as the ninja dogs sped forth through the cleared out forest.

'Hold on Sakura,' Sasuke pleaded as his dog jumped up and down across boulders, 'Hold on.'


There! Sasuke and all didn't die, they just look like it!

Oh well, that's what medics are for!

HEHEHE! Next time we'll see what happens!

I uploaded my Neji Sakura fic, it's call All I Need, check it out!

Well tell me what you think!

Slyvia out!