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.

Proofread by: Author

This chapter is late in it's uploading, due to conflicting schedules. I had to buy a present for my father who has his birthday tomorrow.

Chapter 92: Understanding, regrets


In Sakura's eyes, the circumstances were ideal. Temari was hurt, distracted, and without her weapon as Sakura's kunai flew towards her. At the same time, Gaara was equally distracted, and soon, hopefully, hurt as well from Sasuke's Chidori. However, the results Sakura had been hoping for turned out not to be what happened.

Sasuke did manage to meet Gaara's attack head-on, his Chidori shearing straight through Gaara's sand arm, cleaving it in two, and causing Gaara to scream and trash in pain, leaving him hurt and distracted as he was suddenly hit by a total of eight kunai. Bringing her hands together, Sakura formed the snake hand seal, detonating four of the kunai, while Karin did the same a moment later, as Sakura turned towards Temari, seeing the Kuinochi throw herself backward to avoid the kunai, only for Sakura to detonate it in her face, throwing Temari back violently, with a surprised shout, before screaming in pain as she landed and tumbled along the ground for a moment.

Sakura felt disappointed that she hadn't managed to kill Temari, but decided to settle for injuring her instead for the moment. Turning her attention back towards Gaara, she saw his body miss the branch Sasuke had launched from, and fall to the ground, the sand around his body scorched black from the eight explosions he had just taken at point-blank range. Smoking, and unmoving, Gaara fell to the ground with a loud thud, that Sakura noted made Karin wince in discomfort, while it robbed Gaara of his breath. Although, it also seemed to wake him up from his brief lapse in consciousness.

For a moment, all of them remained still, with the forest around them silent, except for Temari's pained sobbing echoing between the trees. Sasuke had his Sharingan trained on Gaara. His Chidori extinguished after he landed. As Sasuke watched, Gaara began moving again, sitting up with a huge grin on his face before laughing, seemingly uninjured, despite being entirely covered in soot.

"I see! That's what it was!" Gaara exclaimed in revelation as he stood up, only to tremble for a moment, revealing that he wasn't as uninjured as it had first seemed.

Panting heavily, Sasuke decided to stop using his Sharingan, taking the moment to try and recover slightly after the strenuous use of the Chidori while continuing to look back at Gaara who was shouting at them with a creepy, sadistic grin.

"So little insects decided to intervene? No matter! This is fun either way! This pain, to take down those who wounded me and thoroughly destroy them! That will make me feel truly alive!" Gaara exclaimed, leering at Sasuke whose face gave away his thoughts. Gaara was nuts and a creep, no question about it!

Bracing himself on his sand arm, Gaara leaned forward before speaking again. "More, more!" Sakura felt the Natural energy in the sand spike up in intensity while she could feel foul chakra leaking from Gaara, making her shiver, while Karin whimpered. More sand leaked out of Gaara's gourd, this time forming a horrible looking, spiked tail behind him.

Sakura stared wide-eyed as their opponent grew even more powerful, and felt Karin take an involuntary step back. Like before, their option to retreat was unlikely, as Gaara would probably just chase them. With the fighting likely still going on back in the village, leading Gaara back there was likely a bad idea, not to mention against their orders. Sakura wished she had some kind of technique they could have used for a sure-fire way to escape, but lamenting the fact that she couldn't even perform the body-flicker technique left her desperately sorting through her memories and knowledge, urging Heikō to give her something they could use.

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing! Maybe if we learned the technique Naruto learned from Jiraiya and had the reserves to perform it, but we don't even know what it looks like! We're not powerful, not yet at least." Heikō reminded Sakura, leaving her scowling before offering another option.

"Then, how about summoning a hare to help us? They're bound to have some neat tricks." Sakura suggested, only to feel Heikō consider the idea for a moment, before rejecting it.

