Hey everyone, I'm back! Mucho gracias for all the reviews--I live off them, don't ya know?--and well, here's the result of an entire of day of writing. Literally. I started six hours ago and wrote the whole damned thing, while listening to loud music. I'm pretty sure it stems from finally catching up with the manga. Anyways, am on two weeks hols now so the next update will be before I go back to college. Only if I get plenty of reviews though, ne?
Disclaimer: Eto...if I lived to be three hundred and sixty nine, I still won't own Naruto.
ENJOY!
Contradicted
Chapter Twenty One: Sunrise
Dawn. The sun rises gracefully in Konoha, with gorgeous pinks and stunning purples and hues of grey mingling with the faded blackness of a retreating night. Most of the village is rousing by this time, market stools being set up, shop keepers making their morning stock take, workers picking up their teas and coffees, mothers making breakfast, fathers reading the newspaper and smiling amusedly as the kids bounce around with early morning hyperactiveness.
Dawn. Neji rouses me with a sense of urgency, and it takes me a moment to realise we're on a mission, and that dawn is our wake up call. We have to pack up quick to catch up with the target, who should be moving by now. I forget that I've left my towel by the stream and leave it behind.
Dawn. Hinata rolls over and lets out a small cloud of breath that floats lazily in the morning air, sleeping bag crinkling noisily. I open an eye and see Naruto sitting up, watching her with a dazed smile, and I look away, unable to stop this sudden happiness.
Dawn. Hinata's screaming, the sound muffled against Kiba's chest. Ino sobs quietly, clutching at Shikamaru. Genma lays a hand on Kakashi's slightly shaking shoulder, and Gaara stands silently, unable to comprehend. Sasuke is clutching my arm tightly. It's still raining.
Dawn. He's stone cold in my arms, his blue eyes detached and empty. I can't stop crying—I'll never stop crying it seems—and the sun rises, dazzlingly, peaking over the trees, an array of blood red colour. The sun rises, ignoring the fact that Naruto is dead, and can't appreciate it anymore.
Night. Sasuke kisses me heatedly, passionately, hands wondering, worshipping every part of my body. He murmurs something in my ear—you can't die tomorrow—promise me—live—and I promise, make him promise too, and feel the promises turn to ash. Dawn is coming. Time to take our revenge. Time to fight. Time to kill.
One year ago
13th April
4.49 a.m.
Inuzuka Kiba had just begun his breakfast when the couple immerged. Like clockwork, everyone in the vicinity paused in their activities and glanced over at the recognisable duo; after all, their names carried a lot of weight. Uchiha Sasuke, the orphan, avenger, the little brother of the son-of-a-bitch that killed their Hokage and took their village. Haruno Sakura, the talented medic, vicious fighter, the hardened woman who had lost nearly everything in one fell swoop.
Along with Kiba himself, everyone looked at them like their saviours. Kiba snorted. They were fools. The takeover had messed with their heads. The Haruno and the Uchiha were no saviours. They would not swoop in and save everyone. People were going to die—a lot of people. Sasuke would not be there to intervene at just the right moment, just like Sakura would not be there to pick them up, heal their wounds and send them on their way. This was war, not a cliché.
But if they were the symbolic human-shaped version of hope to these shinobis waiting for possible death and certain pain, that was fine. Everyone needed that last little bit of hope, after all.
And from the way they walking so close to each other, Sakura had finally caught on to her feelings and done something about them. That was good. Sasuke was Sakura's last vestige of hope; hope for a better life. A happy life. If they could just get through the next few days alive.
His hope was Kami knows where, holed up with Hatake Kakashi.
"Mornin' lovebirds!" Kiba greeted cheerfully, despite his dark thoughts. Perception was everything for those other shinobis watching them. Sakura smiled and dropped into the seat opposite Kiba, Sasuke sitting close beside her.
"Hey, Kiba. How are you feeling this morning?"
"Ah, y'know…" he murmured, waving his hand flippantly.
