Chapter Five
Naruto and Sasuke trained steadily for a week under the watchful eye of Kakashi. Though they refused to admit it, having the grey-haired Jounin there helped since he always managed to give hints and tips that the boys' had overlooked and by the end of that week Sasuke had managed to catch up with the level of power Naruto had used that first day, and surpassed it.
The speed of his improvement almost made Naruto want to hit him…except that he himself was improving, though in different ways than Sasuke was.
Kakashi was late today; a first for the entire week, and Naruto was sitting with his back against the trunk of a large tree, his arms around himself to stay warm and his eyes closed as he tried to catch a few more moments of rest. Sasuke stood a few feet away, his eyes looking off into middle-space as he delved into his own thoughts. Naruto almost jumped out of his skin a while later when Sasuke spoke, breaking the silence.
"I want to train all day today," he said.
Naruto opened his eyes, his hand going to his chest where it felt like his heart had tried to leap out of it in fright, and stared at Sasuke, "what?"
Sasuke walked the few steps to where Naruto sat and dropped down next to him, one knee drawn up to his chest as he pushed Naruto over so they were sharing the tree trunk, "I'm getting sick of training until lunch time." He stated. "If this training is supposed to work on my endurance then I should be working towards fighting all day."
"So?" Naruto questioned and sunk slightly lower in his position, leaning towards Sasuke; he was warm.
"So," Sasuke explained, his voice tinged with irritation that Naruto was being so dense, "instead of putting your power up today, lower it so we can fight for longer."
"Oh," Naruto closed his eyes again. "Sure." He hadn't slept much the night before, the dreams he'd been getting on and off for a while now were beginning to increase and he had no less than three different ones the night before, ranging from frightening scenes of the Kyubi to random training.
"That won't be necessary." A voice said and Naruto opened his eyes and craned his head upwards to see their wayward teacher staring down at them from a branch above their heads. "Your training changes today."
Naruto stared at the fence that surrounded the Forest of Death then turned and stared at Kakashi again.
"We're going to train in there?" he said incredulously.
Kakashi rubbed at the side of his nose for a moment, "well, it is an ANBU training area, but Tsunade-sama agreed with me that the two of you could handle it." He got a glint in his eye and directed it at the two boys, "she's just as eager as me to see you two raise a rank," he paused, "unless you don't think you can handle it."
"Feh!" Naruto made a dismissive sound, not even gracing the comment with his customary boisterous yelling. He'd spent a lot of time in the Forest of Death thanks to the Chuunin exams he'd done. Admittedly only the first exam and the third exam had involved entering the forest, but between the two visits he'd clocked up nearly three weeks of time spent in there.
"What will we be doing?" Sasuke asked, his eyes watching Kakashi suspiciously.
Kakashi moved his hands to his pockets, "The training will be in mission format and will end if you either reach your goal, or we get to the end of the week; can't having you missing the Chuunin exam after all, that would defeat the purpose."
"Mission format?" Sasuke lifted an eyebrow.
"You will be given a scroll. Your 'mission' is to get that scroll safely to your assigned destination. Your only 'orders' are to get the scroll to your destination no matter what, and not to kill each other. If the scroll is taken from you, then you hunt it down and get it back. Check your weapons, you'll start soon."
"What do you mean 'don't kill each other'?" Naruto asked suspiciously.
"Oh? Didn't I mention?" Kakashi said, dropping to a sitting position on the ground and pulling his book out of his pocket, "You won't be working together, you'll be working against each other."
Naruto froze. That changed everything – Kakashi wanted them to survive for a week in the Forest of Death alone? And not just alone; but while playing a game of cat-and-mouse with a scroll?
"Fine." Sasuke agreed immediately and began checking his weapons. Naruto glared at him. Trust Mister Perfect to agree so quickly to something that could kill them. Great.
"Naruto, you'll enter the forest first." Kakashi said after a moment, not looking up from his book. "Sasuke will start after you in one hour."
Naruto glared at the man as he held up a rather mundane looking scroll and then snatched it and put it in his pouch.
"Head to the centre of the forest. If you make it there with the scroll, you win. Sasuke's job is to get the scroll from you and get it back to the outside of the forest. Have fun." Kakashi gestured negligently at the forest and Naruto stomped towards it, keeping his senses alert. It'd be just like Sasuke to steal the damned thing from him now and have Naruto running around the forest all day until he realised he didn't have it any more.
Despite his suspicions, he made it to the edge of the forest without Sasuke trying to sneak the scroll from him and when he looked back briefly he saw Kakashi hold up one finger.
One hour.
Naruto dived into the forest and started heading towards the centre.
"Stupid Forest! Stupid Kakashi! Stupid old hag!" Naruto swung upside down from a length of vine, his arms crossed over his chest as he contemplated his predicament. Most definitely it wasn't his fault. It was Kakashi and that old-hag-Hokage's fault that was currently swinging upside-down with all the blood rushing to his head, his foot stuck in a tangle vine with him gently swinging from side-to-side! He wasn't swinging there because he couldn't get up, he could get up in a second if he really wanted too, but he was thinking. And cursing, he was doing lots of cursing.
