Chapter Thirty Nine:
They caught up with him at one of the grazing fields on the northern edge of the village, away from the villagers.
He stopped and rose his hands in surrender as they approached.
"I don't want a fight." he offered quickly, already rasping for breath despite the short run he'd done.
"You're slaughtering civilians." Sakura voiced, unable to keep the outrage from her voice.
"It's not for me." But the defence was weak.
"You can hand yourself over now." Kakashi advised, his stance echoing the cobra strike posture, the one that gave maximum speed advantage to act in a split second.
"I can't."
"Then we'll make you." Sakura promised darkly. This man had been the undoing of her unit. The unit she had sworn to protect.
She charged easily, sliding into a tiger crouch before jolting forward with chakra in her feet, greeting their target in a second with a fist to his face.
He went down like a puppet with cut strings, falling with the momentum of the punch and stumbling over his own feet as he tried to grasp his injured cheek. On his arse, eyes stinging with tears he looked up at Sakura and rose his hands in surrender once more.
Sakura passed a look to Kakashi, one that wasn't expecting such little resistance.
He wasn't a nin.
Just an average civilian, mixed in the wrong side of the spiritual line.
"Needless to say, you're coming with us." Kakashi picked up from her pause, a rope binding pulled from his pocket of his civilian garb.
"No, you don't understand." He scurried backwards as fast as he could, the bruise already forming on his cheek, blood pooling on his face from the light edge of chakra that had been on the fist.
Kakashi lunged for his raised hand, easily turning him with a flick of his wrist and the mighty prophet was face down on the floor, arm lock putting him in an unexpected amount of pain. "No!" the man cried. "Talo!" The name was cried from his lips even as they were planted in the dirt. "I bid thee to protect me."
It was like a soundwave, a pulse, a blast of energy and Kakashi was thrown off the man, easily clearing a great distance in the sky before turning in the air and landing across the field.
When Sakura lowered her protective arms, she saw the man crawling onto his hands and knees, limbs wrapping around the bronze idol that had appeared before him.
That fucking idol.
Sakura felt the rage, felt the pain, felt the death that needed avenging.
It was before her again.
Across a field.
Kakashi's energy was coming across the distance quickly. She took her eyes off the man to catch his trajectory.
"Don't touch it." she reminded him quietly, hand snagging him by the arm. "Don't break it."
He gave her a curt nod. There were lives tied to that idol now. An entire village of lives. Elders, children and babes alike.
"You don't understand!" the man cried.
"That you want your promised power and need to kill for it." Sakura guessed darkly.
"I was so close to everything I ever wanted, and then you broke it, you destroyed everything." The passion in his voice was true, the tears in his eyes echoed real pain from her actions. "And all the work I had done. It was just gone!"
"They were people's lives!" she fought.
"They were nin lives, you guys throw yourselves at death all the time, what difference did it make if I used it for my own aims this time?"
"You needlessly slaughtered all those nin for nothing, you destroyed fami-"
"No, you made them nothing when you destroyed my effigy!" he shouted. "Do you know how long it took me to track down this miniature?!" he clutched the idol to his chest. "Do you know how much a nin sacrifice is valued at?! Do you know how many villages I have had to go around just to even get an inch of the same power?!"
"And that's what this is?" Sakura scoffed. "For power? To do what?"
"I am a good leader, I was respected, I was valued, I was honoured, and now, nobody will even look at me. I need this to get back what I lost." he defended, so strong in his belief that it was the right thing to do, he didn't even bat an eyelid at the murder he had caused.
"No." Kakashi gave his judgement with a single word. "Not this way."
"Set the statue down, hand yourself over." Sakura encouraged.
"No." the prophet replied. "Talo, I bid thee, do not let them take you from me."
It was all the warning they got before fireballs exploded from the idol, like missiles, they targeted the two nin in the field, barrelling straight towards them.
Kakashi body flickered to the immediate right of the man, a bird song splitting the air with its chorus.
Sakura split to the left, drawing the fire of the idol, chakra enhanced speed as she ducked and wove between the trees and over the fence line.