Sasuke nodded in understanding. Sakura smiled again, and Kiba wondered if it was to compensate for the fact there would be no one smiling in a mere hour or so. "Make sure you eat up," she said, "Both of you. Can't have my boys getting hungry on the field, can we?"
My boys. Kiba remembered a time where she would murmur the words gently, completely defusing a hostile argument between himself and that smart-mouth blond he had under-appreciated, while Kakashi looked on in amusement. Just those two words and they were all mush in her hands.
The term my boys had grown to encompass Neji and little Hiro from her old, ruined Squad, and now Sasuke too, but along the way she had lost the most important one.
Kiba smiled easily and tucked into his food, while Sasuke heaped both his and her plates with food, letting his hand clasp hers for a second. Kiba caught her brief and yet genuine smile, and desperately hoped they would be okay.
An hour til dawn.
6.03 a.m.
Haruno Sakura walked down the cold, impersonal stone passageway with the generic feeling of blankness that had settled over her entire mind within the last half hour. As she approached a side passage that would lead to an exit, a hand shot out and stilled her. She turned, looking into unfathomable onyx eyes, trying to freeze out the fire that erupted in her chest as she did so.
He didn't say anything, only leaned down and briefly kissed her, dry lips pressing hard against hers, before pulling away. His rough fingers adjusted her slightly lopsided hitae-ate, brushing against her hair, before letting her go and walking around her. Sakura watched him leave with trepidation, only comforting herself with the fact she would meet him as soon as the first phase—the least dangerous phase—was over.
Grasping a kunai from her holster, she approached the exit silently, forcibly ejecting any thoughts connected to Sasuke—or Kiba, Kakashi, Hinata, Ino—in order to focus on her targets. And there they were, standing just down the road from the secret passageway exit. Three shinobi—two Rain and one Cloud—all spread out over this four-way junction in the road. She had taken one of the hardest kills of the entire village, and that was fine. It would keep her mind occupied.
Sakura checked her watch. 06:09. Six minutes left. Already the sky was starting to get lighter, tinting a grey-blue and pushing away the blackness of the night. She waited for a few more minutes to crawl by before darting out of the secret entrance, skittering behind the nearest tree. Her chakra was suppressed, and the Guards sleepy, waiting for the switch-over, so no one noticed her.
In fact, no one noticed her as she crawled up behind the stock-still Rain-nin closest to her, glancing at her watch again. Just a few more seconds…
The sun peaked over the hill in a blaze of glory, shining brightly over the ruined village. At that exact moment, Sakura leapt upon her target, yanking his head back by his hair and dragging a kunai across his exposed throat. The Rain-nin made a gurgling noise of surprise, barely audible, before collapsing to the ground. The Cloud-nin noticed and let out a shout—one that alerted his companion—but paid
the price as a bloody kunai hurtled through the air and collided with his skull with a sickening crack. He was dead within seconds.
Sakura supposed it was testament to the fact she had truly changed in the last few years when the remaining Rain-nin was dealt with quickly and brutally, without an ounce of mercy in her fluid movements. Retrieving her blood-stained weapons, she jumped up a tree and waited for the Guards that would relieve the fallen men from their duty to arrive.
They arrived barely five minutes later, and Sakura was so restless that she threw a kunai the moment they appeared. Cursing herself for her impatience, she thanked her luck that the kunai connected with an unsuspecting Cloud-nin's neck. The other two went into immediate alert, but Sakura was quick to capture them in a genjutsu.
It was child's play. Once Konoha had the element of surprise, it honestly was too easy. There was just too much of a difference between their calibre of shinobi.
But Sakura was getting cocky, and that was what proved her downfall when one of the Rain-nin broke out of the genjutsu and suddenly leapt at her with incredible speed, katana flashing. Sakura threw herself sideways, but the katana glanced across her cheek, leaving a stinging cut. The Rain-nin changed tactic within a split-second, swinging the sharp steel downwards, intent on slicing through her stomach. Sakura rolled away, pushing herself off the ground with a hand and a foot swinging to connect with the Rain-nin's head. He stumbled, and Sakura took the opportunity to yank out her own katana and gut him with it.
