Chapter 28: Epiphany
Sakura scowled around the room at the many eager faces staring up at her as she adjusted her microphone. Sweat dribbled down the side of her face, partly from the intense spotlight glaring down upon her.
Those idiots, she wheezed as the speakers squealed, if I didn't have work…
Her expression changed from rage to worry as she hugged her mike with her palms.
Please, she begged, please don't let them kill each other.
The faint sound of music drifted through the bar as Sakura fumbled with her emotions.
-
Sasuke glowered at his foe. A brisk wind passed between them, blowing their shirts around and mussing their hair. Grass billowed in the clearing around them, a hidden clearing, where no one would interrupt. The sun still beat down upon them as they glared each other down.
"Retard," Naruto snickered, "you can't beat me in your condition."
Sasuke seethed. The bandages covering Sasuke's torso dotted with splotches of blood, his stomach rebelled furiously to all movement, his veins felt weak and weary. But he had enough chakra left, mizu bunshin wasn't that difficult, and he planned to use every ounce of it. No one rubbed his brother in his face… except his brother. What the hell was Naruto trying to pull?
"Shut the hell up!" Sasuke snapped, clenching his fists. He charged at Naruto, full throttle, pulling back his hand to smack him in his stupid smirking mouth. Naruto jumped easily to the side, his own fist curving toward Sasuke's head.
Sharingan! Sasuke's eyes flared red. He read Naruto's blow like a book, dodged easily to the left and out of harm's way. He grabbed Naruto's outstretched arm with his own and hurled the blonde over his shoulder. Sasuke could feel the raw cuts in his shoulders tearing, pain ripping through his upper body, and the torture sucked his strength and momentum. He practically dropped Naruto in mid-swing, Naruto landing easily on his feet, sliding a yard or so, but standing up, completely unharmed by the attack.
Sasuke wheezed and clutched this right arm, trying to shake off the pain and rethink his battle strategy at the same time. Even if the seismic toss had been carried through, Naruto would've recovered just as easily. Could he even win in this scenario?
No, Sasuke seethed, there must be a way. Naruto's not invincible; if Kakashi can beat him in my condition then there is a way! And I'll find it!
Naruto glared at his friend, hunched and panting like a fat man after a 2 mile jog. Patches of red had soaked through the white bandages on Sasuke's shoulders. Naruto put his hands on his hips.
"Don't tell me you're giving up already." He threw Sasuke a "what-a-loser" look. Sasuke grimaced and snarled.
"I thought I told you to shut the hell up!" If I'm going to beat him, it's not going to be by Taijutsu, he thought, my body can't take much of this.
Sasuke straightened himself out and clasped his hands together.
A jutsu… Naruto thought. He knew which one too. He'd fought Sasuke enough times to know. Naruto clasped his own hands together as well.
Sasuke's blast came first.
"Goukakyu no Jutsu!"
The enormous fireball roared at Naruto like a bullet train. Sasuke watched as the flames engulfed his friend, turning the blonde into a puff of smoke.
Kage Bunshin no Jutsu… Sasuke thought, Of course he used that.
He spun to blow flames in the face of another Naruto effigy, attacking him from the rear. He hardly had time to see it burst into smoke, when his Sharingan detected an attack on his left. He spat more flames at this, and was greeted with more smoke. Before long, he was spewing fire in every direction.
Damn it… He cursed, wheezing with the effort of excess movement, where's the real one?
His flames had started to diminish like an appetizer. The flame got weaker and weaker, but luckily, so did the bunshin. They became sluggish and easier to follow, Sasuke no longer needed to exert in Sharingan so much.
Suddenly, a bunshin became unsluggish. It attacked Sasuke head on, aiming a punch at Sasuke's stomach.
This is Naruto! Sasuke realized in an instant, but barely had time to dodge. He stepped back and Naruto's fist patted Sasuke's stomach with no greater power than that of a child's slap.
White hot pain seared through Sasuke's flesh. He doubled over in pain so quickly that his forehead rammed into Naruto's skull. The two boys tumbled to the grass, Sasuke clutching his stomach, Naruto clutching his head. The other bunshin disappeared into their traditional puff of smoke.
