A/N: I UPDATED, ONCE AGAIN, BEFORE GEORGE R. R. MARTIN. YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY POWER.
I'm quite out of practice with the editing process, so if there are any errors, please let me know in a message or a review.
Given that it's been just about over a year since this has updated, I can imagine you're all confused about previous chapters. If you want to reread, naturally, feel free; if you don't, I have provided a summary, easily skippable, for those confused.
Uzumaki
A Brief Summary
Once Satsuki is comatose after fighting Itachi, and Ino is comatose after trying to save Naruto from Orochimaru with her Mind-Transfer technique, Sakura and Naruto set about convincing Tsunade, the new temporary Hokage, to heal them both. She refuses at first, but when Sakura demonstrates her skill by healing Ino by herself, Tsunade decides to stay as Hokage, and heals Satsuki.
However, it doesn't go as Naruto hoped. When Satsuki awakens, the shame of losing to Itachi, and her and Naruto's ongoing feud, provokes her to demand a fight. They head to the hospital rooftop, and fight it out.
When Naruto sees Satsuki's chidori, and then Kakashi as he comes to mitigate the argument, he realises Kakashi was the culprit who killed his first friend, Mizuki-sensei. Naruto begs Kakashi to tell him the truth - and afterwards, he isolates himself from the team.
Not only do Naruto and Satsuki refuse to tolerate each other now, they both isolate themselves from Sakura. Eventually, she begs Tsunade for training: she complies.
As Naruto's birthday and the festival comes up, Ino nudges Satsuki into attending for Sakura's sake. Privately, Sakura also pleads with Naruto. They both concede.
On the day, however, we see Satsuki confronted by Orochimaru's men, and offered the opportunity to defect: she has to answer by the end of the night. It lies on her mind, but the night goes on, with Naruto and Satsuki reluctantly tolerating one another.
For Sakura's sake, they get along quietly, softening as the night goes on - both agreeing to pretend for just one night. As they run away from dances, drink sake illegally and eat takoyaki, they forget more and more about what transpired between them. After swimming through the river away from a man they injured with a rock, they fight, coming to a draw.
After watching the fireworks together, they head home quietly, before Satsuki presents him with his birthday present: a hand-sewn good luck charm. She asks him not to leave.
He promises.
They both return home, and Satsuki rejects the Sound Four's request. They leave, and Satsuki goes to see Naruto, to apologise for all they had argued about.
His apartment is stripped clean. We see the reality: Orochimaru's men had asked them both, and Naruto chose to defect.
As he leaves, Ino catches him, and after failing to convince him, uses her Mind-Transfer to enter his mind. She ends up trapped, forced to simply watch as Sakura pursues him and goes to fight him at the Valley of the End. At the critical moment, she manages to save Sakura's life, forcing Naruto to remember Hinata's brutal death - the only thing she believes would distract him. Satsuki arrives and breaks his ribs.
Chapter 28
Kotetsu and Izumo liked to work guard duty.
Izumo was an early riser, so they were always first to the shift assignment sheet. Guard duty wasn't fun, but they got to personalise the place the longer they stayed. They had cards under the desk, and a little table for a game of Go. Sometimes Kotetsu put on slippers.
As they settled in, he reached under the counter, reaching for the worn cardboard box and pouring out a stack of cards into his palm. The sun was snuffling at the edge of the horizon, like an old dog. "You wanna play rummy?"
Izumo pulled the stool to the counter, hitching his legs up and stretching. "It's too early for problem solving, Kotetsu."
"That's not the can-do shinobi attitude we like to see in jounin, Izumo." Kotetsu splayed the shuffled cards across the desk in a bow. "You wanna see a magic trick?"
Izumo raised an eyebrow, motioning him on, an exhausted twirl on his lips as he sipped at a coffee. "Alright, I'm watching. Go ahead."
"Okay, so, pick a card."
Izumo pulled one out from Kotetsu's hand, before glancing at it and putting it back in the pile.
"You sure you aren't just screwing with me?"
Kotetsu hummed, shuffling the pile absent-mindedly as he stared across the path. No one had passed through yet. Hot pinks and oranges on the horizon made Konoha look tropical: the birds were warbling in the trees.
Something caught his eye.
"Kotetsu? I wanna see the magic trick, c'mon. Or were you just-"
"Hey," said Kotetsu. "Izumo."
At his tone, Izumo's expression tightened. "What is it?"
"No, just…" Kotetsu put the cards on the desk. "You see that? In the grass?"
They stared: nothing. But then the sun must have rose just a millimetre more, and it caught the light again.
"There, Izumo, do you-?"
"No, no I see it," said Izumo. He stood up, stretching his arms and cracking his fingers. "Probably just some trash from the festival, though. Still. Let's go."
Izumo left first, and Kotetsu kept his eyes on the shimmering. It was almost white, and reflected the light impressively: the way it peaked out between the grass was like a lurking jungle snake.
People were opening up shop down the road. The town was quiet apart from the birds, the quiet muttering of early-risers in the road, and a strange, coarse noise. It eked back and forth like a scrubbing sponge sanding away at glass, sharp and discordant.
He grew anxious.
As Kotetsu peered over the grass, Izumo swore, taking a step back.
"Fucking hell," Izumo breathed.
Buried by the long grass, a young woman was sprawled, eyes open and unblinking.