Screams from the village meant the townsfolk had realised things had gone pear shaped and were fleeing away from the battle site. Giant balls of fire tended to do that.
Smart civilians fled from scenes like this. Nin could do a lot of damage to the surroundings in the heat of battle.
So much for being under the radar.
So much for going to the effort of wearing civilian clothing to blend it. Now they were just a hindrance in the fight ahead.
Not to mention Tsunade was going to kill them for blowing cover so close to the village when they got back.
If they got back.
She didn't know the odds of survival against a god.
The cracks of electricity met the bounce of another soundwave. Kakashi found his centre as he again was pushed back, gliding far enough to cast four symbols in the air to send three clones of himself out.
Sakura took their pace like a practiced ease, back in the zone, back in the mindset of the fight. Embracing the part of her that turned off all emotion and stood side by side with her partner, moving with synchronicity that earned them the title of being one of the deadliest partnerships in nin history.
She took the opening he gave her and ran for the prophet with chakra enhanced strength, she needed to separate him from the idol.
He hadn't even clued in to her approach, his back was to her and it was perfect.
She crossed the metres of the distance without him even knowing she was there, and then inches away, he was turned. Turned by the idol that put itself front and centre of her aim.
No.
She dropped the chakra from her punch and threw her weight down and to the side, letting her slide on the grass past him, rolling away before the prophet could even blink.
She heard his gasp of surprise, delayed, as she found her feet again, on the field joined by one of Kakashi's clones.
"New plan?" he offered.
"It's a smart god. It knows we won't break it. It's using itself as a human shield with all the villagers lives."
"Approach?"
"Separate man from idol." she suggested with big eyes turned to him. She didn't know how well the plan was going to go, but that was why it was a work-in-progress. Adapted at each second.
But the god was one of war, it was one that had been a tactician all its life, had studied from all cultures and all approaches and to keep its workers alive and its sacrifices coming, it was willing to throw all the tricks it knew at them both.
It almost took off their limbs with explosive devices thrown their way, it almost blinded them with the heat of the fire, it put bruises and cuts across them.
It destroyed the clones Kakashi made as fast as he could conjure them.
It had no blind spot, no weak zone, no human error to exploit.
Sakura had provided the necessary distraction for Kakashi to weave his symbols to disable the prophet of his senses, but the idol just undid the manoveure as soon as it happened.
Its power was unrivalled.
Its attacks came from all different natures, they channelled all forces available to them. And Kakashi and Sakura were on the defence more often than the offensive. It was not a good position to be in.
The few attacks they did manage to get close enough to execute had to be stopped as the idol once again provided itself as a human shield. The aborts were getting more dangerous than the actual intended assaults.
So as Sakura lined herself up with Kakashi's open palm bear stance, her healing chakra immediately taking the edge off the leg that had tried to be shattered by a pulse beam, she wasn't surprised by him activating the sharingan over the henge on his appearance.
But she did surprise herself with her words to him.
"We break the idol." she instructed him.
He shifted his weight, acknowledgement that he had heard her, but concern for her tactical position.
"I know." she whispered, sadness gripping her throat. She pushed her chakra into the splinters of bone the wave had chipped from him and lodged into his muscles, dissolving them at an accelerated rate and patching back up the damage. "But we can't get close to him with it. If we don't do it, if we lose this. How much more death is there going to be?"
She hated herself for suggesting it.
There was hundreds of lives potentially connected to that idol.
"How?"
"Chakra covering on the fist. It worked last time. He said himself it lost all the power."
"You going to be able to live with that?" His lower hand fell from position and touched her thigh, the closest part of her, a reassurance that he'd be there to pick her back up again if not.
"I don't think we'll be alive to consider that if we don't." she admitted.
They weren't on their death beds quite yet, but this fight was nothing but a chakra drain for them, the idol had seemingly infinite power and landing more hits than misses as it learned their fighting style. The longer the fight went on, the less likely they were to survive.
