The Dimensional Whirlpool

by The Red Rebellion

Team 7 had thought there would be no more troubles after they left the Land of Waves, but an old scroll awarded to them by Tazuna held more dangers than they would have ever guessed. Finding themselves in an unknown world with no clue how to get back, their only chance to get back home is to use the technique again... changing crossovers. Current category is the current crossover.

14. W3, C5: The True Self

Chapter Title: The True Self

Words: 8207

Series: Naruto, Persona

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After some time traversing through the trees in the seemingly endless forest, the group of three began to realize that, much like the academy and streets of Konoha, everything looked the same with only the minutest of changes. Such as one identical tree facing north instead of south, or a barren log being identical to a mossy log, sans the moss.

Worse still, it felt as if they had been wandering around in circles for hours, but it had been – by Kakashi's internal clock – only half an hour since they split groups. Yet they had made absolutely no progress, and Fuuka was having difficulty reading the forest to find Sakura's exact location. She also hadn't spoken to them for roughly ten minutes, leading Kakashi to believe she was no longer able to contact them. No confirmation on that fact, but it was a niggling thought he couldn't quite quell.

"Kakashi-sensei." Naruto's voice spoke from some distance behind him. Kakashi craned his head to look at the boy, finding him closer than the volume of his voice would have suggested. "We're lost, right?"

Kakashi sighed heavily, shaking his head. "We're not lost." Kakashi said, though it was a complete and utter lie. "We're just... misdirected, is all."

Naruto said nothing, but Kakashi could feel the dual pair of blank stares on the back of his head as clear as day. "That's just another way to say we're lost." Sasuke said flatly. "Do we even know which way we came from?"

"Well, I remember what it looked like." Kakashi said neutrally, trying to hide the fact he was intentionally needling them.

"It all looks the same!" Sasuke snapped. "Every tree in this forest is exactly the same as the rest of them! Of course you remember what it looks like!"

"That's not true, Sasuke-kun!" Kakashi admonished, turning to smile at him. "Some are facing north, some west, some south, some east! Some also have ivy growing on them, and other have moss! They're all their own unique and special trees!"

Sasuke grit his teeth at the comment, hands clenched into fists out of anger. Naruto snickered quietly besides him, before saying, "Have either of you heard Fuuka-san at all, by the way? I haven't heard her talk in a while..."

"I haven't." Sasuke snapped irritably.

"Nor have I." Kakashi sighed. "I think by now, Yamagishi-san would have spoken to us, to at least point us in a different direction. I think it's safe to say that we're out of range of her ability to communicate with us. That, or something is interfering. Whichever the case, we're on our own at this point."

Sasuke growled. "So our only source of direction in this damn place is gone. Great, that's just perfect."

"What do we do now, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked uncertainly.

"Not much we can do, unfortunately. We'll just have to press on and hope for the best."

"Can we at least go in a different direction?" Naruto whined. "We've been going this way forever, and it just feels like we're going in circles..."

"Well, which direction do you want to go in?"

"Left." "Right."

Sasuke and Naruto turned to each other, glaring at the other. Naruto had chosen left, while Sasuke had chosen right. "He asked me, not you." Naruto said with a scowl.

"So what? I was offering my own opinion. Just because he was asking you doesn't mean I can't answer as well."

Kakashi sighed as their argument sprung up. And they had been so civil up to this point, too...

Coming to an abrupt stop, Naruto and Sasuke nearly passed him up, but managed to halt their own movement in the nick of time. "I have an idea that'll settle this matter before your argument devolves into another shouting match."

"What's that?" Naruto asked, tilting his head in questioning.

"It's something that my... 'eternal rival' and I often do to settle matters." Kakashi said, sounding slightly uncertain.

"You have a rival?" Naruto asked, gaping like a fish.

"I didn't think Konoha had that many strong shinobi." Sasuke said, the comment sounding more insulting than he probably intended. Then again, who knows with Sasuke.

"Yes, I have a rival and he also happens to be one of Konoha's best." Kakashi said shrug. "But that's besides the point. What I'm going to have the two of you do is a sure fire way to settle things."

"You're going to have us fight?" Naruto was, frankly, shocked at the idea since Kakashi was always drilling teamwork into their head.

Frowning, Kakashi looked at Naruto blankly. "What gave you that idea?"

"Well, what else would rivals do besides fight to see who's better?"

"You'd be surprised at the amount of things rivals can do." Kakashi shook his head bemusedly. "Whatever the case, I want you and Sasuke to settle this matter through the use of..." he intentionally paused, to get the two boys as expectant as possible, before he finally dropped the bomb, "rock paper scissors."

Sasuke stared at him flatly, looking as if Kakashi had grown another head. Naruto, on the other hand, looked down right confused. "You and your 'eternal rival' play rock paper scissors to settle matters?"

"Amongst other things. For the record, I'm not the one to initiate these 'battles'. I just go along with the antics."

"That's still doing them. And you're making us do them." Sasuke told him blankly, obviously having lost some respect for the man.

"I didn't always do them. After a while, I just realized that doing them was less trouble than trying to ignore them." Kakashi shrugged. "You'd think the same, if you knew Might Gai. But that's besides the point. Naruto, you wanted to go left, and Sasuke, you wanted to go right. You'll play a two out of three game of rock paper scissors, and whichever one of you wins, we'll go in that direction."

"Fine." Sasuke grunted, turning to Naruto. "Let's get this over with." Facing each other, Kakashi stood off to the side, watching their hands intently.