He'd been in the forest for three hours now, and he could already tell that Sasuke was hot on his heels. The dark-haired boy was very good at tracking, and Naruto's ability to hide his back trail wasn't all that great. In fact, his current predicament was because of Sasuke. He'd gained on Naruto quickly and had gotten so close Naruto was sure he could feel the other boy breathing down his neck. The only reason Sasuke hadn't caught him was because he'd employed a quick plan involving four clones, a rather large snake and a quick getaway through the treetops. He'd been paying so much attention to what was going on behind him though, that he'd missed a slippery branch ahead of him, had crashed through a patch of wet, slimy foliage, caught his foot in the vines and was now hanging here; thinking.
Sasuke hadn't followed him yet; if he had have then Naruto would have been staring straight at a superior smirk that would drive him half insane. No smirk had appeared though, so Naruto assumed Sasuke was following one of his clones.
Naruto chewed on his lower lip for a while as he thought and then pulled a kunai out of his leg holster and cut himself free, flipping as he tumbled through the air so that he landed relatively intact on a tree branch a few metres from where he'd been hanging. He had a plan, albeit a hasty one; and it was just in time. A small amount of Chakra returned to him as he landed and he glared. Sasuke had discovered he was chasing a clone.
Glancing around himself to get his bearings, Naruto once again ran off into the forest.
Sasuke kept pace with Naruto as he moved.
He'd discovered the clone trick quickly enough and had backtracked to where he'd been led off in the wrong direction and scouted around. He'd found Naruto's real trail without much effort and had swiftly caught up to the blond; now he was trailing him until they reached a point that would be more advantageous to stealing the scroll.
As they raced through the trees, Sasuke's eyes raked over Naruto's form, noting many things in his quick survey. Naruto was filthy. How he'd managed to end up covered head-to-toe in mud, and some sort of greenish slime, when they'd only been in the forest for three hours was beyond Sasuke.
He noted other things during his inspection. Naruto's forehead protector had been pulled down slightly over his left eye to staunch the blood flow from a minor cut, though some of the blood had trickled down the side of the blond's face and disappeared into the collar of his jacket, and the left leg of his orange pants had a small tear in it revealing an already healing scratch beneath. Essentially, Naruto was a mess.
"Baka." Sasuke muttered the word to himself and jumped into the branches on another tree, dodging away from one of Naruto's quick checks around the area.
The blond had been keeping an eye out behind him, doing pretty well in hiding his back trail from Sasuke as he moved and setting a couple of traps; none of it would help him though, since Sasuke already knew where he was.
Sasuke stopped moving suddenly, becoming completely still, blending into his surroundings and automatically using the jutsu he'd learnt only six-months ago during the time Naruto had been in a coma to hide his chakra pattern from the boy who had unexpectedly stopped and begun to look around himself.
A moment or two of observation revealed that Naruto was looking for something in particular and Sasuke decided he'd had enough waiting. Whatever Naruto was looking for would have to wait, it was time he went and got the scroll from the boy.
Moving quickly, Sasuke threaded his way through the trees until he was standing directly behind Naruto and dipped his hand into the blond's pouch, pulling out the scroll, and then retreated again to lean easily against a nearby tree.
"Ahhhh! When the hell did you get here!?" Naruto yelled, almost slipping from his perch on a dead log that was poking up out of the ground, and pointed at Sasuke. "Give that back!"
Sasuke lifted an eyebrow. He'd already put the scroll in a safe place, Naruto was getting quicker if he could tell that Sasuke had already taken it. Sasuke ignored Naruto's shouts and asked a question of his own.
"What happened to you?"
Naruto glared. "None of your business."
Sasuke's lips twitched. So he'd slipped then; probably because he wasn't looking where he was going.
"Are you hurt?" He couldn't help but ask; Naruto didn't look hurt and Sasuke had observed him long enough to establish that if there had have been anything more serious than the scratch on his head, it had healed already – but he still had to ask.
"I'm fine." Naruto said and crossed his arms over his chest, "Now give me the damned scroll back." He demanded.
"No." Sasuke said simply, deciding not to bother trying to deny that he'd taken it, "The point, dobe, is for me to take it from you. If you want it back, come get it."
With a flick of his wrist, he pulled the scroll out from where he'd hidden it, twirled it around his fingers briefly and then secreted it away again. "Try to catch me before I get to the edge of the forest. This training won't be any fun if I complete it in less than four hours."
Naruto growled under his breath as Sasuke disappeared into the trees again, taking the scroll with him. Arrogant bastard.
He waited.
Then waited some more.
And then held out his right hand, catching the scroll as it dropped from above followed quickly by one of his clones who gave him a cheeky salute before disappearing.
That trick wasn't going to last long and so Naruto shoved the scroll down his top and simply ran for it. Sasuke would cotton on quickly to what Naruto had done and he didn't want to be nearby when the dark-haired boy figured it out.
Laughing under his breath, Naruto dodged his way further into the forest and began to work on a new plan.
