Chapter 38: Bloodsoaked Symphony - Canon

Naruto carefully watched the former Konoha shinobi. He knew he was running a risk with this strategy, but it was something Kakashi had suggested himself, using Sasuke's own personality flaws against him. Naruto knew better than most anyone how much his teammate obsessed over that power; the power of the Uchiha eye. Striking at the heart of his self-image and ego was a sure way to throw him off, Kakashi had informed him in his most self-confident tones.

Thus Naruto was surprised when the Uchiha's shoulders began to shake. For a half-second he thought that the boy might have broken down into tears. It wasn't exactly how Naruto had expected their fight to end, and it wasn't exactly fitting with his image of Sasuke. Thus he wasn't surprised when the shaking shoulders turned out to be the first sign of a body-wracking laugh. His head thrown back, eyes closed, the laugh was full-bodied, and something that Sakura might have killed to hear, even now.

The only thing that kept him from being certain of her willingness to kill, was that the laugh was colder than any ice that Haku had created, on that bridge so long ago. It was the laugh of a man who wasn't entirely on this side of sanity anymore. It trailed off, as Sasuke brought his eyes down to face the blond Jinchuuriki. "You thought I'd buy that? Kakashi's Mangekyou indeed. He wouldn't have the balls. Killing his own dog would be too hard for him. Killing his best friend, he's not got it."

"You sure he would have to kill his friend?"

"Of course dobe."

"He is an experienced shinobi. He could have probably done it if he had to."

"You didn't kill me; I didn't kill you."

"We weren't experienced shinobi."

Sasuke bobbed his head a little to that, his eyes half-closing. His hand migrated from his hip to his sword-hilt, slowly drawing the blade. "How about now? Are we experienced enough to kill each other now?"

Naruto frowned, as he began molding his chakra. "We done talking? I'm bored."

"Hn." Sasuke launched himself at the blond, sword flashing out for the Konoha ninja's neck. Leaning back, Naruto let the blade flash over his chest, as his leg chambered in, and kicked out at Sasuke's stomach. The black-haired teen struggled to draw a breath, as Naruto's toe continued to dig into his solar plexus, using its momentum to launch the Snake Apprentice up. Swinging the leg back, a pendulum going from one end of the clock to the other, push-off with the grounded leg, let momentum pull the body into a full-flip. Spinning heal drop into Sasuke's back.

The Uchiha bounced off the ground a little as Naruto landed, quickly shifting to grab the Uchiha by the ankles. Sasuke was definitely broader across the shoulder than the blond jinchuuriki, and he had always been better built for raw displays of muscle. Naruto, however, had acquired a fine understanding of leverage, momentum and centrifugal force while learning the Kitsune's fighting style. Beginning in a low crouch, begin to spin. As momentum begins to lift opponent off the ground, follow the movement, keeping your shoulders and ribs above opponent's body whenever possible. Lean away a bit as the momentum begins to build, allowing your opponent's spinning force and weight to maintain balance. Make sure that the feet stay as close to the center of the spin as possible, and the hips stay centered below your own center of gravity. As your opponent begins to reach shoulder height, pick a target, figure the angle, and release.

Sasuke saw the large bolder he was approaching long before he actually made impact. Unfortunately, when traveling at the speed he was, and with the inertia that he had to work against, he wasn't going to be doing much to prevent the impact. Still, he tried to curl himself up, protecting head and neck from the bolder. He succeeded, but the poor bolder, having left its shinobi guards, did not fare as well.

Sasuke groaned as he staggered to his feet. Okay, the dobe must have really hurt him more than he thought, if he was thinking in puns that were THAT bad.

1

Jiraiya staggered out of the crater that Orochimaru had just thrown him into. Although the crater was one of Tsunade's creation, from early in their bout, it still hurt to have been thrown head-first into that much rock. Looking up, he saw Tsunade holding the Snake bastard's attention, and nodded. Reaching down, he grasped a handful of rock dust, and began flow through a series of hand-seals. "Kuchiyose: Iwaryu" Jiraiya threw the dust in his hand off to the side, and watched with a little bit of amusement as the rock underneath began to shift and grunt, before rising up, the long, serpentian form of a dragon slither slashing its way across the ground, intent on its master's foe.

Tsunade heard it coming, and lunged out of the way just before it attacked, its body disintegrating into virtual storm of rock spikes and spears. Orochimaru had almost no time to react.

Unfortunately, for a Sannin, almost no time is approximately the same as a hundred years for the rest of us. In the end, one of the pieces of rock had pierced straight through the meat of his right thigh. He winced slightly as he took his weight off the leg.