"Heheh..." Naruto grinned, looking quite smug. "You're going down, Sasuke!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "It's just rock paper scissors, dumbass. Don't get so worked up about it." Shaking his head, Sasuke readied his fist, staring at Naruto's own. They pumped their fists once, "Rock," twice, "Paper," thrice, "Scissors!" and threw them out.

Sasuke's fingers twitched to stretch outward, but tightened into the powerful rock, the closed fist, seeing the subtle twitch of Naruto's muscles moving towards Scissors.

"Foul!" Kakashi called out, causing Sasuke to whip his head towards him. Smiling pleasantly at the boy, Kakashi tapped the visor of his helmet. "Just because I can't see your eyes, doesn't mean I can't tell you're using your Sharingan."

"You're a cheater!" Naruto yelled at Sasuke, pointing an accusatory finger. "And you said I shouldn't get so worked up about it! Why would you cheat in rock, paper, scissors?!"

"Hn..." Sasuke grunted, sneering at Naruto before looking at Kakashi irritably. "We're Shinobi, shouldn't we use every advantage we have to win?"

"True, and while it's a valid argument, in this case it guarantees you a win, meaning the whole point of the competition is lost."

Sasuke grumbled under his breath, shaking his head. "Fine, let's do this 'clean'."

"Nuh-uh! I won since you cheated!"

"It's still two out of three, Naruto." Kakashi said. "You've gotten one point since Sasuke stooped to cheating, but now you need to win again to win for real."

"Ugh." Naruto sulked, only to quickly recover and bring his fist up. "Alright! Let's go!"

Once again, they pumped their fists, "Rock, Paper, Scissors!" Their hands thrust out, this time Sasuke's hand in a rock, while Naruto's came out a paper.

"Haha! I win!" Naruto pumped his fists upwards in victory. "Can't beat me without your cheaty eyes, can you?!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "It's a game. Who cares."

"Obviously someone, if they stooped to cheating." Kakashi said cheerfully, the barb successfully hitting Sasuke, the boy scowling deeply at the comment. "Looks like we're going left."

"Uh... sensei?" Naruto started, squinting up at Kakashi. "Which way was the left I wanted to go?"

Kakashi opened his mouth, only to shut it with a snap. After a moment of looking around, he said, "Good question. I lost track of which direction was which in the midst of all the cheating." Sasuke twitched. "It's a real shame everything looks the same."

"Great, so that was five minutes wasted." Sasuke growled. "Let's just go the left we think is left now."

"Probably the best idea we have, at the moment. We'll go in the direction of my right, your left. Let's get moving."

They started moving in that direction, finding that there was no perceivable difference in its appearance from the other direction they had been going. In fact, it looked identical in appearance, leaving the three wondering if they had ended up picking the same direction they had been traveling in the first place.

But, something began to happen as they traveled what they hoped was westward. The tree began to thin out, the gap from tree to tree growing in distance slowly but surely. It then began to disappear entirely, until the trees were sparse, and the expanse they saw was nothing but prairie land, only an occasional tree dotting the horizon.

"Whoa." Naruto muttered as they came to a stop on the last tree within reach. "Is this still Konoha?"

"That it is." Kakashi answered, surveying the area carefully. "Admittedly, the area I know of Konoha that looks like this is actually considerably smaller than it is here, but that seems to be the case for most of what we've seen."

"At least it's something different from the same damn forest we've been seeing." Sasuke grumbled. "What's the plan?"

"We'll sweep the area, check for any signs of Sakura. If we find nothing, we move on." Kakashi leapt down from the tree, landing softly on the grass below. "Let's hope we actually find her."

The two genin nodded in agreement, hopping down besides him. They traveled slower than they did in the forest, but remained quick about it. They did not have time to dawdle, but needed to be thorough so they did not miss anything.

As it turned out, that was the wisest course of action. In their careful surveying, they spotted Sakura lying on the side of a hill, another Sakura standing at the very peak of the same hill. Although they approached cautiously, Naruto forwent any sort of caution and rushed to the prone Sakura's side. "Sakura-chan!" He said quietly, kneeling down besides her. When she didn't stir, he placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her softly. "Sakura-chan!"

Upon being jostled, the girl let out a soft groan, shifting slightly. She turned her head towards Naruto, squinting up at him. "Na... ru... to...?" She asked, her voice slurring. After a moment of attempting to focus on his face, Sakura reached up to her eyes and rubbed them. "Is that... you...?"

"Yeah, it's me, Sakura-chan!" Naruto said excitedly, sounding so relieved. Unable to stop himself from grinning at the other girl, he managed to refrain from hugging her. "You're okay!"

"I'm... fine.." Sakura muttered, rubbing her head. "What... happened? Are Sasuke-kun and... Kakashi-sensei okay?"

"We're both okay, Sakura." Kakashi said, drawing Sakura's attention to him, while Kakashi's own attention was focused on the Shadow variant standing at the top of the hill, impassive. "You probably don't remember it happening, but you helped me escape from my nightmare realm."

"I did...?" Sakura asked, frowning in confusion. "I don't remember that... I only remember talking with Neeshka about finding you, but I don't remember what happened..." she trailed off, looking more pointedly at Kakashi, "did something happen?"

"Oh yeah, loooootsss happened!" Shadow Sakura finally spoke, drawing everyone's attention to her. Grinning down at the four of them, Shadow Sakura placed her hands on her hips, beginning to descend down the hill. "So much happened that your mind could barely handle it!"

"Wha-" Sakura started, staring at Shadow Sakura in confusion. "Who are you?"
"What? You don't recognize me? I'm hurt!" Shadow Sakura mockingly clutched at her heart, looking devastated. "How can you not recognize yourself?"