"Ow..." Naruto rolled upright and immediately stood up. He massaged his throbbing temple and looked at Sasuke, curled up on the ground, twitching in pain. He pulled his right arm out from under him and slammed it shakily upon the grass in a first attempt to get up. Sasuke trembled as he pulled his head up to glare at Naruto. A small drop of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. Naruto cocked his head and glared curiously at his pathetic friend.
"Don't tell me you're giving up." Naruto muttered.
"Of course not!" Sasuke pulled his other hand out from other under him and smacked it against the dirt. He made a sad attempt to pull himself up, but ended up on the ground again. "I'm- I'm gonna… kick… your ass." He wheezed
"You should just give up." Naruto put his hands behind his head. "You can't even stand anyway."
"Never," Sasuke spat blood from out of the corner of his mouth and wiped his chin with a shaking hand. He began to tremble more as he pulled himself up again. "I'll never give up."
"That man…" He whispered, his voice shook like he was crying, but Naruto knew better. "That man took away everything from me… everything… from me…" Sasuke hiccupped blood onto the grass beneath him, before glaring up at Naruto.
"I'll never give up!" He screamed. "Not to him, not to you, not to anyone! I'm going to kill him if it kills me!"
Naruto gave Sasuke a half grin.
"Then why are you losing to that Kouji guy?"
"It's… it's not like he gave you a choice…" Sasuke wiped his chin again.
"Are you going to hold back when you fight Itachi?" Naruto looked into the sky.
Sasuke blinked incredulously.
"Of course not! I'm going to use everything I have!" He cried.
Naruto chuckled at the blue spread ahead of him.
"Yeah!" He laughed. "and nothing's going to stop me from becoming the greatest Hokage! No matter how long it takes, I'll do it! And I'll give it my all until the end and never stop fighting!" He smiled down at Sasuke. "So don't hold back anymore, Idiot!"
Sasuke blinked a little and grinned back at his friend.
"Yeah."
Naruto plopped himself down onto the grass and looked at the sky. Sasuke rolled over and did the same.
"You call me an idiot," Sasuke muttered, "You're the one picked a fight to prove a point."
Naruto laughed into the sky.
"Well, you're not one to sit around and listen to a person preach."
Sasuke blinked at the cloudless, endless blue. A small gradient of indigo had begun to spread over the sky, even a star or too had broken away from the sun's glory to wink down upon them.
"Naruto!" A familiar voice screeched from somewhere down the path to their left. "Sasuke!"
They both rolled there heads to look.
"Oi, Sakura-chan!" Naruto sat up and waved to her as they watched the girl dash toward them. "What are you doing here?"
As she reached them, Sakura doubled over, panting from her jog. She quickly recovered though, quick enough to dash Naruto on the head. Naruto found himself lying down again, and rather painfully too.
"Stupid!" She shrieked. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"It's okay, Sakura." Sasuke muttered sleepily.
"No. It's not." She reached in her pocket, pulled out a bandage roll and began work on Sasuke's reopened wounds.
"I hate it when you two fight." She whispered. "We're a team; teams aren't suppose to fight each other like that."
"Sorry, Sakura-chan." Naruto muttered, although he seemed hardly apologetic.
"Naruto," Sasuke muttered and winced as Sakura pulled the cloth tight around his arm, "you really think we'll go back to Konoha someday?"
"Of course!" Naruto stated as if it was obvious. "I told you, I have to become Hokage someday! I can't be Hokage here!"
"Yeah." Sasuke cracked a rare smile up at the sky. Sakura smiled serenely. Dreams; it was something she hoped never changed about those two. Her own dreams had morphed from when they first professed, years ago, before Kakashi-sensei. She discovered there was more to life than love, such as life itself, life she swore to protect in the two people she cared for most.
She was still smiling as she unraveled the bandage around Sasuke's middle. Her expression changed from bliss to disgust as she stared down at it.
"Ewww…" She muttered. Not that it was disgusting, Sakura had seen much more disgusting things in her vocation; it just looked like it felt disgusting. Sasuke and Naruto on the other hand, had never the opportunity to dissect a corpse. Both felt sick as they stared and the wound in Sasuke middle.