"Oooh. That must have hurt, Orochi. Come here, let me fix it for you." Tsunade's cooing voice was laced with all the free arsenic in the world, as she lunged again. Orochimaru snorted softly, before he returned to weaving through the blows that she was raining down on him.

2

"Any last words?" Kakashi asked, his eyes locked firmly on Kabuto's injured arms, where his summoned pack held him tightly. His hands flew through the seals for Chidori, summoning the focused electrical cloud to his hand, as he took careful aim. This bastard had gotten away once before today, and cheated death twice before now in this one fight. He wasn't going to get a third attempt.

"Yes, actually. What are you waiting for you buffoons?" Kabuto demanded. Kakashi sighed, somehow certain he wasn't going to like where this was headed. Turning his head slightly, he sighed again. Two squads less one of Cursed Seal troopers, that missing trooper replaced by a Cursed Seal Two elite. A full two squads of Sound's suicide berserker troops.

He hated being right.

3

Naruto watched as Sasuke staggered to his feet, the recently graveled pieces of bolder falling off of his white yukata top. Looking off to the side for a moment, he nodded to himself. His shadow clones had done well in burying the blade. Wind chakra plus another bolder, the results were a half-ton of hiding place that even Sasuke couldn't move immediately.

Naruto gasped in a breath, as he felt Sasuke's hand buried into his stomach. Spinning, the Uchiha drove an elbow in between Naruto's shoulder blades, bringing his knee into the blond's chest before he could fall more than a couple inches. As he brought his foot down, Sasuke's hands grabbed onto the back of Naruto's vest, and pivoting from one leg to the other, he heaved Naruto up over his shoulder, flipping the blond through the air.

It is a little known fact that there are only a few throws in the world that cannot be recovered from, simply because by changing the placement of a finger or two during the actual throw, the angles and momentum are changed completely. Almost every shinobi in the world knows these throws, and Naruto was forced to remember why as he landed hard on his shoulder, gasping for breath as the ball of his humorous popped out of the socket. Closing his eyes for a moment, he poked at the joint, painfully determining the angle it had left the socket.

Sasuke wasn't in the mood to let him pop it back in, apparently. The prodigy appeared above him with the same almost impossible speed he had used to land the first hit in his earlier attack, drawing his leg up. Axing down, he brought the foot down into the back of Naruto's ribcage, intent on cracking a couple ribs if nothing else.

He watched in amazement as the blond in front of him disappeared in a puff of smoke. When had he made the clone, and when had he used Kawarimi? Spinning, he let his eyes scan over the area, searching for his former teammate.

He heard the movement too late to do more than turn to look at the crystal blue eyes, as Naruto's leg slashed out, catching him across the temple. The Uchiha was sent into a mid-air cartwheel from the momentum. Refusing to let a little thing like landing slow the pace, throw back a leg, catching the opponent in the torso with the heel of the foot. Sasuke coughed as the heel smashed into his sternum, sending his upside-down body flying a few feet from the blond. Hitting the ground on his shoulders, he rolled to his feet, letting his hand move up to his chest as the pain began to throb. "Nice trick dobe. Hiding behind others as usual, and this time under your own clone too. Didn't know you knew Dochou Eigyou."

"Didn't know you knew Shunshin." Naruto said, as two clones popped his shoulder back into place, before dispelling themselves.

"Oh, bright enough to figure it out on you own for once?"

"Well, there were only two possibilities, and I know you couldn't have picked up Hiraishin with that eye of yours. Not even Ero-sennin knows that jutsu."

Sasuke sneered, throwing himself into the Shunshin jutsu again. His hand flew at Naruto's stomach as he slowed into normal speed.

A quick spin and twist, the fist grazed by the blond, as he slammed his arm into the side of Sasuke's neck. Quick sweep, swing the leg up and into a back kick before he can fall too far. Sasuke bounced away again, holding his gut. Since when had that asshole gotten so good at Taijutsu? Did he really use the Sharingan that much?

Ignoring the voice in the back of his head that was screaming 'yes' he watched as Naruto put the leg back on the ground. Eyes widening, a smile splitting his face, Sasuke saw the slight twinge of muscles protesting.

4

Tsuande grunted in pain as a pair of fangs sunk deep into her shoulder, another matching pair finding their way into her thigh. Reaching for the points of contact, she grasped the pair of snakes that had lunged from the ground beneath her, and squeezed, crushing their heads and sending their bodies from the mortal world.

Seeing this, Jiraiya turned himself to the task of drawing Orochimaru's attention. Raising a hand, he gave a simple snap of the fingers.