She convulsed with gasps for breath, the noise that he'd heard wheezing past her lips as shrill rasps. Froth bubbled from her mouth. She was still wearing an expensive lavender kimono, the layers strewn across her awkwardly bent legs: her sandals had fallen off.
At least two feet of hair streamed through the grass, pins and ornaments scattered in the soil, the luminous blonde he'd spotted still tangled in near-invisible light cream hair pins. Her fingers twitched.
"That's Inoichi's daughter," Kotetsu whispered, voice failing him. "Fuck me, that's Yamanaka Ino. Izumo, have you seen him?"
"He's at T&I as usual, but-"
"Then go!"
The smell of frying eggs awoke Haruno Mebuki.
She curled into the bedsheets, before stretching sluggishly and curling her toes. The morning was in full swing.
Mebuki put on her slippers and slipped into her dressing gown, blinking the fuzz out of her eyes. She took the stairs slowly, and turned the corner to see her husband, hard at work over the stove.
"Is that eggs you're making, honey?"
"Sure is. Making coffee too," Kizashi said, whistling. "Is Sakura up?"
"I doubt it…"
"Could you get her, honey? She'll sleep forever if you leave her."
"Fine," Mebuki huffed, grinding her teeth. "We need to buy her an alarm, Kizashi."
"So we do."
She sighed, heading for the stairs. Couldn't Sakura get up in her own time? Couldn't Mebuki just read the news and eat her breakfast? Apparently not.
Mebuki sank further into her dressing gown, curling her toes into her slippers as she stood at the edge of the stairs. "Sakura! Get up!"
No answer. She stormed upstairs, and rapped on the door. "Sa-ku-ra! Wake! Up!"
Nothing.
"I'm coming in, Sakura," Mebuki warned, feeling a dreadful feeling accumulating like a blood clot as she held the handle. She pushed, but found no give.
The lock.
Mebuki had put a lock on the door - it'd been part of that discussion, after Sakura had gone to live with that young Satsuki girl. Privacy. Independence. Respect. It'd been about those things: so now she had a lock. It was a small cost to have her home, but now… if the door was locked, then surely-
"Sakura, you're in there, aren't you? Get up!" She rattled the handle again, checking she hadn't just gotten it stuck. "You're… You're worrying me, y'know that?"
Banging.
"Fine!"
She took three steps back and then slammed her foot into the door. The frame shuddered. So she did it once more, twice-
The lock gave way, the force pulling the chain and its attachment on the door with it right out of the wood. Mebuki felt her stomach drop.
The room was empty; the yukata and the under layers were all over the bed, but Sakura was nowhere to be seen.
She stormed down the stairs, to see Kizashi looking up at her, apron on and bewildered.
"Mebuki? Dear, what's going-"
"Sakura isn't in her room," she breathed, holding onto her knees. The kicks had rattled her right knee a bit, and the pain shot up and down her leg. "But it was locked. She must've gone out her window, or s-something."
"Mebuki." Kizashi took Mebuki by the shoulders with a firm, gentle grip, looking into her eyes. She calmed a little. "Mebuki. Are you sure you didn't miss her? Maybe she was hiding in her wardrobe or something. Have you been fighting?"
"No," Mebuki sniffled. Between anger and panic, somehow she'd ended up in tears. "No, Kizashi, we'd been- we'd done fine recently. And after she came back, we'd been talking- so why would she not respond? She must've known how worried we were- she must've gone out the window, to that Satsuki girl again, or something-"
Kizashi nodded, drawing her into his arms and massaging her back with his hand. He smelled like clean clothes and cooking. "Calm down, honey. It's okay. She might be at Inoichi's."
"Oh-Oh, you could be right," she said, tears leaking onto his shirt collar. "We should go ask, and- and-"
"Yes, dear. So you go upstairs-" Kizashi motioned up the stairs, "and go check her room again, okay? And I'll go out to Inoichi's and be back with her before you know it."
Mebuki was silent, just nodding, her face swollen with upset and panic. She clambered upstairs as Kizashi yanked off his apron and took his keys and coat, scurrying out with the door still unlocked.
The eggs were burning.
A sour taste, like battery acid, began to sting Satsuki's tongue as she looked down at Naruto's beaming, smug face.
"Guess so?" she repeated, gritting her teeth. "Keep that crap to yourself."
Satsuki slammed her foot into Naruto's face, crushing his cheek into the ground with the sole of her shoe with force so strong a couple teeth cracked. Gravel crunched beneath his head, and his skull seemed to bend under her foot a little, like a tough rubber ball.
The scorpion tail, eyeing Satsuki carefully, began to rattle then, its stinger gleaming in the light. She cut it clean in two; blood splattered across the rocks, and Naruto shrieked, convulsing and scrambling to grab his missing limb.
The sun was rising above the two statues; rushing water cast froth into the light, like the waterfall was spitting diamonds.
Satsuki's figure blotted out the light, her two fans by her sides dripping red hot chakra from their spokes. Naruto, in front of her, had been cut from his shoulder to his hip in one clean slice of a fan. The smell of cauterised flesh hung in the air: blackened pink gunge like burnt ham pulsed from his gut.
"Sakura," said Satsuki, looking over her shoulder, her features carved out by sunbeams. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Sakura whispered, keeping her eyes firmly on the boy beneath the sole of Satsuki's foot. Naruto twitched, his wound beginning to ooze with rancid chakra. "Satsuki-san, my… my ankle's gone. He broke it."