Forest of Death – Day Two
Naruto had had a restless night. He'd barely slept and every two or three hours he'd felt the need to move from his current position in case Sasuke was still stalking him. It was fun.
Dawn, or what he could see of it through the trees, had him skipping over a pathway of stones poking out of a small river that was flowing in his way and despite the fact that his head felt like it was filled with fluff and air…he was humming happily to himself.
His first course for the morning was to find food, and luckily food dwelt below him at this moment. Threading their way through the rocks Naruto was hopping around, schools of fish lazed amongst the river plants. Naruto had already stripped of most of his clothing and was now only waiting for an opportunity to slip quietly into the water so he could tickle a few of the fish out of the water for his breakfast.
He'd mastered the art for fish tickling over the many missions where he'd been forced to do it over the years and so he soon had two fish gutted, scaled, skewered and merrily roasting over his fire.
He peered at them, turned one so it wouldn't burn, and then pulled his clothing back on, moving the scroll from where he'd had it hidden in his shorts as he did so. The fire and the fish were risky, if Sasuke were anywhere nearby he'd know where Naruto was instantly, but as Naruto settled back down and began to eat the first fish, he didn't care. It was warm, perfectly cooked (on one side), and filling. He wasn't interrupted.
When he finished he hurled the remains of his fish into the river, kicked out the fire and moved the second fish so that it would still benefit a little from the leftover warmth, turned, cheekily saluted one of the trees nearby, and then disappeared into the forest.
A few moments later, Sasuke dropped out of the tree and picked up his breakfast, smiling faintly to himself.
"…Baka."
Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!
Naruto was running. Running very fast. Who knew bugs got that big? Seriously? Worse, who knew they liked to live in hoards in apparently empty clearings?! There were currently at least seven many-legged, many-eyed things after him. He really, really hoped they didn't eat meat and that they were only chasing after him because he'd fallen out of a tree onto one of them.
Behind him there was a sudden bone chilling, inhuman screeching sound and Naruto slid to a stop, spinning around to see what new thing was getting ready to assault him. …There was nothing.
Literally.
The giant bugs were gone.
Naruto dropped into a defensive stance and then moved back the way he had come, rounding a large fallen tree that he'd barely registered navigating over when he'd been fleeing. He stopped and stared.
Most of the bugs were already dead, or dying. Only two were still up and fighting…and they were fighting Sasuke.
Well damn it, what was he doing here?
Naruto glared and dropped into a sitting position, watching as Sasuke fried the living hell out of the final two bug-things with a well-thrown fire jutsu. Damn that bastard, he was always looking for opportunities to show off; Naruto hadn't needed help. The blond's glare grew fiercer.
"Oi, dobe; are you injured?" Sasuke moved so he was standing over Naruto and Naruto glared up at him.
"We're supposed to be fighting each other, you know! Not helping!"
Sasuke smirked and shoved his hands in his pockets, "I wasn't saving you." He said, "I was saving the scroll."
"Bastard!" Naruto leapt to his feet and swung his fist at Sasuke, determined to wipe the arrogant smirk off his face, but suddenly found himself facing the other way, his arms being held behind him and his face pressed against a tree. "Itai!"
"That's no way to thank your saviour, you know." Naruto could positively feel the smirk aimed at the back of his head.
"Shut up, bastard! I didn't need your help!"
"Of course not." The smirk had grown wider; Naruto just knew it. "But since I did help, I should get a reward."
The words were breathed into Naruto's ear as Sasuke had moved so he was pressed flush up against the blond and the hand that wasn't holding Naruto's arms behind his back had snaked up under Naruto's jacket and was moving across his stomach.
"Nani!?" Nani!?
"Well, it's only fair." Sasuke insisted, his voice low and so close that his lips brushed against the shell of Naruto's ear. The hand moved slightly higher and then suddenly disappeared. "This will do."
Naruto was abruptly released and he spun around in time to see Sasuke flip the scroll in his hand and smirk again.
"Try not to get into any more trouble." Sasuke said and then walked into the forest, putting the scroll away as he moved.
Naruto stood still, his back against the tree behind him as he stared, wide eyed, at where the other boy had disappeared. Slowly he lifted a hand to push his protector higher on his forehead and realised that, unaccountably (since he hadn't done any proper fighting), his cheeks were incredibly hot.
Sasuke disappeared into the forest quickly, taking to the trees the first moment it became convenient and began to head back towards the outside. How long would it take Naruto to get his wits back and begin to chase him? Probably not long. Sasuke felt his lips twitch in an almost smile; and when Naruto did start chasing he would be mad.
Still, it was worth it, if only because of the bewildered expression Naruto had sported; or better yet, the intense flush.
Sasuke checked the scroll was still in his pocket at least seven times as he ran through the trees. It was only after he'd been running for nearly two hours that he finally accepted that Naruto hadn't managed to pull a trick like the last one and that the scroll was going to stay where it was. Now he just had to remain hidden.
Forest of Death – Day Three
Sasuke splashed his face with cold water from a stream, letting his fingers trail back into his hair to get it out of the way, and then wiped away the excess water with his sleeve.