A large round red scar laced his thick abs like plastic. It was puffy, red and shiny like frosting on a cake and the skin was bare and raw.
"It's like … a burn." Sasuke muttered, remembering all the consequences of mishaps learning fire jutsus.
"It is one." Sakura said matter-of-factly. "When we can back, we'll have to put this crème on it… and don't go swimming anytime soon, okay?"
"Why do you have a burn?" Naruto scratched his head. "All he did was hit you."
"And the pattern in inconsistent with a burn," Sakura said, pulling more fabric over the scar gingerly. "Burn marks are usually pretty tame; they're localized in s single location. Like if you get burned with an iron rod, your scarring will look like an iron rod." She explained. "However, your scar starts from the point of impact and travels arbitrarily outward."
Both boys blinked at her; Naruto scratched his head, not fully understanding everything she was saying.
"I've seen something like this though."
The two both gave her double-takes.
"What?" Naruto muttered. "where?"
"On you, Naruto." Sakura explained as if this should've been obvious. "It looks like the scars you get after being pounded by Chidori, except the Chidori scars don't look as much like burns."
Sasuke stared up into the sky. More stars had begun to appear in the fading light.
Chidori…
Suddenly, he chuckled. Sakura and Naruto both gave him funny looks.
"I've figured it out." Sasuke announced. "I know the secret behind his jutsu."
-
The sun hadn't quite made up its mind, to set or not to set, as Kouji watched it from his large hospital window. The clean white room glimmered in the indecisive light. Kouji passed a hand over the stitches across his chest. They felt unnatural and gross; stitches always felt that way. And they itched. He longed to rip opened the protective bandage and scratch furiously at them, forgetting all consequences. But Kouji just nibbled his cuticles impatiently and stare blankly out the window on his right.
The door creaked on his right and gingerly whisper closed. Soft, but stern footsteps resounded a few times before stopping abruptly. He didn't need to look, only one person walked that way.
"Well?" Kouji muttered.
"The three miscreants have been secured in Suiyo-Kame." Madoka straightened rigidly. "Would you like for us to patrol the border in case they return?"
"Nah." Kouji muttered mundanely. "It's none of our jurisdiction who passes through this town. It's a village not a military compound. Anyone should be able to go and come as they please."
"Yes sir."
Kouji collapsed against the reclining back of his bed and lightly raked his fingernails across the bandages across his torso.
"That bastard." Kouji grumbled, as the urge to itch the wound gnawed at the back of his mind, then chuckled a little. "He almost beat me."
"He's gone now, Kouji-sama." Madoka reassured him. "It was a good fight; he fought well, but you fought better as always."
Kouji blew air out of his nose.
"No." He mumbled quietly. Suddenly, he lurched himself up, shocking Madoka slightly, and stared, hunched, at his palms.
"No," Kouji repeated. "It was a horrible fight."
Madoka blinked at her commander.
"What?"
Kouji continued to stare down at his hands.
"I think," He began, "I think he was holding back too." A mischievous grin curved over his face. "He's stronger than what we saw. He didn't want to hurt me and I didn't want to hurt him. That's not a good fight, Madoka-chan. I wonder if he would beat me in a no-holds fight…"
He looked at Madoka for the first time since she arrived. His eyes sparkled wildly with anticipation as the setting rays of the sun ricocheted off his back.
"A no-holds fight," He whispered, excitement electric in his voice. "Madoka-chan, I want to fight that guy again."
Author's Note: OOOoooOOO! Are you intriuged? Well, it was a pretty lame fight... I apologize. Not worth the wait, was it? But whatever. Do YOU know what Kouji's jutsu is? It's not rocket science... I think I gave away enough clues, so you should be able to figure it out. (actually, it should've been able to figure it out during the fight, but if you didn't, don't worry. You're not stupid. Besides I'm going to explain it blatantly later anyway.) Once again, I thanks everyone for their love and support and reviews and time spent reading this. (btw EfrainMan totally made my week with his review! Thanks!). If you have any questions about the story, feel free to email me or post it as a review. I'm also always open to suggestions, I can take a little critisizm... I think. :P. Until next chapter!
Next Chapter: To Deafeat Kouji! The training begins!