Reika shakes her head to get herself together and groans at her stupidity. Her head has definitely been hit against a tree, so her head is currently spinning quite violently. Shaking her head doesn't help reduce the pain. She opens her eyes, and looks around. She can't find her teammates. She groans. Now she has to use the troublesome password.
"Huh?" Reika's eyebrows raise when she notices that there's a shadow over her. She widens her eyes when she realizes that there's a giant snake in front of her. She has no time to be dizzy now. She grimaces when the snake moves to attack her, but she's way faster than it is and jumps over it to a tree branch. She takes a kunai out. She needs to defeat this snake somehow.
As the snake attacks her again, she moves to another tree branch, and takes a good look at the snake while avoiding to look at the ground below her. She jumps to another tree to avoid the snake's attack, but then the snake uses its tail to throw Reika away midair, and she lands abnormally on her right foot. Reika hisses when she rubs her ankle. Yup, it's sprained.
Reika bites her lower lip and takes two explosive kunais from her pouch. It may be overkill, but overkill is underrated at the moment. She tries not to move her right leg too much and throws one of the kunais to one of the snake's eyes. It hit right in the middle of its eye and the snake squealed in pain. Reika winces as she leans against a tree. She decides to take her chances to flicker to the other side of the snake and throws her other kunai to the snake's other eye. When her kunai hits the snake's eye, she makes a hand seal and the kunais explode.
Reika curses under her breath when the snake doesn't die. She takes some wired explosive kunais from her waist pouch. While the snake is whimpering in pain on the ground, she throws her wired kunai to a tree across from her, and she sticks the wire to the tree she's leaning on with an explosive tag. She does that with five different kunais and creates a rough trip wire, and she flickers across it.
Reika throws a smoke bomb to the ground in front of the trip wire, having no clue how else to catch the snake's attention, but is pleasantly surprised when it works. The snake wildly moves right into the trip wire and Reika flips backwards when it explodes. She groans loudly when she, stupidly, lands on her right foot. She looks at where the snake was, and sees that the snake has disappeared with a poof in a cloud of smoke. Reika sighs in temporary relief. She needs to find her teammates, fast.
But first I need to treat this ankle, Reika thinks as she looks at her right foot. It swells pretty badly, and it looks kind of gruesome. She uses Shousen Jutsu on it until she can at least move it. Reika then closes her eyes and concentrates on Sasuke's chakra. She relies on the feel of his chakra and flickers towards him.
When she arrives, she falls on her knees. Apparently she was thrown quite a distance away from where Sasuke is, so her Shunshin no Jutsu uses up a lot of chakra to move her from her previous position. When she looks around, she finds Sakura and Sasuke on the ground. Both of them have their eyes wide open, unfocused, and Sakura is crying.
"Sakura?! Sasuke-kun?!"
"So… you've defeated that snake. In my defense, it's not the brightest one I have, but well done, nonetheless."
Reika turns to look at the kunoichi who gave Anko her kunai back at the starting point. From her hitai-ate, now she knows she's from Kusagakure. I knew she was bad news, Reika thinks with a scowl, taking a kunai out as she glares at her, unknowingly putting chakra in her eyes.
"You put them in some kind of genjutsu, didn't you…?" Reika grumbles as she gets to her feet.
"Very keen observation… as expected from an Uchiha."
Reika flinches as her eyes widen, "How do you…?"
"Well, your eyes can't really lie…" the Kusa kunoichi says. Reika frowns at her, but widens her eyes when she realizes that everything seems clearer. She can even see the color of the Kusa kunoichi chakra; dark purple laced with black. My… Sharingan? "The old man Hokage may have told you to hide your identity from the likes of me… but what he doesn't know is that I am much smarter than that. The power that comes from your doujutsu…" she licks her lips, "It's exquisite; I want it for myself."
Reika narrows her eyes at her. From her words, she knows now that she's not just there for their scroll, but also the Sharingan. Perhaps more for the latter. She dashes forward and throws her senbons, but her eyes widen when the Kusa kunoichi deflects them with her bare hands. She grits her teeth and throws her kunai, but she catches it.