Slightly more revived, he retied his headband around his forehead and stood up, his ears alert for any kind of movement around him. Naruto still hadn't caught up to him, at least not that he knew of, and he was having to fight with himself over the urge to double back and check that the dobe hadn't gotten himself into more trouble, and the fact that he had to follow his 'mission' orders.
He tapped his fingertips against his upper leg for a while and then shook his head. He'd follow his orders and head towards the edge of the forest, but if Naruto hadn't shown up by lunchtime then Sasuke was going to double back a little.
After all, he reasoned, this would be pointless as a training exercise if one of them failed to return.
It was revenge, Naruto decided. Sasuke had been getting revenge for the entire shower incident while fulfilling his mission by getting the scroll.
Well fine. Naruto could handle that; but like hell he'd let Sasuke get away with the scroll.
…Problem was, he had sort of lost him.
He had managed to follow Sasuke's trail as it led up into the trees, and had even gotten as far as finding where the boy had camped for the night; but not far beyond that the trail disappeared. Now Naruto was a little lost.
Just a little.
Plopping himself down where he stood on a tree branch, Naruto rested his head on his hand and thought. If he were Sasuke, what would he have done once he reached that stream? He had already searched up and down the banks in case Sasuke had used the water to mask his tracks. He hadn't.
Naruto had also examined just about every tree in the vicinity for any tell-tale marks saying Sasuke had gone back to his preferred tree branch road. Nothing.
So where had he gone?!
A few minutes later, Naruto dropped from his branch and began to stalk his way around the stream's tree line. If Sasuke hadn't taken the treetops, and he hadn't taken the river, then there was only one way he could have gone; he'd walked.
Sasuke stopped his headlong run along the treetops and, with a quick look around to check for wild creatures, dropped down to the forest floor and paused.
There was an hour to go till lunchtime, but Naruto still hadn't shown himself.
He wasn't worried.
…Okay, he was worried. Naruto had a bad habit of getting himself into the most insane situations (the giant bugs from the day before being point and case of that fact) and Sasuke found himself finding it only too easy to think up reasons why the blond hadn't shown himself yet.
It took him a moment to realise, but his feet had already begun to take him back the way he'd come. Lips tight with annoyance as he attempted to ignore the faint twinges of worry that tightened his chest, Sasuke headed in the wrong direction for completing his 'mission' and began to search for the missing dobe.
Naruto sat in the shelter of a long dead, much nature mangled, tree and gnawed on a piece of fruit he'd gathered earlier that morning. It was some time passed lunch now so he felt he deserved the rest for food…even if he hadn't found Sasuke yet.
Bastard! Had he already reached the edge of the forest? Was that why Naruto couldn't catch up to him? But he hadn't thought they were that close to the edges, he'd been heading steadily inwards after all.
Naruto growled and chucked the large seed from the centre of his eaten fruit out of his hiding place. Sasuke had to be hiding…or something. As far as Naruto could tell, his path had been fairly steady, no deviations and no tricks. Even Sasuke couldn't keep up a fake trail this long, so it had to be the right one. Naruto was just being slow, that was the problem.
Naruto blinked suddenly as something about his surroundings suddenly registered to him. He could here growling…and snuffling. Sinister growling and snuffling.
Naruto poked his head out of his hole.
And then poked it straight back in again and pushed himself as far backwards as his hidey-hole would allow him to go.
That was one big cow.
At least he assumed it was a cow.
Did cows have tusks though? And razor-sharp, lethal-looking saliva-dripping teeth? And claws, he was sure he'd seen claws.
Another thought occurred to him, rather logical considering what he'd already noticed. Did giant cows with tusks, teeth and claws eat meat? Cows normally ate grass, right? Right?
But these were ANBU cows (since they were in an ANBU training area); maybe ANBU cows ate meat. They looked like they ate meat.
Oh hell! It was coming closer to where Naruto was hidden; he could hear it.
How good was a cow's sense of smell? Did ANBU cows have super noses like they had super teeth?
The snuffling grew louder. Looked like he was about to find out.
Naruto stayed as still as he could, every muscle in his body tense as he waited for the super ANBU cow to rip through his thin protection and rip him to shreds.
And then the cow swore.
Naruto blinked.
The cow swore again and then there was a loud crash, like if something big and heavy had come crashing down out of the sky, hitting every branch on the way down and collecting a few vines, leaves, random birds nests and bugs as it went.
Then there was silence.
Then the cow screamed in rage.
Hearing the sounds of the cow suddenly moving away Naruto pushed himself forward and looked carefully out of his hiding place.
He swore.
It was Sasuke.
Sasuke, clutching desperately at a tree branch as he attempted to swing himself properly up onto it with only one arm while attempting to stay out of the way of an enraged super ANBU cow.
It would have been amusing but for two things.
Sasuke's grip was slick with blood and he was in great danger of falling, and his right arm was broken, hanging uselessly at his side.
Naruto swore again. Judging from the look of him, the thing that had been swearing and falling hadn't been the cow, it had been Sasuke. Naruto launched himself out of his hiding place almost immediately, grabbed a large, solid looking stick as he flew passed it and threw himself at the devil cow, smacking it on the rump as hard as he could with the stick.