"Okay," Satsuki said, stepping off Naruto. He gasped, spluttering saliva and blood.
Satsuki put a foot beneath Naruto's broken ribcage, lifting her leg and rolling him over like he was a gutted pig carcass. He tumbled aside, limp limbs sprawling across the rocks, shuddering but otherwise still.
Satsuki shut her fans and strapped them to her belt, and she leaned down, putting one arm gently beneath Sakura's neck and another arm beneath her knees. Her head lolled in her arms, eyes glassy as Satsuki hoisted her up, and she curled up, leaning into her like a tired child.
Satsuki shifted Sakura's weight, and began carrying her to the greener part of the valley in long strides. Her bony arms hurt Sakura's ribcage, but she didn't even have the energy to wince.
"I've never seen you in black before," Satsuki said.
"Really?" Sakura murmured. She licked blood off her lips. "I guess I don't really wear it much. Doesn't do much for my complexion…"
The sky rolled, morning sunlight rising above them. There wasn't a cloud to be seen.
"I think you look nice," Satsuki said. "You look mature."
Sakura smiled weakly. "Hah. That's not so bad."
As they drew away from Naruto, still dripping with that stagnant chakra as he lay motionless on the ground, Sakura noticed Satsuki did not look back.
"Satsuki-san," said Sakura, coughing a little. Her ribs stung her in response. "I'm… I'm really sorry that I couldn't. I did everything I could to stop him. I didn't hesitate, or anything, but it's just- his skin, like… it was like armor."
"I know. You don't have to apologise."
Satsuki kept walking.
"Do you think that's Naruto we're fighting? That it's really him?" Sakura clasped Satsuki's top. Her nails were cracked, split apart, and some entirely missing. Swollen skin pushed through the cracks. "Is he being… possessed? Has he got… is this the Nine Tails? Orochimaru?"
Satsuki couldn't answer. Sakura leaned into her chest even more. Her hair was full of dust and gravel, and looked more grey than pink in the sun.
"Because, y'know, I'd like to think," Sakura said, "that that isn't him."
A bird landed by the stream, washing itself quickly with a dip of its head. Satsuki's lips thinned, and she held Sakura tighter.
Sakura's clothes were sodden and her skin was dribbling with water and blood, but Satsuki was warm and dry. Sakura relished it for the moment.
"Sakura." Satsuki hoisted her up, arms slipping a little. "Naruto killed all of the plants in his apartment before he left. He cleaned. I couldn't even find his toothbrush.
"Naruto left all on his own." Satsuki seemed disturbed for a moment, but then looked back at her, brushing hair from Sakura's eyes with a dry hand. Her nails were still perfect. "And in fact," she said, "I think he'd decided on it a long time ago."
Sakura closed her eyes, exhaling.
"Sakura," said Satsuki, "We didn't always get along, did we?"
Sakura snorted. "No," she murmured, remembering a moment. "No, we actually used to argue, didn't we? A lot. I used to treat Naruto like crap, and you…"
"I used to stand up for him," Satsuki said. "And I used to get angry with you for the way you looked up to me. I hated being called pretty, too."
"Yeah, you used to get so annoyed about it, right? But I really did admire you, you know." Sakura looked up at her. "I still do. You're still so far ahead of me."
Satsuki shook her head. "You got here first."
Sakura blinked, and smiled weakly. "I guess you're right. But maybe that's the difference between you and me, Satsuki-san." Sakura's smile dimmed. "Maybe I didn't trust him like you did. I don't know. Is it one of those things, where- if you expect good things of someone, they live up to it? Naruto's that kind of guy, isn't he? A people pleaser?"
"I don't really know what kind of guy Naruto is," said Satsuki, a crack parting her words. "And I really did- I really thought I knew, Sakura. Just like I thought I knew you when we were young. But I didn't. You were clever. You were brave - far braver than me. I wasn't ever brave enough to talk to Naruto honestly. About the things we… that we really needed to talk about.
"And there were a lot of things I expected of Naruto, too. I knew he could be a coward, but I knew Naruto's bravery came from when he really wanted to save us. I- More than anything, I just didn't expect him to lie to me." Satsuki's voice crumbled. "Not like that."
Sakura closed her eyes. "Satsuki-san," she said, hot tears gathering, "Naruto lied to us all the time."
As they reached the small wood, Satsuki laid Sakura down at the foot of one of the far trees. She leaned into the soil and grass, every heartbeat making her wounds sting.
"I'll be back," said Satsuki. "And we'll take him home."
Sakura tried to sit up on her elbows, at the edge of saying something when she wobbled and fell.
Satsuki caught Sakura in the nick of time, her arm behind her back and another hand in her hair. She buried her fingers into a tuft; the jagged ends had grown out, but it still barely brushed her shoulders.
"Everything will be okay, Sakura. I'm just-" Satsuki wove her other hand between Sakura's fingers. "I'm just…"
Her fingers felt calloused against Sakura's, but not as much as they used to. Sakura's fingers didn't feel so soft anymore: every finger had been nicked by her needles, by some rock or other.
"...I'm so glad you're safe. Even if…"
Tears dripped from Satsuki's chin. Sakura felt them streaming down hers too.
"It'll be fine, Satsuki-san. You're right," Sakura whispered, mustering the resolution to nod and smile at Satsuki. Satsuki nodded back. "Everything will be okay."
