15 : Sakura

By: Kokoro Kakera HP ^^

Disclaimer: Naruto, (Manga, anime, products, etc.), belongs to Kishimoto Masashi

Author's Notes:
I am aware of the fact that 14 was painfully short! Sorry. Sakura's chapter is much longer though! (And hopefully written a bit better if I've learned anything). I hope it's worth the wait and your time!
Music time again! Taku Iwasaki strikes again! This time with the first GetBackers Ost CD!!! *_* Good music again, but then, let's not kid ourselves. This guy is a genius!!! Creating the Read or Die soundtrack, Rurouni Kenshin OAV soundtracks and Witch Hunter Robin soundtracks... *_* He was meant to be worshipped.
Editors = Greatness ^_^
Taku Iwasaki = GREATNESS surpassing most

Notes:
Kunoichi - Female ninja

"Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun!?" Sakura yelled.

"Don't bother. He can't see you, nor you him. This powerful genjutsu obstructs a person's sight of their true surroundings." Behind Sakura, Toru pulled out a sword from the sheathe at his waist as he crept towards her. "You will never see him again." He whispered into her ear. He swung the blade up and cut cleanly through her from hip to shoulder. He licked the sharp edge of his weapon and grimaced. It tasted like dirt. The kawarimi returned its original form, turning into soil as it crumbled. "Clever."

'This isn't good. He's stronger than I am and probably faster as well.' Sakura scanned him critically as he moved again. 'Perhaps there's a weakness I can't see?'

"Bunshin no jutsu!" Four clones of Sakura appeared and surrounded Toru immediately.

"Is this a joke? Using such a simple jutsu..." He brandished his weapon confidently. "Well, whatever. The end result will be the same." Having said so, he proceeded to cut down the clones with seemingly practiced ease until only one person stood before him. He stepped forward menacingly, flipping the sword in his hand and holding it at ready again.

Sakura backed up quickly and a startled expression came over her face when her back hit a tree. "You're trapped!" He shoved the sharp tip of his weapon through her stomach into the tree. Toru was given a fleeting glimpse of Sakura's eyes widening before she disappeared in a small cloud of smoke. "This one's a bunshin too-!?" A string of whispered words from the rear alerted his attention. He wasn't given any time to see what it was though. A sharp shove came from behind and caused Toru to drop the sword while he threw his hands out to brace himself. The second his hands made contact with the wood, kunais were forced through them. "Shit! You little bitch!" He tried to pull his hands from the tree, but found his attempts painfully fruitless. "What did you do!?" He snarled.

"I put a seal on your hands. It's useless to try escaping it." Curses flew from Toru's mouth in quick succession.

A small scroll end protuding from Toru's bag caught Sakura's attention. Ignoring his outraged yells and struggles, Sakura cautiously moved forward. She took a hold of the roll of paper and pulled it out. A strange symbol was written on its side; the only indication of what its contents were. It would be risky to just open it. Whatever was written within the scroll could be hazardous to the one who opened it. Sakura didn't want to take her chances.

"What's in this scroll?" Sakura asked. "Some kind of jutsu?"

'The cause and cure for my arm?'

The pinned ninja spat at her and retreated into a stony silence. It was obvious that he wouldn't tell her anything. Sakura gingerly peeled the edges of the scroll open and opened it quickly. It fluttered and opened with a crisp snap. As a test to see what the scroll contained, Sakura had opened it facing Toru.

Nothing happened.

Turning it around to face her she allowed her eyes to scan the contents, satisfied that it wouldn't cause her any harm to do so. "Meeting place..." She read, all the while keeping tabs on her restrained opponent. She tried to read quickly, knowing full well that her seal was only temporary and wasn't that strong in the first place. It was lucky that she had been aware of her seal's limits.

"Your pathetic seal isn't strong enough to hold me!" Toru ripped his hands away from the trunk they'd been trapped on and threw an arm back in an ark. At the last second Sakura pulled back, tightly squeezing the scroll in her hands.

Toru, eyes widened almost impossibly wide with the excitement he felt at the propect of cutting up the kunoichi, took less than a second to yank his sword from the ground and swing it at her head. Sakura ducked right away and was missed by a hair's width. The wind whistled almost painfully in her right ear as the sharp metal edge whizzed past it. Toru switched his grip on the sword and swung his previous attack in reverse. Sakura gritted her teeth tightly and veered violently to the right. She felt her knee protest at the sudden change of direction at such a high speed and she prayed that it wouldn't give out on her. A small slit appeared on her chest, revealed by the slight falling of loose cloth that had been cut from her shirt. Biting her lip, Sakura surveyed the wound and felt thankful that it wasn't deeper. Reacting quickly, she performed the kawarimi jutsu and pulled out a kunai from her bag which was tied at her waist.

"That won't trick me again!" Toru sprinted past her, kicking up dirt with the way his feet pounded and grated the ground with each step. In the forest and hiding behind some dense bushes was his true objective in the entire fight. The hiding place had been too pitifully obvious to allow her to escape his line of vision.

'This ends now! She dies NOW!' His eyes almost hurt with all the focus they put on his target. She got up as if to run, but it was obviously too late. He was too close. He could clearly see every detail of her wide and unnervingly bright green eyes. A scream of triumph escaped his mouth.

"AHH!" The girl gave a strangled cry of pain when the blade rammed through her chest with a sickening wet dull sound and came out through her back.