Reika jumps towards a tree and reaches for a soldier pill from her pouch. Her eyes widen when she can't find but 3 pills inside it. Must've been spilled at some point when I battled that snake… she bites down her lip and chews on one. She makes a dog, ox, rabbit, and tiger seals and jumps in the air as she shouts, "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!"
She tries attacking the kunoichi, but she keeps avoiding her attack. She throws her senbons while she lands, but they get deflected again. Reika makes more seals and shouts, "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" She expels a huge fireball from her mouth and it seems to hit the kunoichi. She runs back towards where Sasuke and Sakura are, but yelps when she falls down, a snake pulling on her right ankle.
"Foolish child… don't you know you shouldn't show your back to your opponents?"
Reika grabs on to the ground to stop being dragged by the snake. She screams in pain when she feels the snake tightening itself around her ankle. It's twisted again, damn it! I gotta get it off of me before it breaks my ankle! Another snake wraps itself around her left and they drag her towards a tree. Before they can reach the tree, Reika throws a kunai to each of the snakes, and they disappear in smokes. Reika pushes her body off the ground and looks up to see Sasuke trying to stand while the Kusa kunoichi approaches him.
"Don't worry," the Kusa ninja says as she pulls out two kunais, "I'll end this in a second. You won't even have the time to feel pain."
Reika grits her teeth as she takes her senbons out and throws them at the Kusa ninja's left elbow, the only thing she can aim from where she is that may be able to stop him from throwing the kunais. But before they can reach their target, the kunais are already thrown.
"Sasuke-kun!" Reika calls him, but he doesn't seem to be listening. His eyes are focused on the Kusa kunoichi's. Reika's breath gets caught in her throat when she sees Sasuke stabbing his own thigh with the kunai in his hand. He jumps over to Sakura and jumps towards higher ground, but not before meeting his sister's eyes. She nods at him and flickers to where he is.
They're sitting on a branch of a giant tree, wide enough for the three of them to sit comfortably. Reika frowns at her brother and spits out, "You idiot," and takes another soldier pill. She knows she's not supposed to eat more than one within the same hour, but she doesn't care. Not like it would make a difference. After the massacre, she's been consuming soldier pills whenever she feels chakra deprived after every training session. Her body slowly grows resistant towards the effects of the pills and she doesn't gain as much chakra as she's supposed to when a ninja takes soldier pills. In fact, Reika suspects that she gains chakra slower than she used to.
Sasuke doesn't say anything as he pants from the exertion and the pain from his wound. Reika rolls her eyes and readies her Shousen Jutsu. She places her glowing green hands on top of Sasuke's bleeding thigh.
"Pull it out slowly," Reika says. Sasuke grits his teeth and pulls out the kunai with a groan, and Reika continues to heal him.
"Reika… your eyes," Sasuke says, "Let me see them," Reika looks up at Sasuke. He puts a hand on her cheek and widens his eyes slightly when two red eyes with two tomoes surrounding a black pupil looks back at his own. Two tomoes already? How…? When did she develop them? Regardless, Sasuke gives her a small, soft smile, "…good job," he whispers. She smiles back at him as his hand falls to his side.
"Sasuke-kun…" they turn when Sakura mumbles. She gasps when she sees Reika healing Sasuke's bleeding thigh, and Reika's eyes, "Reika, you…!" Sharingan?! She has them too?! Sakura thinks. Sasuke pushes a hand to Sakura's mouth when she talks a little bit too loud. Her focus turns from Reika's eyes to Sasuke.
Reika squeezes her eyes shut and wills for her Sharingan to disappear. She reopens them, now back to their original obsidian, and turns back to focusing on healing Sasuke's wounds. But she stops before she can fully heal him, because she needs some spare chakra to heal her own ankle. She moves her still glowing hand to her right ankle.