With great effort, and not looking away for a single moment, Sakura let go.
It was early morning, and Tsunade's office was freezing cold. The sun was only beginning to hit the building and her fingers felt clumsy and numb.
"Crap, it's cold," she muttered. Her seat was even colder, and she winced, rubbing her legs together. "Shizune, is the heating on?"
Tonton was sleeping still. Bastard pig, Tsunade thought. What she wouldn't do to eat and sleep all day.
"Well, Tsunade-sama," Shizune said, biting her lip, "There is no central heating in the building, ma'am."
"None?"
"You see, ma'am, it's the Land of Fire. Quite warm comparably year round, so the heating is quite unnecessary. This is just a cold morning because the sky's clear. It'll heat up rather quick."
Tsunade drummed her freshly manicured nails on the table. "Huh," she said tonelessly. Perhaps she could use the paperwork as insulation. Put it on the walls or something.
"Would you like a cup of tea, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked, motioning to the back room. "We've got a kettle and a small stove."
"Stove," Tsunade repeated. In a moment's glorious idea, she yanked open her bottom drawer and brought out a bottle of sake and a brand new chokkuri. "In that case, would you mind heating this sake for me? Thanks in advance."
"T-Tsunade-sama, that sake will taste awful heated."
"Beggars can't be choosers!" She pushed two choko onto the desk and winked at Shizune. "As your boss, I give you permission to get slaughtered on the job."
Shizune sighed, taking the tokkuri and the sake and heading to the back room. "Tsunade-sama. Please. You've got a lot of paperwork to get through today, you know. And I bet there'll be repairs after the festival!"
"I do know," said Tsunade, calling after her, "and I am trying to forget, thank you very much."
As Shizune set herself about the stove and the drinks ('She's probably going to bring me tea anyway!' Tsunade thought grimly), the Hokage sat and tried to gather warmth by wiggling her toes. It was a terribly cold autumn morning, but Shizune was right: outside the window, the sprawling blue sky had probably sucked all the heat out of the earth overnight.
At least it was too early for anyone to bother her-
Bang bang, bang BANG.
Ah, now there was an obnoxious knock. ANBU then? She hated those bastards. They knocked like debt collectors.
"Come in," she growled. Drummed her nails again. She'd just got these done - she could bet some good money she'd have chipped the job by the end of the day with how much these people drove her up the wall.
"It's me!"
A familiar bellowing came from Jiraiya, who bumbled in and took a gigantic scroll off his back and slammed it on the ground. "Fooled you, didn't I! Sounded just like the ANBU, am I right?"
"Great to see you," muttered Tsunade. "I see you're as hard at work as ever."
"Well, yes, I am for a matter of fact," he huffed. "I came back to hand in some intel. Something Danzo requested I pick up. And I'm right back out, you know."
"Wonderful. Then I'll see you." She shooed him with one hand, drawing circles on the desk with the other.
Jiraiya pouted. "Don't be so hasty," he said. A more serious look settled on his face. "You remember the seal you asked me to put on Naruto?"
"The Uzumaki kid?" she said, gaze narrowing a little.
He nodded, pushing over the huge scroll at his side and unfurling it in one clean kick. "I told him it had something a bit more dangerous in it than it does, but doesn't seem like it deterred him anyway. This tells me when he's using the Nine Tails' chakra, but it's connected with his matching seal. He's far away from the village now."
The seal, Great Counterstrike, oozed with black ink that bubbled within the strokes of Jiraiya's calligraphy.
"Can you track him with that?" she said.
"Yep," he said. "About all I can do, actually. I didn't want to end up killing the kid if there was just some plain accident on a training field."
Shizune came in quietly, bowing to Jiraiya and then pouring a hot choko of sake. Tsunade sighed, taking a long sip. "Doesn't look like your caution did you much good. Go get Sakura. And that Uchiha kid too. They'll want to hear this. And Shizune, is there a map anywhere around here? Pen, too."
Jiraiya grimaced.
"Well," he said, scratching the side of his head, "there's something else."
Tsunade looked less than ready for more bad news, but judging by her grinding teeth, he would've guessed she already knew.
"Oh, don't tell me," she hissed, the choko in her hand struggling against her grip. "Those two did not."
"They did."
The ceramic split. Hot sake flooded the desk. One shard chipped her manicure.
The sun was getting higher in the sky.
Aside from smatterings of pillowy clouds at the very edges of the sky, it was a beautiful day; autumn hadn't spread here yet. For all anyone could've known, this part of the world was still in the throes of summer.
Satsuki splayed her fans, cleaning them with a dip in the river.
Naruto was still gurgling. Satsuki could see where the cut had turned septic, right through his innards. Chakra oozed from the wound all the same, red-purple sewing together pink, putty-like gunge. The mix of stringy muscle and tissue reminded Satsuki of frying bacon.
Chakra oozed from the wound, pooling below him, even pushing out of his mouth like his vomit. Naruto seemed to gag on it, but the chakra lurched and rose up behind him, pushing him to his feet.
Satsuki cleared the ground around her of dust and pebbles with a clean sweep of her right foot, brushing them aside and then standing up straight. Her fans spread between her fingers.
"Satsuki," he said. Gooey purplish-black chakra oozed from his gut now, like moldy ink. "You're here too? Not just, my mind… or anything…"
She didn't say anything, instead focusing on her center of gravity.