"Twin bladed red dragon?" he suggested and she finished the quick patch of healing with an accepting double tap on his leg.
The red dragon was Kakashi's sharingan, the twin blades were the double bluff they favoured.
Sakura and Kakashi both body flickered aside.
His chidori once again started singing. It would be nothing like the full effect, the chakra wouldn't be summoned enough to make the energy ball, but the noise would be enough to convince the opponent it was real. Kakashi came out of the trees to meet the alert eyes of the prophet and his sharingan opened, spinning fast, easily trapping the civilian mind without any effort.
Sakura came from the ground, erupting before the idol with green chakra around her hands, a punch sailing straight for the bronze statue held numbly in the hands of Kakashi's victim.
The chidori fell silent as she rose through the air.
Before she could blink, the metal fairy was gone from the hands before her, like it was never there. The broken mind of the prophet was still trapped, but the body had been dragged, and dragged was accurate, there were gouges in the mud from his heels having sank in.
The prophet was laid prone, absent from the present fight by the lock on his mind.
Sakura landed split over the hole she made and passed a nod to Kakashi. It was open season on the prophet now, or the idol. Either worked.
Kakashi charged for the prophet with a blade in hand.
Sakura stepped with purpose, the silk of her torn red kimono slapped softly against her bare legs as she thundered towards the statue sitting innocently feet away from its puppet.
A pulse of energy shot out but she was prepared for that, a chakra pulse of her own battling it as she bounced her forearms off each other, the live chakra sparking and testing the pulses with its own defence.
God of war was not named for nothing though and the idol started to flicker, the energy inside it taking it to and from reality, like it may never even be there.
Sakura edged her bets of her speed though, the chakra in her fists burning hot and wild, sizzling her nerve endings painfully and she launched herself from the ground to gain the extra momentum of gravity to come crashing down, straight onto the statue.
The statue that vanished.
Sakura landed in a crater of her own making.
The chakra on her body burned hard at her joints and she released it from her hands.
It had gone, again.
Slipped from her fingers.
She spun to see Kakashi's progress. But the body was dancing through the air to avoid a blade without any conscious effort. Like a ghost puppeteer, the unconscious prophet dangled and dove from every attack Kakashi gave it.
Sakura heaved herself out of the crater to assist.
A barrage of weapons came from the trees towards her proposed line of assault and she dove back into the hole she made. Her body slamming into a solid object. It was cold against the skin of her thigh as she moved to stand.
Cold metal.
She turned to the object and froze over.
Cold bronze.
It had purposefully thrown her into it.
She had made contact with it.
Without the chakra barrier.
She darted chakra around her system and felt the darkness of the curse flowing through her body, already nibbling on her energy, poisoning her chakra control, the medical chakra doing little even as it flooded her system in protection.
A scream from the prophet revealed the idol had finally cracked the sharingans tricks and Kakashi had turned his attention back to her, to the wide eyes and shock on her face.
"Destroy it." Sakura insisted to him.
"Sakura."
"You have to destroy it. I don't care what happens but you can't let this go on any further than today."
A water jet came from the idol, aimed direct at her partner, a thunder clap followed and the electrified water left scorch marks on all of the trees Kakashi ducked into and weaved between.
It didn't care about her. It could kill her with a simple command now.
But it wanted Kakashi as well.
No, not like this.
Sakura rolled all of her healing chakra back into her fists, it might kill her, but it would certainly stop any future pain.
She rolled onto her back, kicked at the ground with her legs and threw herself with a punch towards the idol.
She felt the brush of metal against the edge of her knuckle as it barely managed to dodge it. It's concentration, of pummelling Kakashi with jutsu, broken.
Sakura chased after it, fuelled by anger and determination, she threw punch after punch, keeping it closer and closer.
Kakashi did as he needed, he embraced option 2 and chased down the terrified prophet that was too far in over his head to realise running was a bad idea.
Kakashi had him pinned easily, a kunai to his throat, held tight to his body unable to escape.