"She's the real Reika. I've tested her," Sasuke says as he notices the look of suspicion in Sakura's eyes. Of course he's lying, but he can't really tell Sakura that he recognizes her chakra signature better than anyone else's. Reika groans when she realizes that she miscalculates the amount of chakra she spared. It's not enough to heal her ankle at all. As usual, the soldier pills gives her less chakra than she thought it would.
Sasuke is trembling in his seat, looking around him as though he's looking for an escape. Reika doesn't blame him. The Kusa kunoichi is definitely not a Genin, and she'd kill them if she finds them. Not to mention… she knew Sandaime Hokage told us to hide my identity. She's definitely after the Sharingan.
Reika and Sakura gasp when they see a giant snake towering over them. Sakura tries to push Sasuke's hand off her mouth, "Sasuke-kun, snake!" Reika says. Sasuke and Reika jump to their left, while Sakura to their right, avoiding the snake's bite.
The snake wraps itself around a tree and opens its mouth menacingly at Sasuke and Reika midair, and for some reason, when his Sharingan sees the snake, Sasuke sees the eyes of the Kusa kunoichi. He screams, "Don't get near me!" and throws a barrage of shuriken at it. The snake whimpers and its head falls on a tree branch.
Sasuke and Reika land on another tree branch, and Reika groans in pain when her right ankle throbs against the force of the land, "Reika-hime!" Sasuke calls out. They don't even register the fact that he called her by her nickname.
"I'm fine… you?" Reika asks rhetorically. She knows Sasuke is not fine. They look back at the snake and their eyes widen when the part of the snake near its head starts to crack, and the Kusa kunoichi appears from it.
"Don't lower your guard, not even for a moment… a prey must always stay tense and try to flee desperately… before a predator," the Kusa kunoichi says as she looks straight into Reika's eyes and moves to Sasuke's, who stands in front of her protectively. She has her tongue hanging out of her mouth like a snake. Reika shudders at the murderous look in her eyes.
The Kusa kunoichi jumps out of the snake, her body lengthening like a snake and she wraps herself around a tree in an inhuman speed towards them. Sasuke screams in fear. But before she can get to them, a kunai and four shurikens stop her in her tracks. Reika gasps and turns to look at the source of the weapons, and almost sags in relief.
"Sorry, Sasuke…" Naruto says from a distance, his arms crossed in front of his chest, "The password… I forgot it!"
"Naruto!" Sakura exclaims, "That's alright!"
The Kusa kunoichi glares at Naruto.
"Naruto! I know you tried to be cool and intended to rescue us, but… don't stick your nose in this! Run! This thing… she's on a far different level!" Sasuke shouts, fear clear in his voice. Reika frowns at him. What's wrong with him…? He's been jumpy and his chakra is unstable…
"Seems like you brought that giant snake down brilliantly… Naruto-kun," the Kusa kunoichi says as she looks up at him.
"Hey, hey, hey! Evidently you've been bullying the weakling!" Naruto shouts, "Now that I, Uzumaki Naruto-sama is here, I'm going to wipe the floor with you!"
Reika sees Sasuke flinching. She knows that he's racking his brain for a way out. But… this isn't like him at all… what did he see in that genjutsu? "Wait!" Sasuke suddenly says. The Kusa kunoichi turns to look at him. Reika's eyes widen as Sasuke pulls out their Heaven scroll from his pouch, "If it's the scroll you want, I'll give it to you! I'm asking you. Just take this and go!"
He's… desperate, Reika thinks. She frowns. But I really don't think that's not what she really wants…
"Hey, Sasuke! What are you doing?!" Naruto asks, "Why are you giving our scroll to the enemy-ttebayo?!"
"You shut up!"
"What…?!"
"I see… you're sensible," the Kusa kunoichi says as she pushes herself up on her hand, "The only thing the 'prey' can hope from the 'predator' is presenting other food and pray you would be spared, isn't it?"
Sasuke throws their Heaven scroll at her, "Take it."
But before the Kusa kunoichi can catch the scroll, Naruto dashes to catch it. He uses the momentum when he lands on a tree to jump in front of Sasuke.