'One foot forward, to the right. One foot behind, facing forward. Fans, flat. Open.'
Breathing slowly, she lowered herself, weight on her back leg as her Sharingan clocked into position. The world began to fasten itself into intent shades of red, a spectrum so descriptive it had no words of equal.
She lifted one fan to her front, one to her side. To their edges she projected fire: the controlled extension of energy made her fans feel like a strange but dead part of her, like nails or hair. Waves of hot chakra licked down each chakra-conductive spoke.
Naruto's exhausted eyes fixated on her fans.
"On fire?" he murmured. She saw chakra pull together knuckle wounds filled with gravel, and spit out the rocks from the flesh like they were peach pits. "Doesn't hurt?"
Satsuki held back a crack of anger. Hearing his voice alone made her muscles scream from her neck to her fingertips. Oh, the things she'd do.
"I'm glad to see you're so concerned about me, Naruto."
She let her eyes drift to his gut. "But your intestines are tumbling out of that wound of yours."
"Wh-?"
Satsuki remembered the experience of cutting through a large fish under her mother's careful watch: tissue was a strangely forgiving thing. Bones were the problem.
Something similar happened: Satsuki stepped forward with one leg, and twisted her torso as she dropped to the ground. She brought her fan back, around, and into Naruto's ankle as he glanced down at the wound through his torso. She snagged on the bone.
Naruto gasped, scrambling to yank his leg back. She dislodged the fan from the bone with a wiggle of her wrist, reeling back for another cut. Behind them, Naruto's severed tail convulsed, hissing and moving to whip her.
Satsuki pulled her arm back, and snapped it forward before he could grab her.
Her fan went straight through his achilles tendon, and like a badly restrung bass string, it snapped back with a disgusting, meaty twang so strong that Naruto fell to the ground, his foot limp and unresponsive.
Satsuki went for the other one, teeth bared and spit flying as she threw herself into the ground and buried her fan in the back of his left ankle.
This one didn't require a second chop. She had a sense for its meaty, sinewy texture now - it parted neatly with a thwack. Naruto's second foot gave way and he stumbled: the skin seared on his fan like barbecue. There was a whiff of acrid smoke.
"I know you suck at anatomy," Satsuki hissed, "but this is simple enough. You won't be walking until the Hokage herself sews you up."
Naruto stared at her. Satsuki couldn't find his pupils: they'd closed over. Some of his teeth were pushing out of his gums, rolling out of his mouth onto the rocks.
"I don't need to walk," he said, falling gently into the filthy chakra. "I crawl now."
The chakra, as thick and persistent as tar, swallowed him whole, the red-purple eating at him. Naruto didn't struggle, even as he seemed to choke.
It pulled up from the ground, forming a shape far larger than Satsuki, congealing into something sharp and complex.
A shimmering black scorpion, dripping with chakra and gleaming as though oiled, emerged around Naruto. Muscle oozed through it, pulling the exoskeleton together like a fresh seam, tendons roping Naruto's legs and torso inside to leave his arms hanging down at its front.
Two pedipalps snapped in front of Naruto's face, and two mandibles of bone began to push from inside of his mouth, puncturing his cheeks after a couple seconds resistance. They pinned his face in place, distorting his cries.
Then came the tail, the stinger gleaming anew: six legs clicked, Naruto's two legs absorbed in the ones furthest back.
The scorpion still swayed confidently, as though it didn't feel Naruto's pain at all - as though he had been eaten by another organism altogether.
She breathed, her Sharingan flicking between every new limb. There were too many limbs. Far too many.
The stinger leered over at her, smug as it watched from above.
"SATSUKI," said Naruto, cheeks tearing apart as he spoke. A string of skin snapped and rolled down, baring Naruto's deformed teeth and bleeding gums. "GO HOME."
A foggy bridge covered in blood. A world renowned mercenary dead, for a boy no one would ever remember.
And the young boy stood, eyes full of ice, ready to die, nothing in mind but the words he spoke.
"Forge your own path," he whispered, "and find dreams."
"I let go of my ambitions so I could hold onto my dreams," said Satsuki. She snapped her fans ajar, the metal sparking alight. "It took me a long time to find them again. A long time to find my home."
Her hands shook as she focused on Naruto's face, steam whistling through his overgrown teeth.
"I won't let you take it from me," she spat, holding back furious tears. "My home is with you, and your home is with me, Naruto! And I won't let you lie to me anymore!"
"Are you going to send someone? Or… you know, just mark them as missing nin?"
"Inoichi's daughters' soul is out there, somewhere. He's one of our best men, and goddammit Jiraiya, they're kids."
"They are. So what are you going to do?"
"There's simply no one I can spare from our ranks. Genin at best, but they're the ones doing all the repair operations. It's not an easy decision."
"So?"
"Well," Tsunade muttered, tracing her fingers around the rim of her remaining choko, "I've actually had some volunteers."
Until Gaara had left Suna as a genin, he had only seen plants in pots and greenhouses. When he'd gone through the desert to the edges of neighbouring towns, on uncomfortable escort missions, Gaara had seen plants grow wild for the first time. Most were cacti, Temari had nervously informed him. But then he saw a strange one.
It'd been a desert sage, a pretty purple flower that grew in bundles. Gaara had been dumbfounded at its stern resilience in a very barren scrubland.