"Your me?" Sakura repeated, disbelief clear in her voice.

"Of course I am! I am the you that you pretend doesn't exist! The you you don't want anyone to know about, because you're not as nice as you pretend to be." Shadow Sakura grinned, getting closer to Sakura, but Naruto shielded the girl from her Shadow. "Aww, look at that. It sure is nice to have such devotion from someone, especially since I haven't done jack shit to deserve any of it!" Shadow Sakura cooed, the comment making Sakura's eyes widen slightly.

"Wh-what...?"

"I can be as mean as cruel as I could possibly want to you, and you'll still be completely and utterly devoted to me. You'll shower me with compliments and attention for nothing but cruelty in return. Ahh, it makes me feel so good about myself to hear someone call me pretty all the time, even if I couldn't give a crap about the person saying that. It's such a great ego boost! Especially when I get turned down by my shallow, petty crush. I can always rely on good ol' Naruto to give me that confidence boost to pursue my own desires! It's not like Ino has that to keep her going!" Shadow Sakura grinned maliciously. "Oh! And Ino! I made myself into a carbon copy of her and then dropped her when I didn't need her anymore. She was only competition when she should have been helping me hook up with my crush! And even my crush is something I'll drop like a hot potato if they spurn me!"

"N-no... st-stop it...!" Sakura whispered, hands clamped over her ears. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!"

"Oh come off it!" Shadow Sakura yelled. "Everything I've said is absolutely true, and you know it! I'm just a shallow, conceited person who doesn't deserve the friendship and affection other people give to me! But who cares? It's not like anyone deserves our friendship and affection! We're much better than all of them!"

"No, no, no, no!" Sakura shook her head. "That's not true! I don't think that! I don't!"

"Sakura." Kakashi cut in swiftly and clearly. "Calm down. It's intentionally trying to agitate you by exaggerating. Don't let it get to you."

"That sure means a whole lot to me, coming from you." Shadow Sakura sneered at Kakashi, rolling her eyes. "You're my teacher, and so much stronger than I am, but you couldn't even protect me when I needed protecting the most. I had to protect the worthless you, and then you go and stab me! What kind of teacher are you?!"

Kakashi hid his wince, remaining calm under the pressure. However, Sakura did not. "Shut up! Just stop talking! I'm not like you! I don't think those things!" With tears in her eyes, she glared at the Shadow. "You say you're me, but you're not! You're not me!"

There was a reaction, then. Shadow Sakura's face split into a massive grin, a mist of darkness beginning to surround her body, growing thicker and in greater volume by the second. "Heheh..." The Shadow began to laugh. "SHA!" The Shadow's form became obscured by the thick mist of shadows surrounding it. "NA!" A vague figure was becoming outlined in the shadows, a much larger form than before. "RO!" The final cry caused the mist to disappear, revealing what sort of form the Shadow had taken. It was an amalgam of strangeness.

The creature that had once resembled Sakura stood on tall, thin, stilt-like legs that looked as though they could topple at any moment. Where the legs would normally reach the hips, there was nothing but a large, round 'torso' that resembled an armor-plated shell; heavy black plating was covering most of it, a pink sakura petal emblem in the very center of the plating. It had no neck or head, and only two large arms and fists extended out of the side of the black plating.

"I am a shadow, the true self!" The creature's voice echoed from its form. "I'm gonna flatten the whole lot of you!" Raising its right fist, the Shadow reeled back, its aim Naruto and Sakura. Naruto cursed aloud, grabbing Sakura and quickly jumping away. The fist impacted with the ground, tearing it asunder and creating a large crater in the hillt. The Shadow stumbled on the uneven ground as it ripped its hand out of the earth, but managed to right itself despite its shaky surface.

Naruto landed next to Kakashi and Sasuke, the two standing in a stance that showed they'd move at a moment's notice, their Sharingan locked with the Shadow's form. "Plan?" Sasuke asked, never once taking his eyes off the Shadow.

"Give me a moment." Kakashi responded, his brow furrowed at what he was seeing. The Sharingan wasn't giving him any clues about the Shadow's strength, having no discernible chakra to speak of. He hadn't taken the time to get a good look at the previous shadows, so he couldn't compare, but the figure itself had no chakra to speak of; only wisps of it in the air surrounding it. The actual creature itself seemed to be made up of something else entirely, something that wasn't chakra... "Naruto, create some clones and keep an eye on Sakura."

"Gotcha!" Naruto responded, setting Sakura – who had seemed to slip into unconsciousness upon the Shadow's transformation – down and forming a seal immediately after. As the clones all situated themselves around Sakura, the real Naruto stood to join Kakashi and Sasuke. "You got a plan now, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Nothing solid." However, he was forming something in his head. Due to its large upper body and its thin legs, they could take advantage of its imbalance and use the hill's slope to their advantage. If they were lucky, they could topple it over. "Naruto, summon a few clones and try to flank it. Go now." Naruto nodded rapidly, creating seven more clones that spread outwards, flanking it from both sides in even numbers. "Sasuke, when I give the signal, use your fireball technique to distract it."

"Right... let's hope that button actually works, or I'm burning my face off." Sasuke grumbled, resting his hand near the button of his helmet. As he waited for the signal, he watched Naruto's clones attack the Shadow.

"Think a flank is gonna work on me?! Haha!" The shadow laughed, swinging its massive fists at the boy and his clones, several of them unable to dodge the blows in time. However, they were doing their job of keeping the Shadow busy, and were landing some blows on its arms with their knives. At the same time, it was apparent that this was doing little to actually deter the shadow.

