AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.
Inner Sakura felt like her entire body was on fire. She had taken the energy that had invaded their body into herself, believing it would keep Orochimaru from poisoning them, or whatever his goal had been. Unfortunately, she had miscalculated. Alongside the strange, nearly chakra-like energy, there had been more, actual chakra, more specifically, Orochimaru's chakra. He had completely bypassed their defenses and entered into their mindscape. Nearly defenseless, trying to contain the energy she had absorbed, Inner Sakura had used the odd, newfound strength she had gained from the energy to pull Sakura into their mindscape to combat Orochimaru.
The energy might be burning her, but that was merely because of its intensity. She could still use it to help Sakura, to keep her in their mindscape as long as possible, and keep Orochimaru's chakra from feeding off of it like she was currently doing. She couldn't help but feel a small glimmer of victory in that moment. She might have made herself nearly useless with such a stunt, but it meant that Orochimaru's chakra was cut off from its intended energy supply. She might not know how it worked exactly, but she knew that both the chakra and energy had been meant to be used together, and if Orochimaru couldn't use it, then she would learn to do so in his place, and she would then turn it against him. Smirking through the pain, Inner Sakura continued to observe her outer self battle the Orochimaru chakra.
Sakura could barely believe it. She was holding her own against Orochimaru! Well, almost. She was under no illusion that this was the real Orochimaru. He was way weaker, and for whatever reason, he was only using a limited amount of Jutsu against her, relying mostly on taijutsu to try and defeat her. His speed had suffered tremendously, and Sakura used his weaknesses to her advantage. Still, even weakened, Orochimaru was still a challenge for her. He had demonstrated that he had plenty of battle experience, and his taijutsu was on a level well beyond her own. For every few hits she managed to strike, he managed to cut and bruise her several times more. She had been forced to retreat, fight him from a distance and use ninjutsu in an attempt to trip him up and give her an opening. It helped that they were in her mind and she could literally summon kunai and shuriken from thin air, not having to worry about running out. She had also caught on to having to make them disappear whenever they missed Orochimaru, as he would otherwise pick them up and use them against her. For some reason, once he picked them up, she could no longer make them disappear.
It was a hard fight, but the adrenaline, the stakes and the fact that she was actually able to deal actual damage to Orochimaru kept her going. If she could win, it would likely mean her survival, while losing, would likely mean her death. An all stakes battle. For some reason, it only seemed to give her strength, rather than frighten her like she had expected. It was an odd feeling, but she suspected it might have to do with her newfound confidence and the fact that the battle was taking place inside of her mind, rather than in the real world.
Sakura had found the value in every Jutsu she knew. Fighting to the death forced her to use every little trick she knew and more. She was reaching for new uses of Jutsu she had never thought of, and combining them in ways she never had before. Experimenting on the fly in combat was risky, but at the pace the battle was going, she had no choice, and so far, it had paid off. Certainly, her successes were far and few in-between, and when she did succeed in blindsiding Orochimary, it was a one time trick. A substitution combined with a bunch of shuriken had Orochimaru punch the pointy projectiles with enough force for them to nearly cut off the fingers on his right hand. A transformation Jutsu combined with a clone had let her sneak through Orochimaru's guard as she pretended to be a thrown shuriken that he dodged, only for her to transform back and stab an actual one into his back.
In contrast to those successes, her failures instead resulted in blows to her pride, or something like an actual one she had taken to her stomach. She was glad that Orochimaru hadn't had a kunai in hand at that moment, as unlike him, she didn't think she could continue fighting with her guts spilling out. Speaking of guts, Sakura was trying really hard to ignore the disturbing sight of Orochimaru's spilling guts turning into snakes that stretched out and tried to bite her. She didn't have to assume that her last slash across his abdomen had caused him to grow desperate enough to begin using ninjutsu with less caution, which was making the fight a lot harder.
Blocking another snake with her kunai, she jumped away farther from him, hoping the added distance would give her even more time to react to future snakes. Unfortunately, as she cast her gaze towards where Orochimaru stood, she had to correct herself. Alarmed, she began looking around, as the end of the snake seemed to be coming out of the ground, rather than Orochimaru's bloody guts. In the moment she had been distracted by his snake, he had taken the opportunity to disappear. Cursing herself for becoming so careless, Sakura tried to anticipate his next attack, only to hear a startled cry from Inner.
Cursing, Sakura turned towards Inner, seeing Orochimaru standing over her, one foot pressing down on her head with a sadistic grin. However, he wasn't looking at Inner, but at Sakura. A moment later, Sakura knew why, as she felt his snake coil around her and bite into her left arm, having taken advantage of her being distracted.
"Oh, how cute. You look out for each other, yet it will be what ends up being the death of both of you." Orochimaru said with disgusting glee, as he put more pressure on Inner's head, making her scream out in pain.
"Leave her alone!" Sakura shouted, struggling, only to wince as the snake bit down harder on her arm, the feeling of it injecting something into her arm making her skin crawl and her arm go numb.
"Oh, I would, if only she hadn't interfered, to begin with. Now I am nearly out of chakra, and I will have to substitute it with something else. While not ideal, I suppose I could take over her body then, hmm?" Orochimaru said, looking down at Inner, while Sakura paled. Could he even do that?
However, any further contemplation was interrupted as Inner Sakura began chuckling. "You think you have us on the ropes? We still have a few aces up our sleeves." She told him, before meeting Sakura's gaze with a smirk. "Let's switch for a moment." She casually suggested, and Sakura felt something change. Blinking in surprise, she realized that Inner Sakura was suddenly the one in full color. Looking down at her own body, she saw that she was now the one in black and white.