Then, he'd come to Konoha.
Plants grew everywhere, even between the cracks of paving stones, up the gutters of the houses and across their facades. Trees grew so big their foliage smothered the weeds.
Where in Suna, the cultivation of livestock was crucial, Konoha's forests seemed abound with all sorts of wild animals. It was pleasing for a person to see a sweet brown rabbit, or a fox. People were comfortable, so the stubborn fight of life that rose around Konoha was pleasing to them.
It confounded him.
Now, dashing through the woods of Konoha as he had in the Chunin Exams, the thick canopy of life overwhelmed him.
The desert sage was a plant so resilient it could only require water once in its lifetime; Konoha's forest was so spoilt, trees, vines and shrubs all throttled each other for more sunlight. Bugs slept in the ground and swarmed through every crevice.
It was another world to him. Temari, however, seemed disinterested: she was talking about a topic Gaara didn't quite understand.
"Kankurou."
"I hate this game."
"Whatever. Tsunade."
"...I don't know."
"What? You wouldn't? I'd-"
Temari reeled off several acts that Gaara didn't really understand.
Kankurou cringed. "Sis, please. Don't."
"God, you're so easily intimidated by a pretty girl. All of you are." Temari dashed from branch to branch, counting off on her fingers as she cycle through names in her head. "Okay, okay… what about, like… Satsuki?"
"She's scary."
"But you wouldn't be able to touch her, I bet." Temari grinned. "She'd kick the shit out of you."
"No she wouldn't. I… I'd bang her."
"Wow," she said, rolling her eyes. "So manly. She'd cut your balls off."
"I know," he hissed. "This is theoretical, right? Because I don't even want to talk to her. She scares me. And I don't understand the Sharingan, either-"
Gaara's voice made them snap to attention.
"Temari," he said, pointing. "What trees are these?"
"There's," Temari coughed, trying to cover a stutter. "Theres's, uh, there's probably a few… the bigger and taller ones are probably oaks, or… they might not be real trees at all. They could be made by the First Hokage, even. He had a control of plants."
Gaara didn't respond. It felt like the wrong answer, so she gulped and kept on moving from branch to branch. Almost there.
"So, Gaara," said Kankurou, sounding as if he was making awkward conversation with his own reflection, "Why was it you, uh, wanted to come out here?"
Gaara gave Kankurou a look over his shoulder that made him wish he was dead, but didn't say anything.
"Not that we didn't want to," interjected Temari quickly. "But we wouldn't have expected you to be, um, interested. If you know what I mean."
Gaara was quiet for a minute. Sand hung around his shoulders, hissing.
"I need to speak to Uchiha Satsuki," he said. "And Uzumaki Naruto. If he's still there."
Temari had her doubts she'd find the Uzumaki kid, and if she did, she was not massively interested in tangling with the Cursed Seal herself. But Gaara seemed resolute, so she nodded, and they journeyed on.
Steam and chakra seethed from the scorpion, oozing from every gap in its form. The pedipalps clicked as large scorpion legs buried themselves in the ground one by one, inching closer to Satsuki.
'Fuck. I don't even know if I can cut through that shell.' She backed off, lowering herself a little more. 'I'm going to have to shape it.'
She backed off, grinding her feet into the ground. The scorpion didn't steady its slow walk, still approaching.
Satsuki ran her hand along the surface of her frontmost fan, dipping her fingers into hot chakra as she ran her fingers over its edge, focusing chakra to her fingers as sharp as she could.
The scorpion picked up its pace, but only slightly, proceeding as though curious. Satsuki kept her focus on the fan, grinding her feet into the ground and stepping back with care.
She could see the shape forming, just barely. She needed more.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Satsuki didn't respond, still swiping along the surface of her fan. Almost there.
"I WANT TO SEE."
The scorpion drew closer in an instant, and Satsuki careened back. It was almost-
Naruto reached out, arms scrabbling to reach her with a dazed expression. The legs gained on her almost instantly and she fell flat on the ground below him. The fan hummed.
"C'MON," he whispered, his voice resonating as though she could hear his voice from hundreds of clones across the valley. Pedipalps hung above her head. "I WANT TO SEE, SATSUKI."
Satsuki spat in his face, and Naruto blinked, her saliva dripping off his eyelashes.
"Third stance."
Before he could say another word, Satsuki drew back her fan, and with a pulse of chakra, flicked it forward.
"Suzakugami."
A lick of sharp hot fire blew through three legs like a butchers knife.
The scorpion scuttled for a moment, before collapsing, stumps landing on the fresh wounds. The chakra hissed, tissue bubbling, and Satsuki rolled from beneath him, Naruto grabbing onto her clothes in a strange desperate clasp.
"Get off me," she snarled, slamming a foot into his face. His jaw cracked to the side, and she rolled back, fumbling through her bag with one hand as she kept her eyes firmly on him.
She felt soft little smoke bombs. Conductive wire. Plenty of shuriken, plenty of kunai. Tags. Think. How to disarm a demonic, hyper regenerating beast? Satsuki had no idea whether there would be an end to the chakra. The Nine Tailed Fox was a supposedly infinite being. Orochimaru, perhaps less so, but Satsuki could say nothing for the forbidden techniques he used.