The stick snapped in half the instant it connected and Naruto dropped what was left in disgust as he stepped backwards. He might have spared a thought towards the uselessness of the stick, and in fact would have ranted at it in any other situation, however right then he was suddenly looking into the red glinting eyes of an enraged super ANBU devil cow that had just been smacked in the rump with a stick. Understandably only one thought crossed his mind.
Oh-my-fucking-god-I'm-going-to-die!
He ran for it. With an irate cow nearly breathing down his neck, Naruto moved faster than he ever thought he could, scrambled up a tree and clung desperately to a branch as the crazy beast began to rip at the trunk with its tusks, shaking the tree violently with every impact.
What the hell was this thing? Rabid?!
Naruto clutched his branch a little more desperately and then remembered Sasuke. He looked across the clearing…and swore again.
Sasuke was on the ground now, barely managing to keep his feet, his back pressed up against the tree he'd been attempting to get into earlier, and his eyes were wide and slightly dazed.
Fuck…he must have hit his head.
Glancing back down at the devil cow, Naruto frowned. Stupid Sasuke, now his only choice was to figure out how to kill this thing – he wouldn't be able to check on Sasuke's injuries, or get them both to safety, if he didn't.
Killer tusks, teeth and claws armed the thing from the front, and skin thick enough to have snapped his stick earlier guarded the rest of it. What the hell was he supposed to do?
Naruto made a sound halfway between irritation and abject fear before letting go of his branch and engaging in a controlled fall out of the tree. His hands moved, creating seals, as he fell and soon there were eight more of himself falling with him.
He hit the ground hard; ducking into a roll as he landed and, moving right passed the hell bovine, let his clones distract the beast while he headed straight for Sasuke.
"Sasuke?" he demanded, urgently.
Sasuke's head jerked up and he blinked at Naruto, struggling to make his eyes focus. "I…I think I hit my head." He said, very slowly and precisely. "I can't stand up without everything spinning."
Naruto winced, not just from Sasuke words. Already three clones were down.
"We have to move." He said, "Now. That devil cow will run out of clones soon and I don't want to be the next thing it sees."
Sasuke managed a slight nod and pushed himself away from the tree, immediately staggering into Naruto and clutching at him to keep from falling.
Naruto resisted the urge to swear again. Now that he was close enough he could see that Sasuke had a lot more injuries than he'd first suspected. The blood all over his left hand and arm was from a cut in his side and he was covered in other cuts and livid purple marks that spoke of heavy impact. There was also a rather deep cut across one of his temples that was sluggishly oozing blood down his face and neck and soaking into the collar of his shirt.
Fuck.
"What the hell happened to you?" Naruto demanded as he pulled Sasuke's good arm over his shoulders and began to drag the other boy out of the clearing.
Sasuke stared fixedly at his feet, concentrating on putting one in front of the other without crashing to the ground and taking Naruto with him.
"Fell. Landed on it. Bit of a bitch to fight, nearly ripped my arm off." He said finally.
"You fought that thing?!" Naruto said and glanced over his shoulder as he felt another clone disappear. They'd need to take to the trees soon, or they'd never get out of the things reach. How he was supposed to do that while gripping onto Sasuke though, was a mystery – this guy was heavier than he looked.
"Di'n't have a choice." Sasuke's speech was beginning to slur and Naruto looked at him in concern, "Coul'n't get up into the trees. To far. Ha-Had to fight till I got close enough. Tough."
Sasuke looked like he was about to pass out. Naruto shook him slightly.
"Oi! Don't go to sleep. You might have a concussion or something. Can't you heal yourself up a bit?"
Sasuke snapped his head up, forcing himself to keep his unfocused eyes open. "Can't. Need to conse'trate."
Well that wasn't good. Naruto suddenly hissed in a breath and stopped walking. There was only one clone left and they hadn't gotten far enough away from the clearing at all.
"Sasuke, I'm going to jump into the trees. Try and hold on, and keep your balance." He stared at the dark-haired boy whose head was sagging again, "…Or something."
Pulling Sasuke closer to him, he wrapped both of his arms around the other boy and then channelled chakra into his legs and jumped.
It was only by luck and by desperately channelling chakra into his back to stick to the tree that kept them where they landed. Breathing heavily and trying to untense his muscles, Naruto stood on a sturdy branch and stayed where he was with his back Chakra-stuck to the tree trunk behind him. Sasuke was lying limply in his arms, head resting awkwardly on Naruto's shoulder.
He'd passed out.
Naruto resisted the urge to swear for the millionth time in as many minutes and slowly sunk into a sitting position. His last clone had disappeared as they'd jumped and he could feel the Chakra of the devil cow coming closer. It was probably following the smell of blood.
Well this was just great. Naruto readjusted his and Sasuke's positions, wrapping both his legs around Sasuke's waist so he could keep the other boy in the tree without his hands and spared a glance towards the ground. The cow-thing appeared a few moment's later.