"Talo!" the prophet shouted and the idol brought a calm to the arena, a forced hush as it summoned mist to rise from the ground, obscuring sight. "I b-b-bid thee, grant me immortali-" His words were stopped by a blade across his throat, warm blood gushing out and over Kakashi's binding hand, staining the grass and stealing the life force of its owner.
A gurgle and a panicked, desperate cling to his throat was not enough. Kakashi threw him to the floor dead.
But the nin expected the idol to drop, to fall, to stop.
It did nothing of the sort.
Instead, it pulled the air tight in around it, throwing out pulse after pulse pushing the nin into defensive mode, driving them back into the trees.
"Kakashi!" Sakura caught herself on a tree only to find a bigger problem. The idol was draining the life forces it owned. Hard. She could feel it tugging at her blood, could feel her chakra swarming around the voids in her body that was swallowing her energy. "It needs to be now. Destroy it."
But as the pulses stopped, she looked up from her hands and knees to see Kakashi slice his own hand with a kunai, casting symbols at speed to summon a sealing square of paper. "It's too powerful. It won't work. We need to destroy it" she protested but he carried on with his hand symbols, the blood deposited on the paper in the lines it needed to be.
The statue unleashed another barrage of fire, bombs and weaponry.
Clones fought it off, but Kakashi couldn't keep that up and have a proper chance at sealing the power inside the idol.
So Sakura put herself into the fray, running to stand between Kakashi and the totem as it unleashed its power on him.
She shielded him as best as she could, hearing his clones take damage to dispel them left and right. A fireball slammed into her shoulder but she stood strong, a chakra shield all she could manage as her energy was drained.
A hollow emptiness swam across her skin, waves of moans and groans seems to cry out from the village to her ears.
It wasn't just her, and they were all feeding the idol before them.
No, that wasn't just the village.
The prophet's throat was sealing itself back together.
Fuck sake.
Sakura dropped to her knees as it stole another part of her.
She drew up a shield of earth to protect him, slammed another two up behind that and watched through tear filled eyes as they were knocked down with ease.
She sobbed without any energy as she fell to the ground using the last of her chakra to summon a storm of pink blossom, blinding all parties involved.
Her eyes closed to the very last sight of Kakashi chakra slamming into the idol, blood covering the bronze.
At least one way or the other, it was dealt with now.
She felt the relief in her breath as it left her.
It was done.
It was all over.
Except, it wasn't death that greeted her.
It was the calloused hand of a shinobi and a mop of silver hair in her vision.
"Don't recall teaching my student to sleep on the job." he teased.
She cracked open her eyes to green chakra being pumped into her body. Healing chakra.
"Since when can you heal?" she croaked, feeling like death warmed over.
"Mah, Sakura, you know it's one of the entry requirements for ANBU."
Sure, it was, at least basic first aid to patch yourself up to get to a healer. Sakura just presumed it wasn't criteria when he joined, or he had bribed them to avoid it.
"All this time, you've been able to use healing chakra?" She even found the strength to be pissed off at him, as she laid face down in the dirt and half dead.
"If you would have known, you wouldn't have taken missions with me." he smiled at her, soft and happy. Relieved. Welcoming. Proud?
"Ow, it's not meant to be painful."
"Never said I was any good at it." He chuckled through the mask.
"Is it over?" she asked, getting up to her knees as he stopped the healing and assisted her.
"Hm." He nodded at the scroll by her feet. The one bound with his blood.
"And the guy?"
"Thought you might like the honours." He turned his head to the wriggling civilian bound by rope to the nearest scorched tree.
Damn, they really made a mess of the area.
Again.
This was how they got banned from countries.
Tsunade was gunna be pissed.
A rattle drew her attention and one of her chakra pills that she made for him was dropped into his hand, extended out to her.
It even still had the ribbon on the jar from the last time she gave it to him as a present.
Kami, she had never needed it more.
Having the life drained out of you really did a number on your chakra system.
She could still feel the darkness in her system, evidence that the idol wasn't destroyed, but, it's drain had slowed. Not quite stopped, but just short of that. She could repair the damage as fast as it made it now.