"Teme! Don't interfere with this! Don't you understand the situation?!" Sasuke asks him with a glare. Naruto turns around and sends him a hard punch to the face. Reika's eyes widen as Sasuke is thrown back, but he lands on another branch, "What are you doing all of a sudden?!"
Naruto pants as he looks down to the ground. He looks up at Sasuke with a glare and says, "As for me, I don't remember the password… so I got no way to make sure. But you, you're an impostor Sasuke, aren't you?!"
"Naruto! What are you trying to start?!" Sakura asks.
"You loser; I'm the real me!" Sasuke insists.
"…Liar," Naruto says, "This… this stupid coward is… absolutely… not the Sasuke I know!" Naruto says, "I don't know how strong she is, but how can you be so sure that she'll let us go if we hand over the scroll, huh?!"
Reika bites down her lower lip. Naruto has a point. She also wants to tell Sasuke that the Kusa kunoichi is not just after their scroll, but also their kekkei genkai. But there's no guarantee that the Kusa kunoichi won't tell Naruto and Sakura that she's actually an Uchiha. Sakura had seen her Sharingan earlier; she can't risk it.
"You're the one who choked and doesn't understand the situation-ttebayo!" Naruto says.
The Kusa nin chuckles as she stands up, "Naruto-kun…" she looks at Naruto and licks her lips, "That's correct."
Sasuke, Sakura, and Reika flinch at her words.
"The scroll," the Kusa kunoichi lifts up her left sleeve, showing them her tattoo, "I could just kill you and seize it," she then bites her thumb.
Reika's eyes widen. It's a summoning tattoo! "Naruto, get out of here!" she screams. But she's too late, as the Kusa kunoichi wipes the tattoo with her blood on her thumb. Instead of leaving the premises, Naruto runs towards her.
"Don't mess with me!"
"Run, Naruto! Stop it!" Sasuke shouts at him. Naruto jumps at the Kusa kunoichi, but…
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" the Kusa kunoichi has made the necessary hand seals and a gust of wind picks up from her direction.
Reika groans and tries to lift herself from her sitting position to move to where Sasuke is, only to have the branch she stands on break from the force of the wind. Reika's eyes widen when she feels her body giving itself up to gravity. She's suddenly thinking about the distance between the cliff and the Naka River below it, and how far Shisui had to fall before he met his end. She can't even scream; she's too horrified by the thought of dying by the same cause that killed her precious person. Before she can really fall, someone catches her.
"Reika-hime! Get ahold of yourself!" she hears Sasuke in her ears, but she hasn't registered it yet, "Reika-hime!"
She jumps when she feels a small pressure on her forehead. She remembers faintly of her childhood. While Itachi liked to poke Sasuke on his forehead, both he and Sasuke liked to kiss hers. It's been a while since he did it; the last time she remembers was when they were children, shortly after the massacre. Slowly, she regains her focus and sees Sasuke, his eyes still filled with panic and terror, but a forced smile on his face.
"Nii-san…" Reika whispers as she pants.
"You're okay," Sasuke says to her, even though it sounds like he's not just trying to convince her, but also himself, "We're okay."
Reika nods as she straightens up with a small apology to her brother. She sees Naruto fighting yet another giant snake.
"Cute…" the Kusa kunoichi says to Naruto, "You're a cute prey…"
The snake uses its tail to slice the branch Naruto sits on, and he falls down.
"Naruto!" Sasuke, Reika, and Sakura calls out to him, but he continues to fall until his back hits a tree, and he coughs out blood. His body then falls straight towards the snake's mouth.
"Damn it!" Naruto says as he flips and kicks the snake's face, actually shaking it. He has the feral look on his face, and Reika squints to look at his features better. Her eyes widen as she sees the whiskers around his cheeks have become more prominent, and his eyes are red; the same ones she saw in the Land of Waves. He continues to punch the snake on its face.
Suddenly the Kusa kunoichi opens her left hand and blows air into it, throwing fire at Naruto's direction. Naruto's body falls against multiple branches again, until he hits a stronger one.