He needed a plan. No, he really needed a plan. As in really, really, really needed a plan. Maybe if he ignored it it'd go away?
The cow-thing came to a stop directly where he and Sasuke had jumped and began to growl slightly, snuffling at the ground. Naruto held his breath.
He was fairly sure, later on, that the damned thing would have given up and left if it hadn't have been for one stupid, stupid little thing. Something that they couldn't avoid and that Naruto, stupidly, hadn't thought of.
A drop of blood, from one of Sasuke's many wounds, dropped onto the things head.
Instantly it 's head came up and it's beady little eyes had rolled upwards and spotted them in their tree. It attacked.
Naruto grit his teeth as he focused on holding Sasuke securely and on keeping his Chakra flow constant so he didn't suddenly un-stick from the tree and tumble on the things head. Why wouldn't it just go away?!
Probably because Sasuke was injured, wild animals sensed easy meals in wounded creatures, didn't they?
Naruto glared over Sasuke's shoulder and down at the psycho super cow. Well like hell he was going to let it eat Sasuke; he was going to smack that thing from here to next week and then back again and then he was going to eat it!
Naruto wiggled his arms slightly, pulling Sasuke as tight against his chest as he could, and then began to make signs behind Sasuke's back. Two clones suddenly popped into being on the tree-limb beside them.
Instantly they dropped into sitting positions, making themselves secure and then Naruto carefully transferred Sasuke over to them.
"Don't you dare drop him!" he commanded fiercely to the clones and then threw himself out of the tree. He landed right on the devil cows back.
"Fuck!" Was about all he managed to yell as the beast began to wildly buck around, bashing itself against the surrounding trees, trampling foliage and swinging it's head around and almost taking Naruto out with it's long tusks twice. Well that hadn't been a good idea.
Naruto launched himself off of the thing and clung to another tree for a moment and concentrated, drawing out his and the Kyubi's Chakra. No more mister nice ninja, he was going to pummel that thing into mincemeat!
The fight didn't go quite the way he'd planned it and by the time he'd finally managed to kill the thing with a Rasengan smack in the nose, he'd lost a lot of Chakra, sprained his ankle, earned a spectacular bruise that covered the entire left side of his body and completely ruined his jacket.
Breathing hard, Naruto kicked the dead cow in the side and then slumped to the ground in exhaustion. A moment later his two clones, carrying Sasuke, dropped down next to him.
Naruto nodded at them to put Sasuke down and as soon as they had they disappeared, their Chakra returning to Naruto and helping him find the energy to sit up and begin to rip what was left of his jacket to pieces and begin to bandage Sasuke's more obvious wounds.
The dark-haired boy had stopped bleeding some time during the fight, which Naruto was grateful for, and so it was now only a matter of finding water to clean him up a bit.
That was if Naruto could make him wake up.
"Bastard!" Naruto gripped Sasuke's left shoulder and shook him, "Damn it, bastard! Wake up. You shouldn't be sleeping right now and we need to do something about your arm. Sasuke! Sasuke!"
It took nearly ten full minutes of shaking, prodding and eventual cautious poking at his injuries to get Sasuke to fuzzily open his eyes. Naruto ignored the sense of absolute relief he felt and shook him a little more and forced him to sit up.
"Come on, bastard. Wake up properly."
Sasuke blinked more but obediently sat up, wincing as he did so.
"I feel," he said after a few moments of half sitting up and half laying on Naruto, "like I've been hit by a herd of horses."
"Close." Naruto said and thumped the carcass behind them, "No worries though; I hit it back." His expression changed and he carefully helped Sasuke sit up further. "We need to do something with your arm, we can't leave it like that."
Sasuke looked down at his arm in surprise, his eyes brows lifting as he noticed that it was most certainly on an angle it shouldn't be. "I can't feel a thing."
"Good." Naruto moved the arm slightly and Sasuke's eyes suddenly rolled back in his head and he went limp. "Err…Sasuke?" he shook the boy again, "Sasuke?!"
Sasuke came around again a few moments later and Naruto glared at him.
"I thought you said you couldn't feel it!"
Sasuke scowled, his eyes clearer now and his normal mood returning, "I couldn't, till you moved it."
Naruto glared back and changed his position, "Well I'm going to have to move it again; it needs to be set. I got some wood while you were taking your little beauty rest so we can snap it back into place any time now."
Sasuke grit his teeth, even as his eyes narrowed at Naruto's terminology, and he leaned back against the body of the hell cow, his left hand coming up to gently hold his right arm and to brace it. "Hurry up then." He commanded.
Forest of Death – Day Four
Sasuke had passed out again as soon as Naruto had told him it was alright to let go of his arm and had stayed that way for the rest of the night and for the entire morning afterwards, and for part of the afternoon as well, despite Naruto's best efforts to make events otherwise.
By the time Sasuke finally came around, Naruto had located a stream, had cleaned every loose piece of fabric he could find, cleaned Sasuke's wounds and re-bandaged them, given himself a good cleaning and checked his own wounds, which were healing much to slowly as far as he was concerned, and then used a kunai to hack the devil cow to pieces and started cooking it.