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed slightly. What was that fool doing? He felt his leg twitch, and looked down, eyes narrowed in anger. The wound that had been created by Jiraiya's Iwaryu was apparently more than met the eye. After pulling the rock from his leg, Orochimaru had thought nothing of the rock dust that was left around the wound, believing it to be benign. Such was apparently not the case, as the rocks below them were crumbling into dust, flowing up to join the dust that had been left on his leg. Orochimaru watched with a certain clinical fascination as the dust grew into another, smaller version of the Iwaryu from earlier, which proceeded to drive itself into the wound on his thigh. Hissing in pain. Orochimaru quickly grasped the thing's lower body, pulled it off of himself, and twisted, breaking it in half.

The two forms of dust crumbled to the ground. Looking up at Jiraiya, Orochimaru was surprised to see the white-haired idiot smirking that smug grin of his. Sensing the build-up of chakra, Orochimaru lunged up and out of the way, as two Iwaryu lunged from the ground, full-sized and hungry for his blood. Looking at the pair of dragons, Orochimaru shook his head in frustration. He should have known better than to think it would be so easy. Jiraiya's summoning technique was beyond compare by anyone, except maybe Orochimaru's own. To destroy a creature he had summoned to this battle so easily would almost impossible. Lunging back again as the pair of Iwaryu rushed forward, Orochimaru flew through a set of handseals in mid-air. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he made his move. "Raiton: Kanden Sekijun"

The Iwaryu let out a slight scream of pain as bolts of lightning lunged from below them, shattering their bodies on their course to the patches of ionization in the atmosphere. Jiraiya frowned as he finished the seals he had been flashing through, and threw a bloodsoaked kunai in the direction of his former teammate. Dropping to the ground, he slammed his palms to the ground. "Doton: Yomi Kagaisha"

Orochimaru didn't wait for the chakra build-up to finish. He remembered this one, and he had to get out of the way now. He had barely managed to put 30 feet between himself and the kunai before the ground below it exploded in a torrent of flames, revealing the Yomi Kagaisha. 8 feet of sinew and bleach-bone armor, a pair of crescent-ended swords strapped to the ends of its arms, and the scent of decay surrounding it. Its feet were wide, designed to spread the weight of its body over a larger area to avoid sinking. Turning to his former teammate, he bit back a curse as he saw Jiraiya drive his hands into the ground again. "Doton: Yomi Numa"

Orochimaru lunged straight up as the swamp spread out underneath where he had been standing. A quick search showed him very little option on avoiding landing on the swamp, his only choice was to find a way to avoid sinking.

Flashing through handseals, Orochimaru summoned a pair of massive snakes. The pair of serpentian reptiles could do little more than squirm as their summoner let them fall into the swamp, their heads barely high enough to avoid suffocation. Landing, Orochimaru scowled as he felt the swamp sucking his feet in, stripping him of much of his precious advantage of speed. Looking up, he saw the Yomi Kagaisha closing in, far faster than he would have believed possible for something with its ramshackle body.

5

Naruto kept his eyes locked on his former teammate's torso, watchful for the sudden movements or tensing of muscles that would telegraph a strike. In the periphery of his vision, he could see the Uchiha's facial expression. Whether it was because of that trick Kakashi had recommended to him, or because of stress, or whatever, Naruto didn't know.

Whatever the cause, Sasuke's eyes and the mad grin told all. He was, at this moment, further gone than Mizuki had been years ago, further gone than he had been at the Valley of the End. Madness had sunk its claws deep. And Sasuke had just collapsed his leg with a swift kick to the protesting left hip joint.

Naruto's eyes widened as he fell to the side. An almost impossibly fast right-cross sent Naruto flying. Quickly bracing his hands against the dirt, he popped himself back to a standing position. Sasuke propelled himself at Naruto again, kick headed directly for the blond's chest.

A quick gathering of chakra, let the kick slam into Naruto's chakra-reinforced chest. A quick step forward and around, forming his hand into the approximation of a claw, Naruto drove them directly into Sasuke's face. The Uchiha brought hand up, grappling with the blond, even as he used the leverage of Naruto's hand to spin around the blond, directing a knee deep into Naruto's back.

Naruto moved with the momentum of the strike, flipping over Sasuke's suspended leg. Letting the flip do the work, Naruto flung Sasuke face-first into the ground. Bringing his leg up, he prepared to drive the heel down into the back of Sasuke's shoulder, aiming to dislocate the joint with one smooth strike. Sasuke wrenched his arm free, rolling out the way of the kick, and popping back to his feet.

"You! How can you see me in Shunshin?" Sasuke demanded, regaining his feet.

"Same way that any experienced shinobi sees in Shunshin. I've gotten used to seeing at the speed."