Sakura thanked him with a smile and threw the pill down her throat. He generously offered her a water pouch to chase it down. Not often you got that in a battlefield environment.
"Tsunade's not going to like this report." she offered after swallowing the water.
"Depends how you write it." Kakashi pointed out cleverly, crouching next to her in case she needed any support.
"You think I can just skate over 'destroyed an entire village because of a statue of a fairy'?"
"You've smoothed over worse." he offered without any truth to it.
"Guess we should figure out the easiest way to get him back." She gestured at the prophet knocked out of his power trip. "Can I suggest unconscious?" she commented with humour
"Or..." He left the sentence open.
It took her a second, a thought too long that she blamed on the drain on her life force.
"Kakashi…" but the thought turned in her head, it settled a little too easily. Worse, there wasn't any protest from her moral side.
A kunai handle came into her hand, passed firmly from her mentor, teacher and partner.
There were ethics to question, concerns to voice, the obviously black and white of right and wrong. And yet she was able to bat them off like flies in the desert heat of Suna.
She just thought, what would he think of her if she said yes. If she voiced how much she wanted the man to be gone from the earth. If she admitted that she had no objections to taking his life. Even as it stood, outside of a battle scenario, where he had no chance of defending himself, where there was no honour in the kill.
"You get that he's immortal now right?" she spoke instead, smothering over her desires with fact and avoidance.
"Only if you can piece him back together." he suggested darkly, standing and offering her an extended hand.
"He's our prisoner." It was wrong, they shouldn't even consider it. They never had before.
"He's the cause of your nightmares." He moved his hand in her sight again, a clear sign to bring her to her feet and to his place of clarity.
And it sunk in. It firmed her mind. It wasn't just a mere civilian bumbling along with powers they didn't understand. It wasn't an innocent that was defenceless.
The man had willingly gone to villages of untrained, unarmed, god fearing civilians who were already struggling in the world and set up a twisted purpose of using their lives to fuel his own desires. There was no good in the man before them.
She had stopped him once before and he had scoured the earth for another opportunity, another idol, another avenue to follow to reach his goal.
The man had not only been responsible for deaths across their country, had not only destroyed entire settlements, but he had taken families and ripped them down the middle.
Hell, he had ripped her down the middle.
He was the cause of her pain, of her break, of her stepping down from living life.
He was the death of the ones she swore to avenge.
So she took Kakashi's hand and he pulled her to her feet smoothly. Like there was no doubt in his mind, no concern for ethics. He was assured of this, and he was assured of her.
He wrapped his arms around her as they approach the tied man.
He guided her balance as she stood over his weak form.
He held her firm, a comfort to her spirit as he followed her manoeuvre to kneel by him, to turn the kunai point out and lined with the man's chest.
He sealed her fingers to the blade with his own, and they moved in unison, to a silent countdown to strike kunai into his heart.
He draped his arms around her as they withdrew and wove symbols together to summon cutting winds to tear apart his body.
He stood with her as they pulled fire of the hottest flames to weave together and scorch his remains.
And then he took a body scroll from her and sealed half of the ashes into it.
The other half he scattered with winds.
There was no way for him to be whole again.
It was over.
Truly over.
And Sakura looked up at her partner feeling … free.
Alive.
Whole.
Because of Kakashi.
The mentor, the partner, the man.
The healer.
"I'm sure we could barter a place to sleep." He nodded to the village, picking up on her stance and the weight she leaned against him.
Sakura made a pointed glare down their clothing, singed, torn, showing more flesh than publically acceptable.
"You're covered in blood." The sealing spell was messy to say the least, half of it probably wasn't his own blood. Though that didn't include the thick stream that came from under his sharingan. "Did it hold?"
"Didn't lose sight once." he confirmed as she ran her thumb across the skin, smearing the blood to clear it away. No fresh trickle came to take its place and she managed a smile. It was okay.
"Probably a village of people wanting a few answers." Sakura turned her gaze to the surroundings, the cries of distress that came on the breeze.