"No, too risky. We don't know who we'll end up summoning, or if our chakra will be enough. We're better off saving our chakra for ourselves." Heikō explained, and Sakura decided she agreed as she instead decided they would have to rely on the one jutsu they did know besides the basics. The hell viewing technique. Although, Sakura doubted that Gaara was the kind to flee in the face of his worst fears.

Forming the hand seals for snake and rat, Sakura released the Genjutsu on Gaara as he leaned back behind the branch he had stood on, holding himself up with his one sand arm, stretching it as if intending to launch himself like from a slingshot. Sakura was certain her jutsu had hit Gaara, but she had felt it fall apart instantly. "Here goes!" Gaara exclaimed, launching himself at Sasuke, seemingly not even having noticed Sakura's attempt to catch him in a Genjutsu.

Gaara was definitely faster than before, as Sasuke barely had enough time to reach, barely moving out of the way with the help of his Sharingan as Gaara shot past him, blowing straight through the branch Sasuke had stood on.

Sasuke landed upside down on the underside of another branch in another tree, looking at Gaara while trying to figure a way out of their current predicament, glancing for a moment towards Sakura and Karin, taking in the fact that Karin had moved over to join Sakura who seemed as lost for what to do as he was, looking like she was contemplating the situation heavily, frustrated by her own lack of success if the strained scowl on her face was anything to go by.

Gaara on the other hand had caught some branches with his sand arm, slowing himself down by allowing the arm to stretch, before launching him right back at Sasuke again with a shout.

Unable to use the Chidori anymore, Sasuke brought his hands together in a tiger seal, before breathing in and releasing a ball of fire from his mouth, aiming it at Gaara. However, before being engulfed in the flames, Gaara simply formed a shield in front of himself, using the sand, before emerging unscathed from behind it as the fire ended.

As Gaara came down onto Sasuke's position, he shouted "Die!" at him. Having wasted his time trying to catch Gaara in his fireball technique, Sasuke only had time to brace himself and put his arms up in front of him for protection, before being sent hurtling through the air, straight through several branches, only to stop as he hit the trunk of a tree straight on, denting it, before collapsing on a branch below the new dent in the tree.

"Sasuke!" Sakura exclaimed, worried, only to feel relieved as she felt that he was alright, if bruised and exhausted, breathing heavily. "We have to do something!" Sakura exclaimed, addressing both Karin and Heikō.

"We need to buy time until reinforcements arrive. Karin, how close are they?" Heikō asked, using Sakura's voice, not bothering to touch their braid, as Karin had yet to even be informed about their decision to visually indicate which one of them was in control.

"Close, Naruto is almost here," Karin explained, sounding a bit relieved. Sakura and Heikō also felt themselves relaxing slightly at the news but focused back at Gaara as he spoke again.

"Does the value of your existence amount to only this much?" Gaara asked, sounding slightly amused, before turning to look at Sakura and Karin, making them freeze under his gaze as he for the first time showed them any kind of attention. However, unlike his grinning mouth, Gaara's eyes only showed murderous agitation. "You're weak, all of you!" He taunted them. "You're too optimistic, it's because your hatred is too weak!" Gaara told them as if he was lecturing them, his gaze settling back on Sasuke. It didn't sit well with Sakura. "The power of hatred is the power of the intent to kill! The power of the intent to kill is the power of revenge!"

Sakura could feel how Sasuke trembled at Gaara's words, and she understood what Sasuke was feeling. Not just because he had revealed to Naruto, Heikō, and her what his goals were, but also because she felt the words resonating with her as well. Just like Sasuke, she felt her body tremble in agitation, bristling with anger at Gaara who dared to lecture them about how their intentions weren't enough.

"Your hatred is weaker than mine!" Gaara exclaimed, and Sakura could feel Sasuke whisper quietly in response.

"Shut up." Was Sasuke's words, and Sakura completely agreed with them. Heikō, doing the same, seemed to do something in their mind, and Sakura felt as if some kind of barrier in their mind suddenly disappeared, bringing her relief, and a reckless plan of attack that would allow her to fulfill Sasuke's request and shut Gaara up.