He relished every single moment of it, and had been delighted to find that roasted over a fire it tasted wonderful. When Sasuke had finally woken up and had something to eat, he'd agreed.
"How far away from the edge of the forest do you think we are?" Naruto asked as he watched Sasuke slowly poking at his various wounds and bruises from across the small fire he'd made to cook the hell beast over.
Sasuke looked up at him slowly, careful of his head, "Barely a day, if we were perfectly healthy. Probably three the way we are."
Naruto cursed and dropped his gaze to the fire and poked it with a stick. "Kakashi-Sensei isn't going to be happy; we'll miss the exam. We can't enter injured."
Sasuke made a sound of agreement.
Naruto continued to stare into the fire. The flames were sort of hypnotising, though that might have been because he hadn't slept since the day before. He'd had to stay up the entire time that Sasuke was passed out and even now he didn't trust himself to sleep on the off chance they were attacked by something. Sasuke wouldn't be able to do much, in the condition he was in.
"We should start moving." Naruto said after a while, ripping his eyes away from the enticing glow at the end of the stick he was playing with, "We'll get into as much trouble staying here as we will moving, so we might as well move."
Sasuke nodded agreement and pulled himself slowly to his feet.
Naruto had had the foresight to cook as much of the devil cow meat as possible and so, while Sasuke carefully put out the fire, Naruto wrapped as much of the meat as they could carry in the freshly clean, and still slightly damp rags of his jacket and they put it in their pouches. Naruto doubted they'd be able to do much in the way of hunting as they made their way out of the forest, so this food would be all they had till then.
Leaving the rest of the carcass behind, Naruto and Sasuke began to stumble their way through the forest; Naruto doing most of the scouting work as they moved. Sasuke still looked hazy around the edges, even if when he'd woken up he'd seemed to be no where near as badly off as he'd been the night before; Naruto spent as much time watching Sasuke as he did their surroundings.
That was probably how come they ended up in the situation that they did.
The sun had been beginning to go down and around them the trees had begun to thin. They knew they weren't anywhere near the edge of the forest so they'd moved carefully forward in hopes of a clearing and that's exactly what they'd found.
It wasn't so much a clearing as a large patch of open ground, littered with rocks and boulders. Naruto's overstrained mind managed to wonder, for a fleeting second, where the rocks had come from before they had staggered out into the clearing to look around. Everything had looked clear. There hadn't been a single beast, monster, bug, bird or even a squirrel around. That probably should have warned them, and if they had have been in better condition, it might have.
As it was they decided it was a better place than any to stop and they slouched down between two rocks, huddled together for a little warmth, chewed half-heartedly at some of the meat they'd brought with them, and gone to sleep.
Rather, Sasuke had gone to sleep. Naruto still persistently refused too. He forced his eyes to stay open as Sasuke's head fell on his shoulder and he forced himself to look around them for danger, ignoring his body's insistent screaming for rest.
That was what saved their lives.
The night was well under way and Naruto was in an iron battle over the weight of his eyelids when he suddenly saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his eyes fully open immediately and moved his head to look around them. His eyes met another pair, shining yellow out of the darkness. He went completely still.
It was about that moment that he realised they were completely surrounded and as he carefully turned his head around, other sets of backlit yellow eyes appeared from the darkness. Naruto poked Sasuke in the side. Hard.
Eyelashes fluttered against the side of Naruto's neck and he scowled, poking Sasuke in the side again.
He risked talking, his voice sounding awfully loud in the deadening silence around them. "Sasuke. Fuck it. Sasuke, wake up! We're surrounded."
Sasuke's eyes flashed open in a second and he went completely tense. "By what?" he asked quietly.
"Damned if I know!" Naruto said with annoyance, "All I can see is yellow eyes."
Sasuke slowly lifted his head from Naruto's shoulder and both of their heads snapped forward as something stepped out of the darkness, growling.
It was at that moment that the weak excuse for a moon decided to flash out from behind a cloud and the two ninja were greeted by the sight of the largest cats they'd ever seen, a breed of much overfed tiger, who were glaring down at them from the rocks that rose up around them with feral menace.
Naruto didn't even bother swearing. He was beyond swearing. He was beyond shock as well. His body felt like a lead weight, keeping him firmly stuck in place and about all he could manage at that moment was to raise an eyebrow half-heartedly. He was staring death in the face, and for some bizarre reason…he didn't care.
But then Sasuke moved slightly and Naruto seemed to snap out of his lethargy. Death might not be bothering him at the moment, but obviously Sasuke wasn't going to be to pleased with the idea. Naruto pushed himself away from his rock and staggered to his feet as the predatory yellow eyes around them tracked his every movement.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sasuke demanded as Naruto positioned himself between Sasuke and the giant tigers, digging some kunai out of his weapons pouch.
"Fighting." Naruto said as he forced his tired body to stand up straight, "Stay still."
"Like hell I…"
"Don't move!" Naruto snapped, "You can't fight in your condition, you can barely stand."
"Neither can you."