An angry shout from Inner, as well as a pained ghast from Orochimaru, had her looking up again where Inner sakura was now grasping Orochimaru by the throat. "Goodbye." She simply said, her face lighting up in a terrifying, delighted sick smile as she crushed Orochimaru's throat with all the strength she had. The sickening crunch, followed by a geyser of blood would have been incredibly scarring for Sakura to see, if it didn't immediately turn into a cloud of smoke, together with the snake holding her.
For a moment, Sakura feared it had been a substitution, or a clone from the very beginning and looked around in panic, but as no attack or hidden original came into view, she began calming down slightly. Remembering her Inner self, she ran over to where she stood, panting heavily, continuously clenching and unclenching the hand she had used to crush Orochimaru's throat.
"I-is it over?" Sakura asked, only to receive a small nod from Inner as she turned to look at her. She looked horrible, they both did. For a moment, they both stood still, neither saying anything as they took in the sight of each other. However, after a few moments, the silence broke as they both began laughing and embraced each other, relief and elation gripping them both as the fight was finally over.
"We did it, we showed that ass how strong we are!" Inner said in triumph, tears streaking down the sides of her face. They had been so close to losing, but they had managed.
"Y-yeah, you were awesome," Sakura told her, which made Inner laugh even more.
"Me? What about you? You were the one fighting almost throughout the entire fight!" She told her, letting go of the hug and grabbing Sakura by the shoulders to look her in the face, smiling at her like a proud parent, only to blink in surprise as she realized Sakura was now the black and white one. "Oh, right, I should probably give it back." She told her sheepishly, as once more, their colors reversed to normal.
"W-what was that?" Sakura asked, wondering what the color representation had meant.
"Ah, I suppose I sh-" Inner began, only to suddenly double over in pain again and swear. "Dammit, I forgot about that." She said, looking up at her concerned counterpart. "Don't worry, I'm fine, we just need to decide what we're doing next. I'm currently keeping all the energy Orochimaru injected us with to feed his chakra contained, but it's so much that I feel like it's burning me up inside. Now, with him gone, I can let go of it, and we'll be able to use it ourselves." Inner explained, before grimacing.
"R-really? That's possible?" Sakura questioned, astounded.
"Yes, as far as I can tell. This energy is somewhat similar to chakra, but it is difficult to control, and where Orochimaru's chakra would previously control it, I now have to take that role. I'm fairly certain I can do it, but… I don't actually know what this energy is. It could be dangerous." Inner Sakura warned, giving Sakura a hard look in order to convey how serious their situation was.
"So, we shouldn't use it?" Sakura questioned with a frown, only for Inner Sakura to shake her head.
"I didn't say that, only that it might have unintended consequences, and we'll need to train with it before we become proficient with its uses. Another option would be to expel it out of our body completely… but I don't think that'll really work. We seem to be collecting more of it as time goes on. It's slow, but we're definitely collecting more of this energy. It seems to be available everywhere around us, I don't know how we didn't feel it before. At first, I thought it was growing inside of us, like a parasite or something, transforming our chakra, but that wasn't the case. Our chakra is fine, and this energy seems to make it stronger even. Using it, I can even feel what's going on outside, in the real world right now. This energy is part of the world, it's natural, which is why I'm willing to consider using it." Inner Sakura explained what she had discovered and what conclusions she had drawn. She couldn't help but smile as she felt someone caring for their body. She couldn't tell for certain, but she would guess that the form sitting next to them was Sasuke, and the one lying down next to them was Naruto. Sasuke didn't like showing it, but he did care.
"That's…" Sakura began only to stop. It was a lot to take in, but despite that, her choice was obvious. They had been completely outclassed by Orochimaru, and here she had an opportunity to become stronger, to become useful to Sasuke and Naruto. Naruto may be an idiot with poor chakra control, but he was determined, and more importantly, he was strong when it counted. Sasuke was intelligent and talented, cute, adorable and- well, he was everything to her. If she could use this as a stepping stone to stand on equal ground with them, it would be worth it. Nodding to herself, she offered her Inner self her hand to help her stand up.
"Do it, we're going to become stronger for them." She told her with confidence. Smiling, Inner took her hand and stood up, releasing the energy she had contained, letting it spread out evenly between the two of them, as well as flood out into their body, specifically, their chakra system. Both of them blinked in surprise as Inner Sakura suddenly became fully colored again, just before Sakura fell unconscious.
AN: Well, this chapter ended up taking place entierly inside of Sakura's mindscape. Don't worry, next chapter isn't as we will see Sasuke again. So, how was my fight scene? I know it wasn't much, but I have never really written fight scenes before and didn't want to end up going into far too much detail. I believe that I might have found a comfortable balance between details that allow people to grasp what is going on, while leaving enough room for people to imagine the finer details themselves. I also have to keep in mind that people have unique fighting styles and that they have different ways of thinking when it comes to combat. It is hard to imagine how Orochimaru would have fought in a situation like this, but I tried to keep him condensending and overconfident, while also a bit cautious due to the limits he was under in Sakura's mindscape as a small part of sentient chakra without access to nature energy to mold more Senju chakra within Sakura to sustain himself.
Also, to those who care, reviews containing creative criticism or sugestions for how I can improve your reading experience are all appreciated. I write as a hobby, and wish to improve msyelf as much as I can. Some of you might notice a decrease of quality in my writing in the Author Notes, and that is likely because I use a program to help me spot typos and grammar mistakes when I write the original draft before having some friends proof read it for me. (Speaking of which, credits to my proof readers: NightFire and Imp.) However, my Author notes are added in whenever I upload the chapters to FF. English isn't my first language, so I am not as well versed in it as I wish. In addition, I have picked up a lot of bothersome habits when writing on a keyboard that tend to result in typos.
I plan to try and keep this story on a schedule. Right now, the plan is one chapter every other day. I will likley be keeping each chapter around 2000 words, not counting Author Notes.