The Rain-nin's eyes widened, blood streaking out of his mouth and dribbling down his chin.
"Bitch…" he choked out, "You don't stand a chance of taking this village back."
Sakura twisted the katana, causing him to choke and gurgle helplessly.
"Yeah?" Sakura growled, "Tell that to the rest of your dead comrades!"
She yanked out the katana. His eyes rolled backwards into his head and his body slumped forward. She leaned down, checking his pulse, finding none, and went to deal with the other still captured in the genjutsu.
Only to find he had already been dealt with.
"…You've changed, Sakura-chan." Came that honey-sweet voice she was incredibly familiar with. And yet, she hadn't heard it in over a year...
Turning to her right, where the voice had floated from, she looked up into the tree, and found an ANBU gear-clad boy crouched on a branch. His face was covered by a dog mask, but she didn't need to guess twice as to who it was.
"…Hiro…" she whispered.
He jumped down, landing gracefully and silently, before walking towards the pink haired medic. He stopped just before her, and her fingers reached out on their own accord. Pushing aside the mask, she found those bright green eyes and mess of blond curls, and that smile—that gentle, happy smile he had always worn—it was still there—
Sakura yanked him forwards and hugged the younger boy tightly, his happy laughter filling her ears.
This, she remembered, was what she was fighting for. Laughter, happiness...love…that was what she was fighting for. Not just revenge. Hiro had reminded her, all these months later, so long after Naruto's death, that it was what Naruto had fought for.
And to see him again, to see him alive and well and still smiling, despite everything that had happened to him, was a miracle. It was more than Sakura herself had ever managed.
"It's great to see you, Sakura-chan." Hiro grinned as he pulled away.
"And you, Hiro-kun." She murmured, ruffling his hair. But the happy reunion wasn't to last, as at that moment, Konoha's warning system kicked in and a high pitch wail filled the air. The village's captors were finally aware that half of their shinobis had been killed during the Guard switch-over. Sakura looked about, knowing the streets would soon be filled with enemy-nin, before turning back to Hiro. "Let's go!"
He grabbed her hand and together they took off down the road, their footfalls silent on the crumbled path. Just a few streets away, Sasuke was wiping clean his katana with a handkerchief, six bodies littered on the ground around him. He looked up at them as they approached, smirking at the sight of Hiro.
"Sasuke-chaaaaan!" Hiro shouted happily, jumping right onto his ex-Captain.
"Oi, get off, Hiroshi!"
"We've got to get a move on."
"I know—damnit, Hiroshi—"
"Haaiiii, Captain!"
Sakura was filled with such nostalgia at the sight that she almost made a remark to Leiko—only to violently remember that she was dead, and so was Naruto and Tsunade, and they would be too if they didn't get a move on—
"Alright, boys, break it up. Let's move out. We've got a village to save." Sakura ordered, determined to get back to her fighting mindset.
Finally Hiro let go of Sasuke and nodded. Sasuke sighed, sheathing his katana, and followed Sakura as she darted back into the secret passageway. Only moments after the entrance sealed shut behind Hiro did a flood of Cloud and Rain-nin came down upon the streets of Konoha, shouting as they went. The alarms were still wailing.
The fight had begun.
6.21 a.m.
It had barely been minutes since the alarm went off that a rather calm Chuunin Rain-nin, named Suzuki Jin, watched as his fellow comrades took to the rather empty streets of Konoha, where not a Leaf-nin was in sight. They were good, Suzuki knew, for they killed every Guard taking place in the switch-over and had disappeared right after. But still, there was about one of them to every four Rain and Cloud-nin.