"Sasuke, go!" Kakashi said, a soft hum of static coming from the older man's body. Sasuke nodded his head, depressing the button of his helmet. Almost immediately, he noticed it was harder to see, but he ignored it as he began to build up chakra.

Rushing towards the Shadow, Sasuke flew through the familiar set of handseals, finally bringing his fingers to his mouth and exhaling. As the chakra induced fire began to heat up, the Narutos that still remained and had been attacking the Shadow fell back. The flames swarmed through the fog, completely engulfing Shadow Sakura. However, as soon as they had, the flames seemed to be dispersed immediately, revealing Shadow Sakura to be completely unharmed.

Those few short seconds made all the difference. Kakashi swooped in faster than Sasuke could see, his right hand glowing with chakra as he slammed it straight through the sakura petal on the armored shell. The Raikiri penetrated through the armored plating with ease, reaching elbow-deep before the opening was no longer large enough for his arm to push further through.

Yanking his hand out, Kakashi stepped back, ready to assess the situation when both hands of the Shadow snapped towards him with surprising speed and clamped themselves around him. "Nice try, sensei, but you'll have to do better than that!" The Shadow laughed, and from the open wound in the armor he could see two golden eyes gleaming out at him.

Of course, the thought was not particularly important when the hands began to crush him like a bug. "Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto shouted, rushing forward to help.

"Don't!" Kakashi managed to yell, stopping Naruto in his tracks. Kakashi focused his energy inward, opening the first gate of the eight gates, his strength quadrupling. The boost in strength was more than enough for him to pry the hands apart before they could increase even further in strength. Leaping backwards, Kakashi found the Shadow having already recovered and was swinging at him for another attack. Another leap backwards put him near Sasuke and Naruto, the two boys ready to move at a moment's notice.

"What should we do now?" Naruto asked warily, knowing that the attack Kakashi used usually killed its target with one hit, but Shadow Sakura seemed unswayed by the gaping hole in its chest.

"I'm not sure." Kakashi said uncertainly, cursing internally when he saw the Shadow grab onto the ground with its hands, lifting itself off the ground. "Scatter!"

"Here I come!" Shadow Sakura shouted, usings its massive arms as a way to launch itself through the air and directly towards them. They had already broken formation, and moved out of the path of the giant boulder with arms, but it managed to roll along the ground and redirect itself with its gargantuan hands.

Kakashi had underestimated the Shadow's intelligence: despite the spindly legs that seemed incapable of properly supporting its massive upper body, the Shadow was using its large, spherical body and massive arms to move far quicker than its legs would allow it. That meant there was only one option available to them – they needed to get rid of the Shadow's arms. The moment they did that, the Shadow would no longer be a substantial threat, and they'd win by default.

The problem, naturally, was finding the best way to do that. While the Raikiri had impressive piercing ability, it was pointed and centralized. While that would work on someone of their size, the arms of the Shadow were wider than Kakashi's shoulders were. Additionally, though allowing for strong piercing abilities, Lightning techniques were not known for their cutting techniques. The same for Water and Earth – there were techniques that could work, but he lacked the necessary amounts of water, and the earth techniques were too slow to be effective without finding some way to hold it down. He had a few Wind techniques that specialized in cutting in his repertoire, but using them would drain him far too much. The amount of chakra drain he'd experience using it would mean that, if he missed, they would be left with little chance for them to defeat the Shadow.

Which meant he had to figure out another way entirely to disarm the Shadow, but that wouldn't be easy.

"Uh-oh! Better look out, 'ME'!" Shadow Sakura laughed, rolling straight towards several Naruto clones and Sakura's prone body.

"Oh crap!" The clones squawked, scrambling to move Sakura out of the way in time. They managed to move her with the loss of a few clones, but Shadow Sakura stopped her movement with her hands, turning towards them.

"Let's see you dodge this!" A soft, pink glow sprung up around the half-destroyed sakura petal motif on the center of the torso, solidifying into a pointed, potent energy beam that fired straight towards Sakura and the clones. They didn't have the time to move out of the way, or even so much as cry out in alarm, the bolt reaching them within the span of a second.

A vortex appeared in the path of the beam, sucking the energy into the spiraling body, effectively nullifying it. The dimensional portal absorbed the entire beam of energy, rendering the attack completely harmless, the vortex itself fading away with the last of the beam.

"Made it in time..." Kakashi gasped for air after using the technique, his Sharingan blurring from the strain it was put under. All of his chakra pathways felt as though they were on fire, and the ones leading into the Sharingan were especially hot and painful, tears reflexively building up in response to the pain. He didn't have time to think on the matter, and wiped the liquid away, keeping his blurred eyes focused entirely on the Shadow.

"That was really cute, sensei, but stopping one attack won't help you!" The Shadow shouted, launching herself at him. Kakashi cursed, forcing his body to move, but as it turned out, he didn't have to. Two fireballs slammed consecutively into the side of the Shadow, managing to knock it off course. It managed to recover by landing on both its hands and feet, but it stumbled as it did.

"Stop focusing so intently on one opponent." Sasuke commented with a smirk, though he was breathing laboriously from the successive use of his Katon technique. "We're all your opponent."

"Smug little..." The Shadow growled, gearing up to launch itself through the air. "I'll crush you!"

"Hn." Sasuke readied himself, bringing one of the combat knives up, his hands held close together to make any handseals at a moments notice. "I'd like to see you try."

"I'd be glad to, Sasuke-kun!" The Shadow launched itself through the air, its fist cocked back as it flew. Sasuke easily avoided the attack, managing to stay upright despite the ground shaking at the Shadow's impact. While it was busy with its arm being stuck in the ground, Sasuke dashed in and slashed at the arm, finding it was particularly difficult to cut through. Its flesh was thick and tough, almost rubbery, and required a great deal of force to cut through.