"I'm an Uchiha! The Sharingan…"

"Slows down the speed of things in Shunshin, letting you move faster and more accurately than anyone else in Shunshin. Kakashi told me all about Shisui no Shunshin, thank you."

Sasuke quieted at that, searching the Dobe's face for the lies he knew were there. So he knew how Shunshin worked, big woopie – not like it was that big of a secret anyways. That didn't explain how he could see Sasuke's movement.

'A month with Gai-sensei to fight Sharingan users.'

A mini-Gai, dropping hundreds of pounds that had been strapped to his legs for who knew how long. A mini-Gai that was then moving at speeds almost identical to those of Shunshin, but entirely capable of controlling and maneuvering at the speeds without assistance from bloodlimits.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed in rage. "So you can see me, now?"

"If I could see you, I would have dodged that kick. No, I've just learned how to react to people moving quickly. Sakura throws harder punches than you do, and she's never actually knocked me out."

At that particular moment, Sasuke could feel his sight turning red. SAKURA threw harder punches? That's it, the dobe was dead. Flipping through a couple seals, Sasuke extended his hands. "Senei'jashu!" The snakes flew through the air for a moment, before being intercepted.

Sasuke growled. Had the dobe broken the terms of their agreement? Glancing across, he saw the look of absolute shock on his face, before shaking his head. That kind of surprise cannot be falsified.

The ink-black dragons that had struck Sasuke's snakes mid-flight disintegrated into small streams of ink. Following the streams of ink led back to the past the edge of the plateau. There, crouching on a small pillar of rock, barely two feet across, was Sai, his hands flashing through the motions of creating another set of animals.

Without looking up, he addressed the two Konoha shinobi. "Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, low-A-ranked Nukenin; by the order of the Rokudaime Hokage Danzou, you are both to be executed."

6

Canon – two or more parts that have the same melody but start at different points

Shunshin – Body Flicker – Not to be confused with the Yondaime's famed Hiraishin (Flying Thunder God, his little seal-bound kunai trick.), this technique is commonly used by shinobi throughout the series, often with smoke, leaves, sand, mist or other elements swirling around the user to serve as a 'blocker', a visual distraction and barrier between the user and other shinobi. This jutsu allows the user to move at incredibly high speeds, appearing at locations within moments. Usually used for line-of-sight transfer or to and from locations that are well-known to the user (such as when ANBU or Jounin use Shunshin to maneuver around the village.) The speeds that are traveled at are nigh-impossible to actually fight at, as the user's reaction speed is not fast enough to respond the constantly shifting situation of actual combat. Normally, when used in combat, Shunshin is used against a far inferior opponent to rapidly defeat them, to catch up to an opponent on the ropes, or an opponent who is has been seriously demoralized. The Uchiha's Sharingan allows for the user to slow the world around them to the point where they can move through a battlefield at the speeds of a Shunshin and be able to react. The speed, however, is still enough to cause serious damage to the user if a strike is delivered at Shunshin speeds, forcing even Uchiha's to slow to normal speeds just before a bare-handed attack is delivered. (Note that this does not hold true for attacks with weapons, such as swords, the sword will be able to absorb the damage (being designed for impacts at high speeds with considerable force) where the human body cannot..)

Doton: Iwaryu – Earth Release: Rock Dragon – Summons a semi-sentient creature that constructs a body of rock or rock dust. Its rock body can be 'destroyed' in a shower of sharp rocks. If one of these rocks pierces an opponent, then it will spawn rock dust that will allow it to be awoken at a later point in the battle. This rock-dust version of the Iwaryu may be easily destroyed by breaking apart the body, but its destruction will result in the immediate birth of as many full-sized Iwaryu as the dust forms were broken into.

Raiton: Kanden Sekijun – Lightning Release: Shocking Stalagmite – the atmosphere above a target is ionized to the point where the earth underneath will literally spew forth lightning to balance out the ionization. This would be fine if it weren't for the fact that the bolt is formed into a piercing spear from below, running opponents through and causing massive injury to anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way.

Doton: Yomi Kagaisha – Earth Release: Underworld Assailant – a native to the Swamps of the Underworld, this creature is a mass of walking armor and muscle, designed to kill and rend those who wander through the swamps they patrol. Although slow in normal terrain, in the swamps, where others are sucked down by the muck and water, they can wander across the surface with ease.

Doton: Yomi Numa – Swamp of the Underworld – summons a section of the Swamp of the Underworld, sucks down and slowly crushes victims. Powerful but difficult to produce without large amounts of chakra, outstanding control, or a combination of the above.

Senei'jashu – Hidden snake Hands – projects snakes from users sleeves