He looked around. His colleagues up here on the wall were rather more nervous than he was. They paced left and right, looking back and forth over the village. The high pitched wail of the alarm was making it hard for communications, so Suzuki hoped it would switch off soon—and then it did. Suddenly everything was a lot quieter, with only shouts erupting from the village beneath them.
Suzuki rolled his eyes. All this fuss…
But then a faint rumbling caught his ears, only audible because the alarm had finally shut up. Thinking it was just his imagination, Suzuki ignored it—only to find he couldn't, because now the wall was starting to tremor.
What in the name of hell was that—?
Suzuki suddenly realised that no one was looking on the other side of the wall. Whirling around, he scanned the large clearing, and then the trees just ahead that surrounded Konoha. Was it just him, or were the trees shaking rather dramatically considering this light wind…?
It was hard to tell, because the sun was rising rather brightly today, and it was hard to see with it blazing away in the corner of his eye. But there was no mistake when someone drifted, seemingly in mid air, out of the trees and into the clearing. Who the hell was that? Suzuki squinted, and then suddenly realised that he wasn't floating in mid air, but standing on a cloud of sand. The stranger's stark red hair and cold jade eyes leapt out at him.
Oh dear Kami.
Sabaku no Gaara.
Okay. Okay. This wasn't too bad. Akatsuki could kill him, no problem. Hell, a good size of Rain and Cloud-nin could knock him out. Kill him. This wasn't too bad—
But then Gaara smirked up at him, jade eyes glinting dangerous, and raised his hand. And all of a sudden, a hoard of Sand and Leaf-nin erupted from the trees, streaking towards Konoha's walls, a never ending river of enemy-nin here to claim back Konoha.
Ah, shit— was all Suzuki managed before the sun was blocked out, and they were there, right in front of him—and then the world erupted in pain, before melting into black.
7.01 a.m.
"It's started!" Hinata shouted down the cave, peering out of the opening into the chaos happening below. "Kakashi, we should get down there!"
"Hang on, almost ready!" came his distant reply, followed by a thump and a string of profanities that made Hinata roll her eyes. Moments later, Kakashi appeared, shaking dust out of his hair and rubbing the developing bruise on his forehead. "Fixed it up as much as I could, but it'll still be a bit dangerous. You'll have to tell them to be careful."
"Right," Hinata replied, shouldering her small pack and looking back into the chaos below her again. Her enhanced eye sight was immediately drawn to the large white dog tackling a Rain-nin. "Kami, that's Akamaru! And—Kiba! He's okay!"
Kakashi smiled, placing a hand on Hinata's shoulder. "Let's go help him out then."
Hinata grinned at him, and together they left their cave, leaping back down to Konoha for the first time in nearly two weeks. Kiba wasn't far—but there were plenty of enemies along the way, and it was easy to fight now that the numbers had been levelled with outside help. It was unreal, seeing four different countries fighting in the hidden village of Konoha, but it was easy to see who was their friend and who was their enemy from the hitae-ates and the colours of their flak jackets. Kakashi caught a wayward shuriken, and returned it with deadly accuracy, catching the Cloud-nin in the stomach.
Hinata skidded into a courtyard, backtracking when an explosive tag exploded just to her right, leaping over a body and hoping it wasn't a Leaf or Sand-nin, or worse, someone she knew, and
briefly looked over her shoulder to check Kakashi was with her. Finding he was, she focused on her target.
Kiba looked around just in time to see her.
"Kiba! KIBA!" she shouted, ducking under a kunai and stopping to scuffle with a Cloud-nin.
Kiba's eyes widened.
"Hinata!" he shouted, lunging for the Cloud-nin, and together the pair brought the bastard down, Hinata finished him off with a sharp stab of a kunai.
Kiba sucked in a breath, and then stared at Hinata. "Hina—you're okay…Kami, you're okay…"
Hinata wiped away a streak of blood from her cheek, grinning and gasping for breath from her run. Laughing from sheer relief, she tackled the Inuzuka in a hug, the pair crashing to the floor just in time to avoid an explosion of fire over their heads. Kakashi hurried to deal with the culprit.