Naruto paused then shrugged, "More than you." He said quietly and turned his head slightly as the animals around him began to move, closing in.
The first one attacked fast and from the left. Stepping backwards, Naruto managed to dodge most of it's attack, suffering only a scratch along the length of his left arm, and he returned the favour by slicing the kunai in his right hand down the cats side as it passed him.
Hot blood dripped down over his hand, warming him slightly and making his hand sticky. The great cat screamed its pain angrily and whirled as soon as it landed, flying through the air again at Naruto, this time with better aiming.
Naruto hit the ground, a weight atop him for a moment before it scrambled off and pulled him up. Sasuke had knocked him over to avoid the tiger's leap. Naruto glared at him.
"I thought I told you not to move." He growled.
Sasuke ignored him and pulled his own kunai out.
"You can't fight them alone." He said simply and threw a kunai into the darkness. He was rewarded by an angry, pained sound.
Naruto didn't even have time to reply. He couldn't keep up with the fight, he was barely managing to survive it and after a while he became painfully aware that the beasts were playing with him. Playing with their food before they ate it.
He was leaking blood from a dozen wounds, probably more, and his ankle, which had healed enough for him to walk properly, had been sprained again because of a misstep. He'd almost completely lost Sasuke during the fighting and now his one, single minded thought was too get his way through the endless sea of enemies and find him.
These cats, these animals were probably playing with Sasuke, just as they were playing with Naruto, but the blond had to be sure. If Sasuke was still alive there was a chance… Naruto had to figure out a way to get Sasuke out alive; he just had to find him first.
And so he fought. And he fought. And he struggled. And eventually he had managed to gain some headway in the direction he'd last seen Sasuke fighting.
It was a pure fluke that Naruto happened to look to his right at that moment. Also it was only luck that made one of the great cats move away from where it had been standing to reveal Sasuke, one hand clutched over the reopened wound in his side, with blood oozing from between his fingers and seeping from a set of cuts that had ripped parallel wounds across his chest. As far as Naruto could tell, Sasuke's shirt was more damaged than his chest, but in the darkness all he could see was blood.
The cats were tiring of their game by now, and Naruto knew it. Of the two of them at that moment, Sasuke was the weakest. Naruto saw the flash of movement. The creature heading towards Sasuke wasn't playing this time. Naruto moved.
He hit Sasuke in the side, balling him over and into the middle of a tight ring of high rocks. The cat that had been heading at Sasuke stopped its attack and Naruto scrambled to his knees, forcing Sasuke to stay on his back as he straddled him and looked out from behind the rocks.
He needed to do something, they couldn't continue like this. He needed something that would take them all out together, something that meant they wouldn't have to fight any more, something strong, something…something.
A fire jutsu. The thought came to him, probably because of what he'd been studying in Sasuke's scrolls lately. Animals hate fire, right?! A fire jutsu would save them. A fire jutsu. Fire…
Naruto closed his eyes and pulled out as much of the Kyubi's power as he could manage.
Fire…
Sasuke couldn't breath. Naruto was sitting on his ribs, making it difficult for him to inhale, but after a moment of struggling he managed to free himself enough to take a gasp of air.
He'd been standing against a tallish rock, watching as one of the large cats had begun to run at him, when he'd suddenly been tackled from the side and knocked into the position he was in.
He started up at the boy sitting on him, and ignored the myriad aches, pains and agonies around his body. Naruto had his eyes closed, his expression blank. What the hell was he doing? Did it matter?
They were completely surrounded and if Naruto had even twice the Chakra and stamina left that Sasuke did; it still wouldn't have been enough to save them from even one of the creatures that had attacked them. Struggling was futile; they were going to die.
The admittance wasn't easy for Sasuke, he still had things to do, things to learn. He had strength to gain and above all, he had to kill Itachi – but he knew a hopeless situation when he saw one. There was nothing they could do.
Sasuke continued to stare up at Naruto who had begun to move his hands in a complicated set of jutsu that Sasuke didn't recognise a single one of. Sasuke ignored the signs and focused on Naruto's face. The boy looked, of all things, relaxed. His long eyelashes gently brushed against his cheeks as they flickered slightly; his forehead protector had come loose and had been lost somewhere so his fringe was hanging down low and would probably have been in Naruto's eyes, if it hadn't been stuck in place by something. Probably blood.
As Sasuke watched, the already pronounced whisker marks on Naruto's cheeks grew wider, becoming more like strips.
Other than that, there wasn't a single other mark on Naruto's face. Sasuke let his lips twitch upwards slightly. If this was how he was going to die, he decided, then so long as he could see Naruto maybe it wasn't so bad.
That's when Naruto's eyes flashed open.
Sasuke started, his own eyes going wide.
Naruto's eyes were red, deep red. That was fine, he had begun to grow accustomed to that; however the consciousness that looked down at Sasuke out of Naruto's eyes…wasn't Naruto.
Sasuke had barely a moment to contemplate that thought, before Naruto turned slightly and the world exploded.
And over and above that explosion was one thing: Naruto's voice.
"Kinjutsu! Hibashira Zenkai!"
The world was wreathed in fire.