Jakuten: In the Trees
Itachi stepped through the smoke, coolly regarding Kakashi's drawn kunai.
"I'd never known you to execute your missions with anything less than the greatest efficiency, senpai. You've changed quite a bit."
"I wouldn't be the one talking about change. And that's Kakashi-san to you, nuke-nin."
With those words, the air around them darkened, weighed heavy with all the killing intent he could summon up. Next to him, he could feel Naruto draw his own kunai, bristling.
"Sensei, who's that?"
Kakashi knew his mistake too late.
"Naruto, look down!"
Eyes flashed red, and Naruto crumpled. Before his head hit the ground, Kakashi and Itachi had crossed blades. He stared into emotionless red eyes with his lone Sharingan.
Naruto was out. Sakura was in the trees, her chakra signature fully deadened, though her scent still told him all he needed to know. If he couldn't take Itachi out in the first few minutes, she would jump in, then nobody would be going back to Konoha.
Kamui
At point blank range, Itachi's fine features distorted and twisted, wavering. A glimmer of surprise passed those eyes, but with a flick of his heel, Kakashi found himself back to back with the most famed traitor of Konoha.
"Changed quite a bit indeed, senpai. How did you unlock the Mangekyo?"
"Would you tell if you were me?"
A blade shot through where Itachi's ribs had been a split second ago. Naruto was still out, Sakura was in the trees, laying low. Thanking all the gods the girl had read her bingo book, he gripped Itachi's trailing ponytail and yanked him to the side, kunai aiming for the newly exposed jugular.
Still too slow. Itachi twisted in his grip and wrapped his cloak around the incoming kunai, using the motion to slip out of his cloak and entangle Kakashi in the folds.
Kakashi released his grip on Itachi and drew back, hurling the cloak away from the two of them. Underneath the cloak Itachi had been wearing a mesh shirt that made it evident that he had not been idle in the years away from Konoha.
Kakashi didn't waste time noticing. A flurry of blows ensued, and Itachi was driven to the edge of the clearing, tumbling backward through the air to land gracefully.
Naruto was out, Sakura was in the trees. And Itachi was not taking the offensive.
"Why are you back?"
Itachi raised both hands to him in taijutsu stance.
"I come back on occasion. Call it a whim." They started circling slowly. Kakashi's breath hitched. Itachi was almost under the tree Sakura was in.
"Like killing your clan?"
Itachi's face didn't react at all.
"Kakashi-san."
It hurt to hear those words from him.
Kakashi lowered his kunai and wiped a hand across his masked face wearily.
"I don't know what you came for, but it wasn't Naruto, and now that we know you're here, you won't be able to spy. Turn back now, Itachi."
"I appreciate the-" Kakashi dove in midsentence, slamming Itachi into the tree next to Sakura's with a forearm to the trachea.
He was surprised to see a hand sprout forth from Itachi's chest.
As was Itachi, it seemed.
Itachi gripped at the hand with his own nerveless fingers, his face slackening.
Then melting into a flock of crows that rose up and flitted around Kakashi in an inky cloud.
Sakura stepped forward, shaking off the tree that she was now wearing like a bracelet with a brisk motion. The motion uprooted the tree, and countless birds flew up from the surrounding forest as it toppled, fleeing the great crashing of the trunk as it obliterated the brush. The crows blended into the chaos, and in seconds, the two found themselves alone.
Kakashi stared at her, as her emerald eyes did him, both of them processing what had just happened.
She then glanced towards the sky, breaking the spell. Kakashi lowered his hitaiate.
"Do you think he's really gone?" Her hands fisted as she scanned the treetops for inky black wings.
"Yes, he wasn't here to fight. I don't know why he set that fire jutsu on us."
She stared out at the quiet clearing now with slitted eyes.
"I don't think monsters need a reason, Sensei. Probably just looking for fun."
She stopped and turned.
"Naruto!" She ran out to where he lay, still in the middle of the clearing. "I almost forgot about him, why isn't he waking up?"
"I was hoping to ask you that." Kakashi shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling the wear of that single, hurried Mangekyo on his body. "Genjutsu from his Sharingan?"
"Of course." She placed both hands on Naruto.
