Kill Your Heroes

-Chapter Nineteen-

Testophobia (Part III)

Temari opened her mouth and Sakura unsheathed her knives as the proctor's hand fell, darting forward before the final syllable fell silent. Temari's eyes widened slightly at Sakura's speed, but her blades never touched skin. In the time it took to cover the scant feet between them, the other kunoichi somehow managed to wedge that unwieldy length of metal she'd been wearing on her back between herself and Sakura. It was wide enough and long enough to protect her core and Sakura snarled in frustration, because that familiar litany of larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian artery, kidneys, heart might have been a to-do list like grocery shopping for Zabuza, but if her first strike failed, she would have to really work for her victory.

And she was just so damn tired.

A strange, shrieking snarl escaped her as she threw herself forward, hands pressed briefly together as her image flickered and splintered, producing three versions of Sakura. Temari's lips twisted into a fierce, competitive grimace as she flipped her fan open and swept it parallel to the floor in a waist-high sweep. Sheering winds extended the reach of sharpened steel ribs and that invisible blade tore through all the visible Sakura-clones, but the real one—invisible beneath genjustu—slid beneath the blow, managing to unbalance Temari as her foot impacted her ankle.

Sakura cursed herself, because she'd meant to sweep both her feet, but concrete was not conductive to sliding. The skin between her boots and shorts throbbed as the wound in her side screamed, but she ignored it as she tried to prize open Temari's defenses.

Launching herself up from the floor, she thought she could take advantage of any counterattack Temari might make, but counter to her expectations, Temari turned her stumble into a retreat.

More cautious than her teammate, Sakura registered, more dependent on distance to keep the advantage. Dependence on her wind ninjutsu, rather than hand-to-hand skill.

Sakura couldn't know it wasn't lack of skill, only reasonable caution. Temari was no fool—she'd seen Sakura when she'd come in, seen how quick she was to pull her knives, and came to the correct conclusion. This wasn't an opponent she'd let close on her.

Temari sent another gust of wind roaring toward Sakura and Sakura imagined it was like trying to stand against a hurricane blast. Little bits of dirt, grit, and debris scoured her skin and only tenacity and chakra manipulation kept her upright. Her eyes watered, and it burned to breathe, but she only tucked in her chin, sheathed a knife, and pulled her shemagh up over her nose, using chakra to keep it in place rather than freeing a hand to retie it.

Then her knife was in her hand and she was advancing like a thirteen-year cicada cycle, slow and ponderous, but inevitable. It was almost as bad as fighting beneath the bridge had been, because there was no point at which it was safe to have both feet off the floor. And that was more than just inconvenient when Temari's next blast of shearing wind was suddenly full of whirling shuriken that buzzed like enraged hornets.

She had a microsecond to decide to hold ground, which would mean choosing what hits to take, or to fall back.

Sakura chose to hold, contorting her body in such a way as to minimize her profile, the sharp bark of metal against metal marking the shuriken she struck out of the air. The rest dealt her only glancing wounds, which given their speed and sharpness, hardly hurt at all. Sakura lunged forward in the silent wake of the wind, Temari's eyes widening as she slammed her fan shut, using it to block Sakura's strikes.

And Sakura, with her double knives, had to swallow down a curse as their battle became a kind of high-stakes dance with a lightning-fast tempo. One good blow to the fan would be enough to ruin the edge of her knife forever. One good strike would be enough to end Temari forever.

She pressed harder, one of her knives catching a glancing blow on the flat that sent it spinning out of her hand. Sakura roared, empty hand curling into a fist and slamming against the barrier of the fan. The metal screeched in protest, buckling, but her hand was on fire with the dozen tiny breaks of a boxer's fracture. Temari's eyes widened in incredulous disbelief, but kept up her defense as Sakura tried to press the advantage. In her determination to keep going despite the pain, she overlooked her own defense and a hard kick in the gut from Temari sent her staggering back and she couldn't recover in time to keep herself from being clipped by another gust. It tore open a long gash on her arm, but these days Sakura had new standards for pain.

So she just sheathed her knives and folded her fingers into an increasingly familiar set of signs, feeling the pulse of chakra that marked the hook of the Hell-Viewing jutsu setting deep. As Temari's eyes caught on the ghost—a woman—Sakura's hands folded the second genjutsu, which rendered her invisible again because she too was an item in the environment, her hand unerringly traveling to Fū's gift, uncapping it and ever-so-carefully watching death drip onto the discolored steel of her remaining knife.

It took only moments, the container capped again and tucked away, then she was sprinting forward, edging into that place where she was moving so fast she couldn't see.

Perhaps she'd grown overconfident in the Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu. Kakashi-sensei had warned her once that the genjutsu provoked fear and horror and that some people reacted to that very differently. But there were dead men between that statement and this battle, men who'd frozen up and ceded that one necessary second. Temari, somehow sensing her invisible rush, looked directly at her, her eyes wet with tears but burning in rage.

Sakura's only comfort as the wide metal bat of Temari's folded fan impacted against her skull was that she'd flipped her wrist around in time, opening a wide laceration down the other kunoichi's arm as she drew her weapon back for a second blow.

If I'm dead, she thought fuzzily, so is she.

[Kill Your Heroes]

Kakashi had internally winced at the sound of that long length of steel impacting his student's skull and he could only hope that second blow across her back hadn't shattered vertebrae. The Suna kunoichi sneered down at her, then took two steps back and glared expectantly at the proctor.