"I was with Kakashi—we have a safe way out of the village—who's supposed to be getting the captured?" Hinata asked, still lying on top of an incredibly dazed Kiba.
"I am," he replied after a second, "You have a way out? Fantastic, I was just going to keep the civilians in the secret passageways, but there's always the risk they'd follow…"
The two rolled apart before a large boulder crashed down on where they had been lying, a huge Cloud-nin growling at them and flexing his over-sized muscles. Kiba and Hinata looked at each other and both leapt with seamless cooperation.
Kiba ducked a massive arm, and slashed at it with his katana. "Where the hell have you been, Hina?"
Hinata leapt into the air with Akamaru, both descending on the Cloud-nin with kunais, claws and sharp teeth, only to be thrown off again before enough damage was made. Hinata leapt to her feet. "Secret cave. Had water and all—and you'll never get this—"
"What?" Kiba shouted before nodding to Akamaru and the pair leaping into action.
"I saw Kakashi's face!"
Kiba almost stopped in mid-air, which turned out to be good thing, as the fist swinging towards miscalculated and ended up missing up, causing the Cloud-nin to lose his balance. Kiba and Akamaru landed on his back, Kiba plunging his katana into the large meat beneath his feet, Akamaru using his claws to full capacity, sending the Cloud-nin into the ground.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" he said, yanking out his katana and sheathing it.
"Nope." Hinata smiled.
"Sakura's gonna kill you."
"Yeah, well, kinda planning on not telling her…Kakashi!"
Kakashi raised a hand in greeting, before catching a kunai with it. "You go with Kiba to release the prisoners. Get them to safety."
"What will you do?"
Kakashi threw the kunai back, catching the Rain-nin in the chest. "I'm going to keep the area relatively empty so you can get everyone out easily enough. Better hurry though. You can bet things are going to get a lot worse very soon."
Kiba nodded and grabbed Hinata's hand, leading her away. Kakashi quickly called after them, "Hinata-chan, you know what to do if the worst happens."
Hinata suddenly tightened her grip on Kiba's hand. "I'll be there." She called back softly, and Kakashi nodded before leaping back into the action. The pair took off in a run.
"The worst?" Kiba questioned.
Hinata shook her head, "Just hope it doesn't happen."
Kiba decided he didn't like the sound of that.
2.31 p.m.
Sakura gasped for breath, the cut on her cheek stinging violently as it pressed against the small stones and dust of the rough ground. She leapt to her feet with a one-handed jump, twisting to avoid the explosion from where she had just been lying. Forcing chakra into her feet, she landed with a blast as the ground cracked and crumbled further, crushing several Rain-nins.
Then she was running, swooping past several bodies to wrench her katana from the ground, swinging it time to block another attack of shuriken. The battle had been going on for hours now—on and off everywhere, with people falling every minute. Explosions riddled the village, buildings collapsing with a tonne of brick and stone and crushing everyone in the vicinity, fires burning out of control. Their village was beyond destroyed now, but Sakura had expected it to be.
But the question that burned in her mind was simple.
Where the hell is Itachi?
It was afternoon. The sun hung high in the sky, the beautiful blue skies mocking where the smoke didn't obscure it. How ironic. So much death, and yet the weather was stunning.
"Sakura, watch out!"
She leapt high into the air to avoid the ball of flame that skittered right at her, raising a hand of thanks to Hyuuga Neji, who only nodded and tackled a nearby Cloud-nin, movements swift and deadly. Sakura landed quietly, just behind a Rain-nin, and swiftly stabbed her with her katana, and then moving on before she had even fallen to the ground. There really was no time for mercy now.
The Main Square was filled with bodies, and it made it hard to walk. Everywhere she looked, there was death. Pain. Some of them weren't quite dead—just dying, just hovering there, in pain—and she spotted such a Sand-nin a little further down. She couldn't ignore her medic instincts, and was by the Sand-nin's side within moments.