Kai
Naruto's body bucked once. Twice. He inhaled sharply then screamed, the voice not wholly human as dark energy shot out in every direction. Kakashi watched numbly as Sakura was blown back. Her body hung in the air briefly, silhouetted against the blast, then crashed into him at a devastating speed.
They tumbled backwards in a tangle several yards as the dark energy receded a little from the initial blast, coiling around a writhing Naruto.
Kakashi gained his footing as quickly as he could, gathering Sakura in his arms as he did so. But the motion brought the smell of burning meat. He looked down and saw half her cheek was torn away, exposing pale bone in a mess of burnt, seared red. She was blinking rapidly, not even feeling the pain yet as her mind raced to comprehend what had just happened.
His mind threw up the thought again. She smelled of burning meat. He almost dropped her, but she clung to him, bringing the other already blistering hand to her mangled cheek.
"S-sensei..."
"S-SENSEI!" Naruto was screaming for him in the clearing as well. He was the priority, Kakashi thought as Sakura's hand started shaking violently. Her eyes refocused.
The shaking hand started pushing at him.
"S-sensei... get Naruto, I can fix... I can fix me-" She staggered back, pushing away from his support as she held her cheek. Her hand started glowing green.
Naruto was on all fours now, wrenching his body back and forth. Kakashi raised his hitaiate again, approaching Naruto through the thrashing trails of Kyuubi energy.
Naruto's back arched once more, painfully. Then his head shot up to meet Kakashi's gaze. Blue melded into orange, and Kakashi saw the moment those rounded pupils slitted.
"Uchiha." The beast growled through Naruto's throat.
Naruto lunged, slashing newly grown claws at Kakashi's eye. He dodged, and Naruto skidded several feet past him. The beast raised Naruto's nose and sniffed. "He's still near." Without a second look at Kakashi, Naruto bounded away, leaving a burnt trail in his wake.
Sakura staggered up behind him, breathing a little easier, but still showing blistering red skin along almost the entire length of her left side. The glow from her hand was wavering.
"We can't let him go to Itachi."
Kakashi nodded. They would have to follow. He took two steps towards the trail-At least they wouldn't have to worry about tracking the fox-but had to stop as Sakura's legs gave out beneath her.
She laughed shakily.
"Sensei, in retrospect, don't you think 20 laps was too much?" Despite the joke, the strain in her voice was evident.
They both winced as the Kyuubi energy pulsed once more, clearly coming several miles to their west now. There was no time.
"You'll be okay?"
"I'll be there as soon as I can, sensei. I'll follow the big burned road."
She watched him sprint down the path the Kyuubi had so violently cleared. He didn't so much as look back.
Figures. She thought. He always did prefer the boys.
She put that out of her mind, focusing on healing the extensive damage. It had felt like the heat itself had taken on physical form and beat her round the side bodily. The entire side throbbed agonizingly with every breath she took to slow her pulse, but the healing continued.
She would be fine, though she wouldn't be able to heal everything fully in the field. It'd only take an hour of begging to get Tsunade to fix the burns once they set in later though.
Shishou wouldn't have left her like this to chase after Naruto.
Hush, she told Inner Sakura. He did the only thing he could.
Inner Sakura sniffed. He could have looked back.
It's village safety on the line, he shouldn't have. In fact, I'm glad he didn't...she told herself. Her hand stopped glowing as she pulled her chakra back in to her core.
She stood again, testing herself. It'd taken almost all of her remaining chakra to uncook her left side enough to regain normal muscular function. She'd be able to run, but there was no way she was catching up to Kakashi-sensei in a timely manner, nor would she be in any state to help if she did get there.
Still, couldn't leave a comrade behind. Even if the comrade left you behind.
She set off down the road behind them at a brisk pace. She couldn't sense the Kyuubi anymore, though that was probably due to her chakra exhaustion.
To think they'd encounter Itachi Uchiha while hunting for common bandits. Team Kakashi really only did pick the dramatic missions. Not that she'd been on many field missions under Shishou, but the few that she'd been on had never run into as many complications and twists as she did with Naruto and Kakashi-sensei and...Sas...
Her mind hurled itself from that thought.
The sun was going down as she reached the end of the trail of devastation at the end of a river. A familiar lanky figure was leaning up against a tree with a trussed up lump at his feet, flicking through the pages of a book.