He obligingly called the match, medics swarming toward Sakura and Kakashi stood up from his slouch against the wall, making his way down into the pit to make certain that his student would still be his student after some time with the medic-nin.

One of the medics glanced up at him as he drew close. "What exactly have you been teaching your students, Hatake?" he demanded.

Kakashi had memorized the faces, if not the names, of all the medical personnel in the village, the better to elude them, so he wasn't surprised to recognize him. But he was surprised to recognize the expression on his face, which was one which normally only escaped when he thought Kakashi had done something terminally stupid on an ANBU mission.

"I have no idea what you mean," he said blithely.

"I mean your student is well on her way to a nice case of sepsis, so I have no idea what business you thought she had entering this match to start with. But I suppose you might be glad to know that aside from that and the nasty wound in her side that started it, a perforated eardrum, some major fractures in her hand, bone bruising across her shoulder blades, and a concussion, there's nothing much wrong with her."

"...well, that's comforting to know," Kakashi said after a significant pause, recalling how Sasuke had grabbed Sakura's hand. He suppressed a sigh and wondered bleakly if his team had been this much of a burden to Minato. Doubtful, he decided as he watched the medics load Sakura onto a stretcher.

"Is Sakura-chan going to be okay?" Naruto asked anxiously as he returned to the balcony.

Kakashi let his eyes trail over to Sasuke, who was listening intently and trying to disguise it by keeping his eyes on the pit. "Unless I miss my guess," he said lightly, taking into consideration her decision to stand with a foreign-nin, "she's going to be very angry, but otherwise she's going to make a full recovery."

Naruto's brows drew together. "You mean about losing the fight? I mean, that was kind of—"

Kakashi held up a hand to forestall hearing whatever Naruto thought of the fight. "We're going to talk about this later," he told both of his students. "For now, concentrate on your matches."

The next match saw Ino turn Zaku's need to gloat into a trap, his monologue as he held her by hair with his one functional arm more than enough time for her to snatch control of his body. The spirit of a Yamanaka might move slowly and only in straight lines, but at point blank range? It was a matter of seconds to have his body surrender.

Sasuke's name came up next in the draw, against Inuzuka Kiba, which wouldn't have worried him in the normal course of things. Except that the ugly chakra that crawled out of a seal and spilled across Sasuke's skin wasn't anywhere near the normal course, nor was Sasuke's grudging agreement to seal it.

And because he was Hatake Kakashi and his life sometimes felt like some tragic farce, Orochimaru himself stepped out of the shadows. And wanted to talk.

It was like trying to tap dance in a mine field, talking with one of the most notorious ninja to have ever worn the Leaf. A ninja who apparently had less than perfectly altruistic intentions toward one of his students.

He'd known that having the last Uchiha on his team would mean protecting him and his kekkei-genkai from those who'd like to possess it; he just hadn't anticipated that it was something that the first major threat would come from one of the Sannin.

Kakashi didn't let himself relax when Orochimaru turned to leave, so he didn't tense when he paused and halfway turned back to him, those eerie yellow eyes focused on him again. "Haruno Sakura—she is a genjutsu type?"

"Why should it matter?" Kakashi countered warily.

A swift smile. "Curiosity. One shouldn't overlook unexpected treasures simply because they aren't what you set out to find. I expect it will be a difficult path for her. After all, so few role models to follow. So little you can teach her. So many other demands on your time. I wonder if anyone has told her that the two most recent genjutsu types of any note that this village has produced were Uchiha Itachi and myself? No?" he asked when Kakashi kept silent. "All ore is ugly. It only matters whether it's worth the effort to refine. If you can't be bothered, you should find someone who can."

"You?" Kakashi asked tightly.

That prompted that low, unsettling chuckle. "Not me. Some animals are too dangerous to raise."

And with that he was gone and Kakashi was left to wonder just what had happened in that Forest.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair and made his way back to the pit, crossing paths with the foreign-nin who'd been standing with Sakura. The boy, hands hidden by his too-long sleeves, was trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter. He glanced up at Kakashi as he passed and for the second time that day, he met citrine eyes. He pulled his hands away from his mouth long enough to say, "Onee-san bit her," before he dissolved into another fit of sniggering and disappeared down the hall.

He emerged onto the balcony just in time to hear the Suna-nin yelling for a medic. Their kunoichi, the one who'd been Sakura's opponent not more than twenty minutes ago, had lost the ability to talk and was swiftly losing consciousness.

Poison was the diagnosis of the attendant medic-nin, who swept her out of the arena to the murmurs of the watching crowd.

Just what the hell happened in that Forest? It that was the thought that occupied him throughout the rest of the exam, leaving him with just enough presence of mind to desultorily congratulate Naruto on his victory against Chouji and watch as Shino undermined the Suna puppetmaster's technique by the very simple, practical measure of setting his kikaichū to feast on the chakra strings needed to manipulate the puppets and then setting them to devour chakra from the fingers up. By the time he was shoulder-deep in writhing beetles, the Suna-nin had conceded the match.

Kakashi waited impatiently for the match-up for the next section to be announced and almost the instant they were finished, he herded his genin to the room the medic-nin had placed Sakura for treatment. It seemed like it was time for a discussion.

And if he had to make them sit vigil at Sakura's bedside until she was ready to participate in it, well, he was a little put out with all of them at the moment.