"That's… Naruto?!" Sasuke asks under his breath.
The Kusa kunoichi smirks, "Next is…" she turns to look at the Uchiha twins, "Either one of you, Sasuke-kun. Reika-chan," the snake turns to face the twins, "Now what's your move?!" the snakes move towards them, but neither of them moves. Sasuke, out of fear, and Reika, because she can't with the state of her ankle.
"Sasuke-kun! Reika!" Sakura shouts.
Suddenly Naruto is in front of them, stabbing two kunais from each of his hands to the snake's face, stopping it centimeters away from where Sasuke and Reika are.
He… stopped it?! Reika thinks as her eyes widen.
Naruto pants, "Yo… are you hurt?" he lifts his head and his red eyes meet Sasuke's onyx, "Scaredy cat-kun?" It's the same thing Sasuke asked him when they fought the Demon Brothers on the way to the Land of Waves, "This stupid coward is absolutely not the Sasuke I know!" he says with a glare. Suddenly the Kusa kunoichi's tongue wraps around Naruto's body and lifts him up, "Damn it! Let me go! You stupid snake!"
He's pulled until he's facing the Kusa kunoichi. She makes a hand seal and pushes her palm against Naruto's exposed abdomen. Naruto's eyes widen as he groans in pain.
"Sasuke-kun! Help Naruto!" Sakura pleads.
Reika flinches as she sees Naruto going limp in the Kusa kunoichi's tongue. She reaches into Naruto's pouch and takes their Heaven scroll. Reika throws a kunai at her and it whizzes past her cheek, scarring it. The Kusa kunoichi throws Naruto's limp body aside.
"Naruto!" Sakura throws her kunai and it stabs Naruto's clothes against a tree before he could fall. She turns back to look at Sasuke and shouts, "What's wrong, Sasuke-kun?!"
Reika looks up at her brother standing beside her with confused eyes. Nii-san… what did she do to you…?
"Naruto's certainly different from you, Sasuke-kun. He's a klutz and kind of gets in the way. But he's not in the least a coward!" Sakura says.
Sasuke squeezes his eyes shut, as he thinks of the last words of that man, "Foolish little brother. If you want to kill me, resent me, hate me, and continue to live your ugly life… flee. Flee and hang on to your life." He reopens his eyes and his Sharingan activates. No! He thinks as he glares at the Kusa kunoichi. She laughs, and her summon snake disappears in a cloud of smoke.
Sasuke takes out a kunai and bites it between his teeth. I have to live so I can kill aniki… that's what I thought. But it's me who was being stupid. Naruto! Sakura! Reika-hime! How can someone who can't put his life on the line at a place like this beat that man?! Sasuke thinks as he dashes towards the Kusa kunoichi. He jumps and throws his kunai at the kunoichi, which she dodges nimbly.
He uses the momentum as he lands on a tree to jump towards her, and engages her in taijutsu. While she is quite fast, he can still see her movements with his Sharingan. But all of a sudden, the kunoichi picks up her speed and moves quickly around Sasuke. Even Reika has to reactivate her Sharingan to follow her movements. Sasuke makes a tiger seal and blows out fire from his mouth towards her twice. Suddenly the kunoichi is moving from underneath the branch, and strikes at Sasuke as she arrives in front of him, but he flips backwards to dodge her.
Reika stands up from where she is and jumps towards Sakura with a groan. She ignores her worried questions and jumps until she can get closer to Sasuke, ignoring the pain from her ankle. The Kusa kunoichi sends a gust of wind towards Sasuke, which he dodges. The force of the wind breaks a tree branch. Sasuke jumps towards a branch and pushes himself towards the kunoichi, taking her down with him. Reika clicks her tongue when she can no longer see him.