He was perhaps too overzealous in his attempts at cutting through the arm, not not noticing that the Shadow's other hand was on a clear path to punching him. It wasn't until something yanked at his ankles that his focus was taken away from attacking, and he didn't have time to see that fist sail over his head, his face connected with the ground as he was dragged away.

Twisting his face out of the dirt, Sasuke found more than a half-dozen Naruto clones forming a disturbing snake by holding onto each other's ankles, and they were trying to make him a part of it.

Or they had, for a moment. "And up we go...!" Another one of Naruto's clones grunted, lifting Sasuke up, the rest of the clones standing up on their own. "You should pay more attention! You almost got clocked!"

Sasuke grunted, ready to fire back at the boy with a comment on the disturbing "snake" he had formed, but he noticed the Shadow was already flying towards them. "Dammit! Move!" He snapped, leapting to the left. Several of the Naruto clones managed to make it to the right, but the rest remained, their hands forming a singular seal. Rather than transform into anything, they summoned hundreds of clones, each of them dashing out of the landing zone. Upon impact with the ground, the clones all let out a battle cry as they began to dog-pile the massive shadow.

"Ugh! Get off me, you little loser!" The Shadow groaned, swinging its arms at the clones, but having difficulty actually moving with how many clones were attempting to hold it down. The Shadow soon became completely unable to move as pillars of stone rose up from the ground, binding its limbs and body in the earth itself. The stone applied even greater pressure, slowly tearing into the Shadow's limbs. "You stupid pieces of shit! I'll crush you!" The threats were less effective when the Shadow was having difficulty moving.

"Nice job, Naruto." Kakashi said, lifting his hands from the ground. "You too, Sasuke. The both of you held it off long enough for me to recover."

The two boys nodded, Naruto beaming as he did. "What should we do about it, now?"

"My technique will slowly crush it," Kakashi said, watching as the stone continued to compress itself on the Shadow, "and take care of it for us. It's only a matter of waiting, at this point."

Naruto nodded his head. Then, uncertainly, he asked, "What then? Does that mean we can get Sakura out of here?"

"...I don't really know, to be honest." Kakashi shrugged. "Hopefully it'll stop summoning the Shadows where the others are and we can regroup with them. Then, we really will know what to do."

"Don't!" The three looked up to the Shadow as it spoke. "Think!" Hairline cracks appeared in the stone around the Shadow, and Kakashi's eyes widened, his hands flying to the ground. "You've!" Building up his chakra, Kakashi pumped more into the technique in an attempt to strengthen it. "WON!" It was too late, at that point. The Shadow broke through the stone, shattering it to pieces, and used its massive hands to right itself.

"Shit." Sasuke said, staring at the Shadow with a grimace.

"... I should have made the technique stronger." Kakashi muttered. "I was trying not to exhaust myself, but..."

"That turned out spectacularly." Sasuke grunted. "What now?"

"We'll need to take it out in some other way... but, I'm running low on chakra, at this point. Stopping that energy attack took a lot out of me." And had left his Sharingan slightly less clear, to boot.

"My own chakra reserves are getting low, too." Sasuke grunted. "The idiot is the only one of us who's still got spare chakra to burn."

"Oy!"

"We'll probably need to rely on the fact he's still got plenty of chakra left." Kakashi said, briefly wishing Naruto knew the Chakra Transfer technique. The boy had more than enough chakra to fill Kakashi's reserves multiple times over.

"Talk, talk, talk! Is that ALL you ever do?!" Shadow Sakura seemed to sneer at them, raising one of its impressive middle fingers. "Why don't you come over here and talk to my face?!"

There was a silence between the three shinobi, and it was Sasuke who broke the silence. "I never thought a part of Sakura could be worse than her fangirl side..."

"I feel like we're looking at Konohamaru, rather than Sakura-chan..." Naruto mumbled. "And it isn't even slowing down, even though we've beat it up this much." "This much" being the hole in the sakura petal, the multiple lacerations in its right arm, as well as the wounds it got from the stone crushing it.

"Whereas we are starting to slow down." Kakashi shook his head. "We'll just have to hope for the best and make our next attack the deciding factor."

"Do you have a plan?" Sasuke asked, to which Kakashi mulled it over. More than anything, they needed a sufficiently destructive technique when they made the attack, which really wasn't a possibility. Neither Sasuke or Naruto had the repertoire or skill to do anything destructive, and Kakashi himself only had enough chakra for – at the maximum – two Raikiri. And, as the first Raikiri proved, it didn't seem to deter the Shadow. Perhaps if he managed to reach in and pierce the physical form of Sakura inside it? There was, however, the problem of actually reaching her form. She was too deep for him to reach with just the Raikiri, and throwing one of the knives inside would be like threading a needle. They'd need to get her completely still for it to work, and with the Shadow's ability to move far quicker than its massive size would imply, that was immensely difficult.

Times like these, he wished he had the chakra to use the Rasengan like Jiraiya could. The man could tear through boulders with ease using the Rasengan, but Kakashi never could build up the chakra to match that destructive power. It would...

Kakashi turned to look at Naruto, a thought occurring to him. There was no precedent for it, but with the unique way of forming the Rasengan...

"Naruto, Sasuke, I have an idea on how to attack." He said quickly and quietly. "I don't know if it will work, but it's the best shot we've got at this point." Both of the genin nodded their head seriously, waiting in anticipation. "Sasuke, break off to the left and keep the Shadow distracted. Naruto, you're with me. I'm going to need your help with this one."