She was blonde, and her face was so incredibly matted with blood and sweat that it took a moment for her to realise that Sakura knew this woman.
"S-Sakura…" she whispered.
"Oh Kami, Temari!" Sakura murmured, immediately drawing chakra into her hand and examining the damage. Fractured ribs, deep penetration wounds to her stomach, both bleeding profusely—she had minutes to live, and needed a blood transfusion—shit!
Sakura kicked out her panic and started working on the blonde, repairing cells and stitching together tissue and skin as quickly as she could without damaging her work. Temari would be left with scars, she just didn't have time to be that careful, but at least it was healing. After the wounds were closed, the focused on healing the bone just enough to let Temari move without inflicting too much damage. Her task accomplished, a mere fifteen minutes later, she leaned back, letting out a breath.
Temari sat up slowly. "Thanks," She said, her voice cracking slightly. "We need medics like you back in Suna."
"Doesn't everyone?" Sakura quipped, smiling tiredly. It was brief, as a moment later she had pushed Temari down and covered her as a rain of kunai fell down upon them. Sakura cried out as one collided with her shoulder with a sickening crack and another slashed her side.
"SAKURA!" Sasuke shouted, from a ledge above her. Leaping to the roof of an empty cage, he tackled the culprit, katana doing its work within seconds. Sasuke looked down on Sakura, who had reached back and yanked out the kunai and was now healing it slowly, green eyes shut.
Temari staggered to her feet and almost fell again, before Neji jumped in and steadied her.
"Get her out of here." Sakura gasped.
"Sakura, no!" Temari protested.
"You need a blood transfusion," the pink haired medic growled, wincing as the deep cut in her side stretched slightly, "And there's a Hospital Bay being set up outside the village. You wouldn't last two seconds with the amount of blood you've just lost, so Neji, get her out of here."
Neji nodded, picking up the protesting blonde without much effort. "Keep yourself safe, Sakura."
Sakura let out a sigh as she finished healing her shoulder, "You too, Neji. See you later, Temari."
They left as Sasuke leapt down and helped Sakura up. Silently, he wrapped the side wound in gauze, eyes flickering between the torn flesh and the once-imprisoned civilians and Leaf-nin slowly trickling out of the Hokage Building. Kiba and Hinata were in there, freeing the rest of the captives, as they had been all morning. Sasuke knew the prisoners had been kept in separate areas, all under protective barriers, making the job of freeing them all ten times harder.
"Why don't you just heal it?" he finally asked Sakura.
"Gotta save my chakra. Itachi could turn up any moment—"
Their heads whirled around as a faint explosion from beneath them rumbled the ground. There was a pause, and then a series of more explosions rattled the ground and the surrounding buildings, and then suddenly there was a rush of screaming civilians pouring out of the Hokage Building as fast as they could go—
BOOM!
Another explosion went off, this time a lot louder and a lot closer. Sakura felt her heart drop when another explosion caused the bottom of the Hokage Building to explode outwards and then—
CRASH!
The building collapsed in an eruption of rock and stone and glass, showering everyone in the vicinity with dust and rubble. Sakura screamed, while Sasuke yanked the medic into his chest and bent them over to avoid anything flying into their faces. Several glass shards from windows sliced across his back, along with glancing blows of small rocks, but nothing that damaged too badly.
And then it was over, dust billowing in the air, ears ringing from the crash. And Sakura screamed again, pushing Sasuke away and looking utterly horrified.
"Kiba—Hinata—they were in there! Oh Kami, they were—"
Sasuke felt his heart go cold, but found it wasn't from the alarming fact that Sakura's friends might just be dead—the series of explosions from beneath them was probably the basement collapsing in on itself, so Sasuke didn't really see how they had survived—but rather, his heart went cold from the voice that followed.
"Well, that was unbelievably fun."
Sakura froze.
"Don't you think, Itachi?"