"Do you understand the meaning of this?" Gaara demanded to know, resulting in Sasuke and Sakura responding together, louder this time, shouting their response.

"Shut up!" Sakura and Sasuke responded as one, only that Sakura reached inside of her, and repeated what she had done earlier that day. Her skin immediately grayed as she allowed Natural energy to escape the pores in her skin, all of it coalescing into a spike that she directed at Gaara, intending to kill him then and there for thinking himself that much better than them, for daring to compare himself to them, and declaring them inferior.

The brief moment of surprise from Gaara that Sasuke wasn't the only one to react, as well as the sudden, rather potent killing intent sent his way, courtesy of Sakura, gave Sasuke the opportunity to charge another Chidori and launch himself as Gaara, while Sakura's Natural energy struck out at him as well.

For a moment, it looked like Sasuke's Chidori would hit Gaara, only for his Chidori to suddenly sputter out, leaving Sasuke mid-air without an attack. Gaara, who was turning to face Sasuke again smirked, intending to go for the kill, only to suddenly feel something unsettling from Sakura, something more so than her killing intent. Enough for him to react, and jump out of the way of something he couldn't perceive, but most certainly feel, as it speared through his arm of sand, turning the sand it touched into gravel instead, resulting in the sand arm falling off as a result, as the chakra and Natural energy holding it together fell apart.

Sasuke was caught by Karin, while Gaara stood for a moment, trembling in what looked like tremendous pain, as more sand formed out of the gourd he carried, this time, covering her left arm instead.

Sakura herself was shivering with exhaustion and her muscles cramped and twitched oddly from overexertion as her skin and hair colors returned to normal, leaving her to collapse to the ground, bereft of any more energy to even stand up with. As she felt her consciousness slipping, Sakura felt as if something snapped in her mind, and whatever had been pulled to the side to allow her to fight the way they had, suddenly gave out. Memories crashed into her thoughts with violet force as she watched Gaara chuckling, turning his gaze upon her with a sadistic grin, while she fought to keep her eyelids from lowering, sending her into an untimely sleep. With tears running down her face, Sakura felt regret, wondering if things would have turned out better if she had done things differently. She could now tell exactly what had been wrong, what Karin had been worried about, and why Heikō had felt so guilty. Why she felt so horrified now, and by her head felt like everything was coming undone.

Since the invasion began, since they had attacked Kabuto, they hadn't been Sakura and Heikō, but someone else. It scared her, them… and in the end, it wasn't even worth it, as they laid exhausted before their enemy, unable to do anything while Karin shouted in desperation for them to move. Sakura regretted a lot of things at that moment, but most importantly, she regretted getting Sasuke and Karin killed, because she hadn't had the heart or the mind to kill Gaara back then when the invasion had begun. She had felt something, she had felt that horrible thing within Gaara before, but had chosen to ignore it, to not consider what he was. But she knew. Ever since Naruto had told them she knew that feeling. Gaara was a Jinchuriki, and she had ignored it because she didn't want to believe it.


AN: And Sakura falls unconscious, just at the point where Naruto would have arrived in canon. Although, I wonder, does he arrive faster, or later than in canon here? What do you suspect? I suppose it'll have to be a cliffhanger for now.

Also, yes. Sakura can feel the Tailed beasts with her Kekkei Genkai and Natural energy sense. After all, they are alive and produce vast quantities of Natural energy. It just took Sakura and Heikō to give in to the terrible truth, that Gaara was a Jinchuriki. You might find their denial odd, but… there are a few reasons there. Primarily, Gaara is kind of less scary if you don't imagine the implications of him being a Jinchuriki.

Anyways, that's that for this chapter, hopefully, you guys enjoy it. I have a second Omake chapter coming, so look forward to that. It's about halfway done, and after a small break after uploading this one, I intend to finish it.