'I've got to try and trap him,' she thought, 'or really hit him where it hurts. Maybe I can slow down the regeneration if I dismember him, or…'
Maybe dismembering would work, Satsuki thought grimly, but the thought made her stomach feel like stone. Something else had to work. She didn't want to bank on being able to cut Naruto up, only to find a brand-new limit to the Nine Tails' chakra.
The scorpion was fumbling, trying to balance on one leg on the right. It was limping across the rock, the other legs scrabbling, struggling, bubbling with chakra and raw tissue. Naruto gritted his teeth, trying to look at the missing limbs.
"If you're surprised at how long it's taking to regenerate," Satsuki hissed, "I've got great news."
He stared at her, still no pupils, face still half-torn apart from the mandibles.
"My mother died before she could teach the third stance of the Gliding Edge. So I created it myself. I had to strip my fans and replace the metal to make this work.
"This," Satsuki flourished a fan, setting it alight with a snap, "is my Suzakugami. I've infused my fire with shape manipulation to send out a wave of sharp, burning chakra.
"I can cut you and cauterise you at the same time," she murmured, the flames making the shadows on her face dance. "Your chakra network becomes confused. Neither chakra nor blood can get to the wound. You won't die, but you won't regenerate.
"I'm sure you can tell, Naruto," she whispered, unclipping the other fan from her belt, "but I developed this technique specifically to deal with you."
Passing birds cast a brief shadow overhead.
"For a day just like this."
Satsuki lunged forward, throwing herself off her back foot, her fans coming down like a guillotine. Naruto scurried backward with a limp, and her fan only caught the end of one of his mouth-pincers. A chunk dropped to the ground.
"SATSUKI. PLEASE."
Satsuki dropped down. His legs were coming through, malformed and unprotected. She cursed.
'Those are going to come in quick. Got to do something before then.'
As Satsuki lowered herself to try and see the tendons tying Naruto into the shell, the pedipalps lunged for her, snapping off a lock of her hair: above it, far more threatening, loomed the stinger.
A thought she'd been pushing off struck her. 'He doesn't want to use it. That's probably the most lethal thing here.'
Satsuki didn't want to entertain the thought of Naruto holding back on her.
She veered backwards, away from the sharp pedipalps and the looming, glistening stinger. She had no idea the type of venom that thing would boast, but she had no intention of finding out.
'Think. Think.'
"PLEASE, SATSUKI. JUST GO HOME."
Fumbling in her bag, Satsuki clasped a smoke bomb, and hoped.
The area was filled with smoke and dust for a moment, and as Naruto's form searched for her, she made a hand sign.
'Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.'
Her other self appeared, quickly transforming into a small pebble.
Satsuki felt an indescribable pull on her chakra: if this didn't work, she'd die right here. She had no idea how Naruto produced the hundreds he did. For her, there was no chance of another one.
She looped two kunai through one string of wire, tying them carefully at either end of the wire, and then grabbed her fans again.
Satsuki positioned her feet carefully, brushing the ground to check for obstacles, before she focused chakra to her feet and span. Smoke pushed outwards, blinding Naruto for a moment, and Satsuki stopped, focusing chakra to her knees and jumping upwards.
Her clone, out of Naruto's sight now, began to move.
The scorpion kept its eyes on her, scuttling to the side when she landed. Satsuki's knees ached with the force, but she was steady. She'd expected to miss.
Satsuki lunged forward again, flaming fans just as keen to cut, and the plan went into action.
Her clone cut through the tail of the scorpion with a fan. It took two hacks: the tail stung her clone after the second one, and it disappeared. The dismembered tail still hissed frantically on the ground behind Naruto as the creature turned to see how it'd been injured.
Seeing opportunity and her ready-made trap, Satsuki threw one of her wire-tired kunai beneath the scorpion, skimming under Naruto and landing in the stony ground beside him. The trail of wire it left tied neatly to the matching kunai in her hand.
He didn't have the time to react when she threw the second kunai over the top of him with a chakra-enforced swing. The kunai plowed into the ground, the wire strung between the two throwing him onto his back and pinning him to the ground. The fit was so tight that the wire cut the scorpion shell.
The scorpion writhed, the knives buckling a little.
Breathing heavily, Satsuki walked over to where the creature was pinned to the ground, and slammed her foot down on either kunai, pushing them further into the rock. The wire became tighter then, and seemed to have made its way to Naruto's skin; as he screamed, she made a few handsigns and sent a spurt of an uncharged chidori down the metal.
Naruto went quiet, still twitching a little, but a lot easier to handle.
As his human arms began to struggle, Satsuki grabbed his left arm, pinning it above his head.
He shrieked as she stabbed a kunai right through it to the rock. The right hand seemed to hurt even worse. Maybe she'd hit something.
Naruto's scorpion legs were scrabbling at the air, desperate to grab her but just inches away. Satsuki eyed the stumps, which were now forming a set of joints. She drew back, focusing the last dredges of her chakra - her Sharingan faded - to the edges of her fan.
"I don't want to do this," she said.
"THEN DON'T," he begged. "PLEASE, SATSUKI, I-"
Somehow, that annoyed her more. Satsuki cut off the left pedipalps.
Naruto seemed dumb with pain, choking on his own cries as she threw away the limb.
The right one came off easier. It was as if he'd gone into shock each time, but with each new blow, he struggled beneath the wire anew. She didn't have enough chakra to deliver another chidori shock: if he started gathering chakra again, she'd be, to put it lightly, fucked.