Naruto snapped to attention, nodding his head. "You can count on me, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Blah, blah, blah. You're still talking?! Looks like I'm gonna have to come over there!" Shadow Sakura yelled, lifting its body up with its hands.

"Sasuke! Go!" The raven-haired boy immediately shot to the left, throwing one of the combat knives at Shadow Sakura. The Shadow swatted it out of the air, just before it catapulted itself through the air towards Sasuke.

"What's the plan, Kakashi-sensei!?"

"Hold out you hand and channel as much chakra as you can to your palm. Don't worry about molding it, controlling it, or focusing it. Just lest the chakra pool up in your palm." Kakashi said, Sharingan staring intently at the boy's hand.

"Okay!" Naruto was slightly confused at the instructions, but did as he was told. With his brow furrowing in concentration, the boy forced chakra into his palm, keeping his mind focused on pumping the chakra there.

With the Sharingan, Kakashi could physically see the chakra building up in his student's hand, and with a shaky breath, he brought his own right hand to Naruto's hand. Carefully, Kakashi began to shift and mold the chakra, working on forming the boy's chakra into the spherical blue orb known as the Rasengan. Within seconds, it took its shape, a soft hum echoing from the ball of pure chakra. Naruto's eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the shaped chakra, his mouth dropping open in shock. "What the...!"

"It's called the Rasengan." Kakashi said, letting out a small breath of relief at his idea actually working. The orb managed to be much larger than Kakashi could manage with his own chakra, being roughly the same size as Jiraiya's compared to his own much smaller variants. "It's a fairly unique technique that requires no hand seals, and instead requires simple chakra manipulation. That gives it the benefit of allowing someone to mold another person's chakra into the technique. Since it requires little chakra use on my part, we can take advantage of your large chakra reserves in this way."

"Cool!" Naruto continued to stare at the mesmerizing orb of chakra in his hand. "Can you teach me it?"

"Later," Kakashi said dismissively, "right now, that-" he pointed to the Shadow that had just finished swinging its fist at Sasuke, the boy barely managing to dodge it, "takes priority!"

"Right!" Naruto nodded his head, brow set in determination. Then, "Uh... what do I do with this, exactly?"

Without a word, Kakashi lifted Naruto up onto his shoulders in one swift movement. Naruto squawked at the sudden action, but quickly adjusted to sitting atop Kakashi's shoulders. "We'll attack jointly." Kakashi said, holding onto the boy's legs tightly. "I'll get in close, and then you'll hit the Shadow with the Rasengan. It should break through the armor with ease. I saw the Shadow version of Sakura inside – once the armor is gone, attack her."

"Roger!" Naruto grabbed onto Kakashi's hair, using it as a small stabilizer. Kakashi grunted slightly in pain and irritation, shifting Naruto with a shrug of his shoulders, managing to make the boy's ride slightly less dependent on using his hair as a handlebar.

Dodging another swing of the Shadow's fist, Sasuke immediately noticed the combined duo of Kakashi and Naruto heading towards them at top speed. As quickly as he was able, he began to back off, his hands flying through a set of handseals, blowing fire from his mouth. Although the Shadow easily swiped through the flames, it served its purpose in allowing Sasuke to retreat further away.

"Fire, fire, fire. That's all you can do isn't it, Sasuke-kun?When are you going to realize that flames. Don't. Work!"

"They might not work, but that will." Sasuke said, gesturing his head towards his teammates. The Shadow turned, just in time for Naruto to swing the Rasengan into the Shadow's 'chest' with a cry of "RASENGAN!" The spiraling orb of chakra at first appeared to do nothing, impacting ineffectually with the armor-plating. Within seconds, the orb began to twist into the armor, grinding away and tearing it apart like paper. The Shadow let out a scream, the entire front half of the armor shattering and breaking, revealing the interior.

Curled up inside the armor was a naked and completely featureless version of Sakura, its only defining characteristic being its pink hair, along with a pair of blank, yellow eyes. "Naruto! Do it!"

"Right!" Naruto drew one of the combat knives from its sheath, unhesitatingly stabbing the Shadow in the chest. Upon impact, the Shadow let out a horrid, pained scream. Its body, along with the larger body, began to evaporate into a dark mist, and Kakashi backed away from it quickly.

It was transforming again, but unlike its original transformed where the mist was solidifying into its shape, the mist was disappearing from the large body while the smaller interior body was changing into the featured version of Shadow Sakura. It was a fairly quick process, and the Shadow finally ended up sitting on the ground, utterly beaten.

In that time, several of Naruto's clones were directing an awakened Sakura towards them uncertainly. "Kakashi-sensei," one of the clones said slightly nervously, "Sakura-chan is awake..."

Kakashi nodded his head in response, briefly taking his eyes off the Shadow variant to look at the girl. She looked harrowed, and had her eyes locked with the ground. The question he had was "what next", and a thought occurred to him. While it was said that Sakura needed to accept her 'other self' in order to get her Persona, that was admittedly, not the ultimate goal. Their goal was to awaken her and have her recover from her catonia. As it stood, she was awake, meaning they could get her out just fine.

But...

"Sakura." Kakashi said softly, slowly walking over to the girl. "I know it's hard to think, and hard to admit, but you need to accept that she is also a part of yourself."

"No!" Sakura yelled, shaking her head rapidly and backing away from them. "It's not... it's not... I'm not... I'm not like that! I'm not!"

"Sakura-cha-" Naruto started, but she clamped her hands over her ears.