"You got him?"
"A while ago, you didn't feel it?"
She shrugged, spreading her arms wide so he could sense for himself how little chakra she had left.
He nodded, understanding.
"Sorry, Sakura." The lump said.
Sakura stomped up to him and pointed at the burn that still stood out lividly across her face. "You did that Naruto, you're buying dinner."
"Yeah, okay..."
"And redoing some Sharingan training with Gai," Kakashi-sensei added sternly.
"That makes sense..."
Sakura flopped down next to Naruto, leaning her weary back against his prone body.
"Glad we found you okay, I thought you were supposed to be better about that after all that time with Jiraiya-sama."
"Pervy Sage doesn't do anything right."
She brought a fist down on Naruto's head. "That's still on you, dummy."
She went about untying Naruto.
"Leave them on, we're dragging Naruto back to Konoha."
Naruto and Sakura both cried out at that thought.
"Sensei, be reasonable."
"I am being reasonable, we keep Naruto as he is until we figure out what led to that Kyuubi release."
"Sensei-"
"Taicho." He corrected her.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Okay, Kakashi-"taicho", you don't have the chakra to get you, me and Naruto back to Konoha tonight."
"Which is why we're not going back tonight." He nodded down the river to an enbankment two miles down. "We'll be camping out there tonight. I'll carry Naruto for now. You carry him back tomorrow."
"Terrible trade, I'll be carrying him a hundred times further than you. Worst trade ever."
"Maybe next time you can be the taicho."
She grumbled, but trudged down after him along the river, secretly glad they wouldn't be pushing through to make the trek back home that night. Making it to the end of the Kyuubi's path with only her body's physical strength had been as hard on her as a training session with Rock Lee. Now that it seemed clear Itachi Uchiha had disappeared from the area and Naruto was safe, the adrenaline was fading fast.
The sky was fully dark when Kakashi-sensei finally dumped Naruto on the riverbank. She fell back on to the ground herself. After a beat, Kakashi-sensei followed suit.
"I'm going to puke and die," she announced to the stars.
"Could you do that after you take a dunk in the river? You stink." She jerked her head around to glare at him, and saw that his lone exposed eyebrow was furrowed, and he was holding a palm to his left eye.
"Sensei, your-"
"Sensei, I need to use the bathroom."
Sensei's eyebrow furrowed further in true despair, but he got up and started wearily dragging Naruto up the shore to where the trees began. He called back to her.
"Dunk in the river! You stink!"
She groaned and clambered back up. Stink, no stink, smell, no smell, it was always about his nose with this guy. But it was true that she was looking pretty grubby. She still had mud caked between her shirt and tunic because of the morning punishment. She ripped her tunic off and sank into the river.
The river felt nice on her burned skin, actually. She leaned back gratefully into the gently running water as it brought fresh relief from the dull throbbing.
She could have stayed there much longer, but Kakashi-sensei was coming back from the treeline with Naruto in tow, Naruto looking shellshocked by what they'd had to do in the woods.
She rose onto the riverbank, wringing her shirt dry as she went. Kakashi-sensei went about starting a fire, and had it crackling merrily by the time she got to them.
Sakura pulled up a nearby log for them to sit on and the three gathered together by the fire in a way she found familiar yet heartachingly foreign.
She shivered as the night air swept her back, shirt still wet from the river. Kakashi-sensei noticed, and dried her with a quick Suiton jutsu.
"Got a sleeping roll?"
She shook her head. "Didn't think we'd need it for today,"
Kakashi-sensei looked down at Naruto. "You?"
"Ground works fine for me."
Sighing, Kakashi-sensei popped a scroll out from his flak jacket and summoned a sleeping roll from it.
"You sleep first, Sakura. We'll trade off when it looks like you've fully recovered."
Reminded afresh of how exhausted she was, she snuggled into the bedroll without complaint. It smelled like Kakashi-sensei, that is to say, practically nothing, except for maybe a hint of woody warmth.
She was asleep in seconds.
Preview: Jakuten: Bingo Book Bash
She was going to kill him, Kakashi thought.
Let me know if you enjoyed! Mostly was just set up for romance down the line, but was fun to write.
~Withered Pages~