The pedipalps had been the most formidable. The first leg came off quite nicely, but Naruto's legs were roped in with muscle to the bottom two, along with his torso on the underside of the shell. She'd have to cut him out.
Second, and third leg met with little resistance. Fourth leg, Satsuki could feel herself getting slightly dizzier. She could do it. Had to do it. She threw the severed limb into the river. Naruto seemed to be shuddering with the shock.
"I'm going to cut you out," she said, holding her fan near his face for effect. It hummed near his skin like a broken electrical fuse. "Stay still."
Satsuki reached down, holding every ounce of her energy to the edge of the fan as she began to - as gently as she could - hack the tendons away. She hit Naruto's skin. A lot.
After three tendons work, Naruto's torso was largely free, but his legs were still tied into the final scorpion limbs. Satsuki reached down.
There were more tendons than she'd hoped. Her fan was unlikely to be active for much longer. Even if it was, she though, there was no way she'd be conscious, and if she used kunai, the task would take twice as long. His limbs might already have grown back.
'But,' she thought, her fan humming at the edge of his skin, 'if I could just cut off the calves…'
She hesitated.
"Satsuki."
"Shut up, usuratonkachi! I'm thinking!"
She felt a stab of pain in her foot.
"I'm sorry," he said.
She looked down. The rest of the legs hadn't grown back at all, still oozing stumps.
Then she realised. The scorpion stinger glistened, a little droplet of her blood on its end.
He'd focused the regeneration.
Satsuki felt ice cold venom crawl up her leg like a saline shot, and she toppled with the pain, hitting the ground beside him with a hiss.
Naruto pried one hand free, pulling the kunai out of his hand with his teeth, clumsy slippery fingers pulling the kunai out of the second one. He flung them across the valley. His palms were healing, albeit sluggishly.
"I don't know what's in the venom," he whispered. The mandibles had retracted, leaving holes that were slowly stitching themselves back together. "I don't know- Satsuki, I wouldn't've- I've already gone so far, haven't I?"
As he wrenched the chakra conductive wire off of him out and out of the ground, the scorpion shell started to detach from him like a snake's skin.
"Not far enough," she hissed breathlessly. She couldn't move her leg. "Kill me. I hate you. If you really believe- until you do it, I won't- I won't believe you-!"
"That'd defeat the point, right?" he said. "You can't believe anything when you're dead anyway."
"I hate you." The venom was paralysing her. It made her feel as though she was slowly turning to ice. "Fuck, Naruto, I hate you!"
"Sakura's coming. She'll help you," he said, dripping with blood as he crawled out of the shell. Sure enough, Satsuki could see Sakura, limping, stumbling across the valley. "Someone else is coming too. Satsuki, I…"
The paralysis was overwhelming her, slowly. With every last word she had, she was honest with him.
"I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I'll kill you. God, I'm going to fucking kill you!"
As honest with him as she could bear to be.
"You can't leave Sakura," she whispered. Her voice was becoming scarce from the venom. "You can't leave Konoha. Naruto, don't leave-"
'Don't leave me.'
Her voice wasn't coming anymore. So cold.
"Satsuki."
Naruto crawled to her. How she wished she could throttle him. She couldn't move. Couldn't even blink.
"I'm sorry for doing this," he said.
The sun was blinding now. It must've been directly overhead, Satsuki thought, but it was barely a warm touch on her skin.
"The Sound Four came to me," he said. "They asked me to take you with me, as an offering to Orochimaru. I'm gonna… I dunno, say something else happened. Guess I'll say Sakura-chan stopped me.
"I don't know how I feel about Konoha. I don't want to be forced to stay around people that think I'm a burden, y'know? But this- this wasn't all for nothing. Sakura-chan, you… even Kakashi-sensei, who lied to me all that time… Team 7 was the best thing I'd ever had. The only thing I'd ever had.
"But I have to avenge everyone," he said. "I have to avenge Hinata. Hokage-ojii-chan. Mizuki-sensei." His voice jilted. "I've got to avenge them. I didn't want it to go this far. I didn't think you and Sakura-chan-"
Naruto stopped. Satsuki could hear him try and gather breath.
"I didn't think you cared this much."
The water was rushing by. For a moment, there was silence as Naruto seemed to be deliberating with himself.
"But I have to do it," he said. "I have to kill Orochimaru."
Satsuki couldn't feel the sunlight anymore.
"We'll meet again," he said, certain. "And when we do, I'll've killed that bastard Orochimaru with my own two hands. Mizuki-sensei, Hinata, and Hokage-ojii-chan- I'll have avenged them all. They'll be at peace. I'll be myself again. And I'll give you this necklace back.
"When we do," said Naruto, "you can decide whether to kill me."
He stood up, legs shaky and newly reformed. She saw the necklace she'd sewn for him glisten on his torso, the good luck charm catching the light. His knee buckled for a moment.
"You screwed me up really fucking hard," he said, laughing, wincing, his voice cracking. "You bastard."
She couldn't see his face, but she heard his tears fall.
Satsuki felt herself cry. She couldn't even blink the tears away.
A/N: 2 TO THE 1 TO THE 1 TO THE 3
I LIKE defecting AND I LIKE kyuubi
SMOKE SO MUCH cursed chakra YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE
AND I GET MORE revenge THAN SA-TSU-KI