She closes her eyes and concentrates as she follows Sasuke's chakra. She looks down to where she knows he is and sees that he's manipulating shurikens with some wires. He manipulates the wires so that it wraps around the kunoichi and ties her against a tree. Sasuke then makes snake, dragon, rabbit, and tiger seals and breathes fire along the wires. Reika makes her way down to where he is as the kunoichi screams in pain, Sakura in tow.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura calls out as they get closer to him, "You did it!" Sasuke doesn't react as he pants in exhaustion, "Are you okay?"
"…you should rest," Reika says, "You've used your Sharingan for a long time."
"Hang on…" Sakura says. Reika flinches as she hears the tell-tale sound of wire being cut forcefully. She turns to see the Kusa kunoichi, still very much alive, walking towards them. She stops as she makes a hand seal and Reika finds herself falling on her behind, unable to move.
"I didn't expect that you could use Sharingan this much at your age…" her voice starts to distort, as if it's mixed with a man's voice, "You are truly a member of the Uchiha clan," she says, her voice now completely different from before, and is definitely a man's, "I do want you, after all. Along with her."
Reika wills herself, with all her might, to at least kneel.
"You truly are siblings. Both of your eyes, especially hers, hide more ability than Itachi."
Reika's eyes widen at the name. This guy… knows Itachi-nii-sama?!
"Who in the world are you?!" Sasuke asks.
The Kusa kunoichi, now turned into someone they don't recognize, has their Heaven scroll in her hand, "My name is Orochimaru… if you think you want to meet me again, desperately run to the top of this test," he says as the scroll catches on fire, "Defeat the three Oto ninja under my control."
"You're not making any sense at all! We don't want to see your face ever again, got it?!"
Orochimaru chuckles, "That won't do," he then makes a hand seal and his neck starts to grow in length and it moves quickly towards Sasuke. Reika's eyes widen as he bites onto Sasuke's neck.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura and Reika call out as Sasuke groans. Her eyes widen as Sasuke puts a hand over the nape of his neck and groans in pain.
"You, what did you do to Sasuke-kun?!" Sakura asks. Orochimaru's neck returns to his own body.
"Just a little parting gift… Sasuke will absolutely come look for me looking for power," Sasuke falls on his knees, groaning in pain. Orochimaru turns to look straight into Reika's eyes, "And now… for the girl."
Reika tries to move to avoid Orochimaru's lengthening neck, but even moving to go on her knees takes a lot out of her, and her right ankle is not helping. She sees her brother on his knees next to her, holding the nape of his neck. Her eyes dart back and forth from Orochimaru's approaching head to Sasuke, wondering what she should do. Before she comes to a decision, Sasuke suddenly moves, faster than she thought he could in his state, and stabs a kunai to Orochimaru's neck, pushing him off course.
"You are not… touching… my sister…" Sasuke growls lowly before he curls up and screams in agony while clutching his neck.
"Sasuke-kun!" Reika screams as she drops herself beside Sasuke. She sees a bruise shaped like three tomoes circling each other on the nape of her brother's neck. Orochimaru pulls away from them and returns to his body, nonchalantly pulling the kunai out of his neck.
"…I actually wanted the girl more because of the power of her Sharingan… but you would do just fine… Uchiha Sasuke-kun. I'll just have to get you later, Reika-chan," Orochimaru says before he makes himself scarce. Reika's eyes widen at the realization that it could be her in immense pain instead of Sasuke. Reika squeezes her eyes shut in pain as she hears Sasuke's groan of pain.
"…this is… my fault… I'm so sorry…" she whispers at Sasuke, "I should've been the one suffering, I'm so sorry…"
"Hold on, Sasuke-kun…" Sakura says from opposite Reika. The Uchiha twins don't seem to recognize her presence. Sasuke slowly lifts himself up, holding Reika's hand as he continues to groan and shout in pain, while Reika continues to whisper apology to his ear, her eyes squeezed shut. Reika's eyes open abruptly when Sasuke falls towards her, unconscious.
Reika vaguely hears Sakura calling out to Naruto, but she doesn't register her voice. She's only focused on her brother, and her brother only.
It's my fault… it's all my fault. Nii-san… I'm sorry…