"Lovely." Toru smirked, reaching forward and pulling the ninja up by her hair. He gripped the handle of his sword and viciously twisted it. She screamed again and the agony in it seemed almost sharp enough to be tangible. Toru savoured every minute of it. He let the girl drop to her knees, but kept a firm hold on her hair. Pulling out the sword while admiring the coat of blood on it, Toru placed it at Sakura's neck. "Any last words?" He murmured, licking his lips.

Sakura's eyes rolled up to look at his face. The suddeness of the action startled Toru enough to make his step back and let go of her hair. To his utter shock, her mouth slowly tilted up into a grim smirk.

"It's over for you." The words kept Toru rooted in place with disbelief. It was then Sakura's fingers dug into the ground, curled around a rope and tugged it hard. The sound of something snapping exploded in the backround. A trap had been set off.

"NO!" He stepped back, but his movement was hindered by Sakura's hands closing on his ankles.

"You will die here."

"You first, bitch!" Toru stabbed Sakura once more, slamming the sword deeply into her exposed back.

Sakura's grin never faded as she melted into a thick substance that could only be described as mud. The sword once imbedded within the kawarimi fell down with a quiet plop, caked with dried mud.

Toru's eyes widened. The realization hit him like a sledgehammer. A millisecond was given to him to comprehend the new knowledge before a myriad of kunais and shurikens hit him. A giant log followed the barrage and with the weapons already imbedded in his chest, it ended up pushing them in furthur and nailing him to an old tree. A loud crack sounded throughout the forest and whether it was the sound of the wood breaking under the weight suddenly forced into it or Toru's bones snapping, was impossible for Sakura to discern.

A few branches came loose from the impact and made small shuffling sounds when the reached the ground.

"B-but you-!" Toru's face was contorted in a mixture of pain and disbelief. Each word that came from his mouth was forced out in an agonized hiss. "I saw you use the jutsu-! You bled! There was no way that this could be the kawarimi! You are the replacement!"

Sakura regarded him quietly.

"You trust your eyes too much." She met his eyes as around her the genjutsu he had cast earlier began to fade.

'Kawarimi was not the only jutsu I used.'

"Unbelievable... bitch..." He hissed, falling forward limply. One of his muddy feet kicked and flailed helplessly then shortly after stilled. Sakura stood there, tensely clutching the stolen scroll to her chest until she was sure he had died. She exhaled loudly, not realizing until then that she hadn't been breathing. She stepped back and stared at the dead man. A peculiar feeling she didn't like welled up within her stomach.

'This is the first time I've ever killed someone.'

Her stomach twisted strangely.

'He was a detestable man.' Despite her last thought, something within her felt strange.

Hollow

'But this is... What being a ninja will be like. If given the order... Killing...' She closed her eyes and turned away from the gruesome sight. 'If not him... It would have been me and then Naruto. He had to die. There was no other way.' Her stomach flopped again and she felt awful.

'Sasuke-kun!' The rememberance of the boy jolted her from her previous thoughts.

Sakura ran into the wood, away from the dead man. She had to find Sasuke.

"A joke..." Toru opened his eyes after the girl left. He reached into his clothes slowly. Somehow in the attack, all of the kunais and shurikens thrown at him had missed the scroll hidden in his clothes.

And his heart.

'I can't believe... that for a little girl, I have to go so far...' The effort it took not to bellow and to move at all caused his eyes to tear up. He pulled out the scroll from the folds of his shirt. Slowly, his hands moved, painstakingly forming one jutsu form after another. Amongst a river of blood, one last satisfied chuckle escaped his lips when he performed the seventh and last one just as he died.

Sakura gave a cry when a spray of blood sprung forth from the cut on her chest. She collapsed onto the ground, body quaking with sobs as she fought to regain her breath. The pain was almost too much. It was terrifyingly hard to draw in enough air for her lungs. Black spots danced in her vision and she struggled to stay conscious. Sakura gagged, making small choking noises as her mind went into overdrive. Pain exploded throughout her chest and right then and there, Sakura was sure she would die.

"Sakura! Sakura? Sakura!" Sasuke ran at breakneck speed, desperately searching for any sign of Sakura. When he found her would she still be all right?

'Sakura won't die.' "She can't." Sasuke murmured. He wished he could believe what he'd just said.

The agony she had experienced moments before had somehow faded into a bearable throb. She panted loudly. Each breath in and out sounded like shuddering wheezes. She tried to keep her tears in check, but failed miserably.

'Get up!' Clumsily, she clamoured for a support that would allow her to stand. She gave up after a minute of useless fumbling on her part had passed.

'Can't I... be strong?'

It began to rain.

'Can't I...?'

She sobbed brokenly on the ground, the taste of her salty tears intermixed with the ones of blood and rain.

'No.'

She would die right there. It would be all her fault if Naruto wasn't found and saved.

Everyone would hate her.

She pressed her hands to her face as she cried.

Hand...

Naruto squeezed her hand as he disengaged her grip from his clothes.

Sakura's sobs slowly dissolved as she looked at the hand Naruto had held before he was taken.

The warmth of his hand slid into hers.

"Naruto..." She whispered, sniffling.

"I'm counting on you, Sakura-chan."

"I..." She gripped the scroll in her hand tightly.

'I have to find Sasuke-kun... I have to make sure that this gets to him...' She advanced forward slowly, one hand clutching the scroll, while the other pressed tightly against the heavily bleeding cut on her chest. Her attempts to staunch the flow seemed useless. She was bleeding too fast.

'I'm moving too slowly!' Sakura's frustration mounted. 'I don't have enough time for this! I...'

She pushed herself harder, ignoring the dizziness that suddenly hit her with the exertion.

'I'm dying.'

The light rain became a downpour.