"Stop! Don't say anything! Don't! I know you all believe what it's saying! You think I'm a terrible person, that I'm just shallow, that I..." she shook her head rapidly, keeping her mouth and eyes tightly shut, saying nothing more.

"No, we don't!" Naruto said, trying to convince her. "We don't think any differently of you, Sakura-chan! Even if it says those things, and even if they're actually true, you're still Sakura-chan! It's not going to change how we think about you! And... and..." Naruto wasn't sure where he was going anymore with his words, "Aahh, mou!" He yelled, frustrated with himself.

"Idiot, you're just confusing yourself." Sasuke told the blond flatly, shaking his head. Then, looking directly at Sakura, he said, "Sakura." Even with her hands over her ears, she managed to hear him, slowly turning to look at him, her expression terrified. "It's worse of you to deny that it's a part of yourself rather than just accept that you have flaws. We all have parts of ourselves that we don't want to admit exist, but that doesn't mean we should ignore them. They aren't all we feel, either, and they don't stop us from changing the way we feel later on. Denying them just shows that you're refusing to change."

There was a moment of stunned silence as the three stared at Sasuke. Growing uncomfortable under their gazes, Sasuke crossed his arms indignantly. "What?" He snapped.

"Kakashi-sensei..." Naruto started, turning to look at him, "are we sure that's really Sasuke? Did we get stuck in a genjutsu?"

"Well, I can't say I've noticed any genjutsu, and his chakra still looks the same, but there's always the possibility even I could be fooled." Kakashi said, oddly cheerfully.

"What?" Sasuke growled. "I don't get what's so weird about what I said."

"It's just that's it's coming from you, bastard." Naruto said with a smirk.

"So what?" Sasuke grumbled uncomfortably, arms tightening further around his chest. "...I've just been thinking a lot."

Kakashi cleared his throat to save the raven-haired genin from growing even more uncomfortable. "Regardless, Sasuke is right. I'm sure that all four of us have 'bad' parts of ourselves that we might deny, and even when we might want to keep those secrets to ourselves, it's not healthy to deny they exist. The important thing to realize is that, whether those parts of us are good or bad, we are who we are."

Sakura remained silent, but her hands slowly fell from her ears to her lap. "Then..." she started, looking up at them uncertainly, "you don't... hate me?"

"I could never hate you, Sakura-chan!" Naruto exclaimed immediately, staring at the girl earnestly.

Smiling down at the girl, Kakashi reached out and placed an affectionate hand on her head. "No, Sakura, I don't, nor do I think any less of you. You're still my student, and a teammate."

The last one was Sasuke, who looked away, mumbling a nearly inaudible, "No, I don't hate you." It was short and curt, but the point stood.

It was, however, enough for Sakura to hear. Trying her hardest not to cry, Sakura smiled shakily at them. "Thank you..." she whispered, bowing her head. After a moment of collecting herself, she took a deep breath and stepped toward the sitting Shadow version of herself without a word. Kakashi followed along behind her, making sure to keep a careful eye on the Shadow in the case it attacked her.

"You're right about one thing..." Sakura started slowly, and awkwardly to the Shadow, who was staring at her impassively. "I've never been confident in myself, and having Ino tell me to stand up for myself, and with Naruto's constant attention to me always gave me confidence I sorely lacked... but...!" More determinedly, she looked at the Shadow intensely, "I don't think of them only as confidence boosters! Ino was... Ino was my first friend, and the only reason I broke off our friendship was... was because I wanted to be equal to her... I didn't want to just be tagging along behind her, being her shadow... I wanted to stand beside her as my own person. I didn't want to have to rely on her to tell me that I'm pretty, or that I'm smart, or that I'm a nice person... I wanted to become someone that could say that about myself.

"I admit that I have a lot of faults, and that I secretly get angry at others, or hate others without showing it. I know that I'm far from a perfect person, but... those faults are also what make me who I am, no matter how much I don't want them to be. You... are me."

"It's about time you realized that, baaakaaa." Shadow Sakura said with a smirk. "Don't keep me bottled up like a genie that you only call out for Naruto, you got that?!"

Unable to help herself, Sakura laughed tiredly, nodding her head. "I won't." She said, her voice sounding lighter, as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Despite that positive change in Sakura, Naruto gulped audibly, and Sasuke looked somewhat uncomfortable. Even Kakashi, who saw the way Shadow Sakura acted, couldn't hide the nervousness from his face. Hopefully that part of her personality wasn't something that became too prominent.

If it did, god help them.

"Good!" The Shadow said, its body being surrounded by shadow. Then, its body began to glow, once again transforming before their eyes. Unlike the previous form, this one was far different. It was the figure of a woman in red and pink armor, its shape not unlike a samurai's. It had a folding fan on its forehead, opened to cover its face, the front side of the fan adorned with the Uzumaki swirl. In its hand was a war fan in the shape of a sakura flower, each side of the fan having a black circle in the center surrounded by tomoe – on its front side the tomoe were white, on its back they were red. It remained in that form for a moment, before its body shattered like glass, the glass reforming mid-air to take the shape of a small card that fell into Sakura's waiting hand.

"Uzume..." she muttered, staring at the card, before it too faded away. Upon it fading, Sakura's legs shook, giving out under her. Kakashi caught her before she could fall, and Naruto jolted out of his stunned silence.

"Sakura-chan!" He cried, rushing over to her.

"I'm fine, Naruto..." she muttered tiredly. "Just... tired..."

"You've been through a lot," Kakashi said, helping her sit down, "it's only to be expected."

Sakura nodded, "Let me just... rest... a..." she never finished, lying down and falling asleep before she could.

Kakashi shook his head lightly, taking a seat on the ground himself, groaning a little. "That was a fairly interesting battle." He said aloud, his muscles feeling quite stiff and sore now that the adrenaline was gone. A side effect of his chakra draining, along with opening one of the Eight Gates. "Nice job, you two."

"Hn." Sasuke nodded his head, while Naruto broke in a grin.

"You'll have to teach me how to do that Rasengan thing on my own, Kakashi-sensei!"

"I'll teach it to you," Kakashi started, face splitting into a smile, "once you've mastered basic chakra control and learned some other basic techniques to add to your arsenal." Naruto groaned, nodding his head sulkily. "Take five, you two. We'll move out shortly."

As the trio rested in the now peaceful prairie of wildflowers, they began to hear a distant noise. As time went on, it began to grow louder and louder, until it was a near deafening roar that was getting closer by the second.

From the distant treelines, the three saw a large rocket appear from over the canopy, flying towards their location like a bullet. The rocket eventually diverted course from their exact location, burying itself halfway into the ground some meters away, the stream of fire at its rear puttering out.

Riding atop the rocket was Teddie, the blond looking imbalanced sitting atop it, which was very unlike his fellow blond, Aigis, who had been casually standing on top of it. She quickly hopped off it, making her way over to the four Shinobi. "It looks like you're okay. Thank goodness." Aigis said in relief, eyes looking over the four of them in turn. "When Fuuka-san said she could no longer contact you, we feared the worst."

"Thankfully, things managed to work themselves out without too much difficulty. Admittedly, we did get a little lost." Kakashi said, rising to a stand. Glancing past her, he noticed there was one of them missing. "Where's Sanada-san?"

"We received an alert half an hour ago that the Kirijou Company was under attack. Akihiko-san returned to assist them while Fuuka-san and I remained here to ensure that we could get you out."

"We should move quickly, Ai-chan!" Teddie called, having somehow managed to get the rocket out of the ground. "We're out of range of Fuu-chan, and we shouldn't worry her!"

"Right." Aigis looked at the four. "Are you all able to move?"

"Whenever we need to." Kakashi said, leaning down and lifting Sakura into his arms. "Although we don't have much investment in the Kirijou Company, we'll help you in this battle since you've helped us this much."

"Thank you." Aigis smiled in response, nodding her head. Then, she turned around, walking towards Teddie. "Come on, we'll ride Teddie's rocket back."

"Do we have to?" Sasuke asked, staring at the floating rocket uncertainly.

"It's the quickest and easiest method of travel we have." Aigis said, moving over and hopping on top of it. "It might not be the safest method-" Teddie squawked at the admittance, "but it's less dangerous than fighting the Shadows is."

"Just get on!" Naruto said, hopping up to the rocket and sitting down on it with a big grin. "It looks fun!"

"It looks like a guaranteed death." Sasuke said flatly, but grudgingly got on top of it when Kakashi did. He looked as if he wanted to make further comments, but refrained as he used his chakra to stick the rocket as tightly as he could.

"Let's get going." Kakashi said.

"Right!" Teddie grinned, pointing his hand dramatically forward. "Come on, Kamui-Moshiri! Chaaarge!"

With a lurch, the rocket shot forward. Their destination the Kirijou Company, where their next battle awaited.

---

A/N: Bit late, but I was having a lot of back and forth with Shadow Sakura's speech towards Sakura. Didn't feel Persona-y enough. Eventually settled on what I've got there now, but I rewrote that scene several times until I was somewhat satisfied. This chapter also marks the third time Sasuke face-plants into the ground. It was an unintentional recurring theme that I've since made more intentional. Anyways, Sakura gets a Persona, and is actually the first of them to get a major power from another world. The rest will probably get stuff as time goes on, except maybe Naruto. Haven't decided if I want him to get a special power, or have him and Kurama come to terms through some world event. It'll probably come to me in the spur of the moment, and subsequently throw off my outline as it always does.

Having Naruto use the Rasengan without learning the Rasengan was something I considered not having, but I like the idea of Naruto and Kakashi working in tandem to use it. It also gives me the excuse to have Naruto use his trademark technique without him actually knowing how to use it himself.

Oh, and I couldn't write the line "we'll ride Teddie's rocket" with a straight face. I'm immature, what of it?

I'm not that great with symbolism(and half the time when I get symbolism right, it's completely accidental), but it's something that is very heavy in the Persona series(and SMT in general) so I tried my best with Sakura's Shadow and her Persona. The Shadow's thin, stilt-like legs is reference to her shaky confidence where she is easily knocked off balance and becomes easily depressed. The large shell is referencing the fact she 'hides' inside herself a lot – ie, keeping "Inner Sakura" bottle inside, rather than speaking what she really feels. The large arms, of course, reference the fact she's prone to lashing out, and that regardless of her confidence issues, can bite back when needed.

Her Persona references her three team mates – Uzumaki swirl being Naruto, red tomoe signifying 'true' Uchiha Sharingan with Sasuke, while the white tomoe are in reference to Kakashi's Sharingan. Its name is based of Ame-no-Uzume(becoming Uzume for short), a Japanese Shinto Goddess of Dawn and Revelry. There were several motivating reasons for picking Uzume, particularly Sakura being the "Dawn" to Naruto's "Day" and Sasuke's "Night". The other being that Naruto is pretty ripe with references to Shinto gods(Amaterasu, Susanoo, Tsukiyomi, Izanami, Izanagi), so it made sense to keep that sort of theme going.

Next chapter may be postponed another week. Depends on if I have time in the week to write a decent amount. We shall see. I'll still be shooting for next week, anyways.

Until next time. Ja ne.