I love ya all! Thanks to all of you who reviewed! I don't have your addies, so I'll just send you all imaginary cookies! Hmmmmm! And how good they taste!
Thanks go as always to my sis. You are so hip, and probably the only 'normal' person within a radius of 500 km! -.-''
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"Dammit, Lee!"
Looking up from where he was waiting for Kisame to get back up from the shattered roof, Lee watched as Shikamaru jumped onto the house he was currenly standing on, panting heavily from the run back to the village.
"Y-you... couldn't by any chance... have waited some secs for me, huh?" Shika asked totally out of breath, hands on his knees and upper body slightly bent as he inhaled deeply.
"I am very sorry, Shikamaru, but as you can see, returning was more urgent than we have thought."
Looking around Lee's rigid body, hand outstretched and beckoning his opponent to attack again, Shikamaru could see Kisame crouching on the broken tiles of the roof. Blood was seeping out of numerous wounds on his shark-like body and the grayish skin on his right arm was torn were the fractured bones had pierced the sensitive tissue.
Frowning slightly and taking in the whole scene for the first time since arriving, the tactician found Kisame's sword, Samehade lying scattered beside an unmoving form.
"What..." Eyes wide in realization, he darted to the figure and kneeled down beside him.
"Gai? Hey, can you hear me?" He asked, hands already applying pressure on the gaping wound on the older man's shoulder.
"Urgh..." Face contorted in pain, Gai stared into the concerned eyes of the chuunin. His eyes were glassy and everything around him was slightly blurred, the semi-darkness of the breaking day not contributing to his hazy vision.
"Just relax, we'll take care of this..." Shikamaru mumbled, searching one-handedly for a compress in his pouch. After he had found it, he covered the wound with it and pressed down again.
Soon the material had absorbed so much blood, that it couldn't hold the liquid any longer.
"This'll hurt now." Shika told the other man, hoping to reach Gai's mind through the foggy state of consciousness.
With that he started bandaging the ripped shoulder with what little medical supplies he had found in his pouch, applying as much pressure to the wound as he dared to.
After he had finished, he made Gai swallow a pain killer dry before dragging him towards the edge of the roof.
There Shikamaru unfolded a tightly packaged thermo-blanket and covered Gai with it. Grunting, he got up from the roof and stared at the ashen face of the jounin. There was nothing he could do except keeping him warm now. A medic would have to take care of the rest.
Turning around, he found Lee fending off Kisame with a series of hard punches and kicks, the speed of the young man almost too fast for the bare eye to follow.
Kisame on the other hand seemed to be at his limit.
His movements were looking jerky and even uncoordinately to Shikamaru, not something one would expect from one of the most wanted nuke-nin known in their bingo-book.
The large wounds and the broken arm had taken their toll on his stamina and the fight with Gai before their arrival had probably used up most of his chakra.
Taking a few steps towards the two combatants, Shikamaru brought his hands up into the familiar seal of the Nara clan's special technique, the 'Kagemane no Jutsu.
Concentrating hard on the target, he saw his shadow in the corner of his eyes travelling fast towards the Akatsuki member...
Lee watched as Kisame drew back his arm to strike again, having noticed the small pause between two kicks of Lee's combo attack.
Brows knitted together into a concentrated frown, the taijutsu specialist waited for the fist to crash down on him, ready to block it with another self-invented move.
To his surprise, the attack never came.
Kisame's fist had stopped in mid-swing. Unmoving, just like the rest of his massive body.
"Kagemane success." Lee heard Shikamaru say from somewhere to his right.
"Thank you, Shikamaru." Lee turned around to his friend with a small smile on his lips, giving him the 'thumbs-up.
"Yeah... just finish it. We have to get help for Gai." He retorted, his concentration on Kisame's body never faltering.
"Right!" Lee shouted, going slightly into his knees as he prepared himself for his final move.
"Ohhhhh... Konoha senpou!"
Shika watched as Lee jumped high into the air. Just before the other chuunin's leg connected wih the exposed neck of Kisame, Shikamaru pried his hands apart. Without the seal, his shadow immediately shrank back into its original form, stretching out slightly in front of him, just like any other shadow casted by the dawning sun behind him.
With tired eyes he watched as Lee landed on the roof with a slight thud.
In front of him, the battered Akatsuki member fell in slow motion. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, dull eyes staring ahead as he finally hit the tiles.
With a sigh, the man with the black ponytail waited for Lee to come over to him, when suddenly a slight movement from behind him caught his attention.
Right on cue, Lee appeared by his side, staring wide-eyed at his teacher, who was futilely trying to get into a sitting position.
"Gai-sensei!" He cried out, instantly by his side and helping Gai up.
"Lee"
"Gai-sensei"
"Lee..."
Making a face, Shikamaru stared at the two men lying in each other's arms, both obviously on the verge of crying.
It seemed to him, that Gai probably wasn't as half-dead as he had thought. He actually appeared to be very lively, now that the two weirdos were back together...
"How troublesome..."
Pulling away from the embrace, Gai stared at Lee with half closed eyes, exhaustion and pain obvious in the normally so bright black orbs.
"Lee, I'm so proud of you!" He declared, giving Lee's shoulders a slight squeeze. "But tell me, did you find a medic for Tenten? Are she and the child well?" He asked in a very concerned tone of voice.
"Of course, Gai-sensei! I managed to find Tsunade's beautiful apprentice herself! Sakura has saved both Tenten and Neji's son"
"A son! Oh, what wonderful news!" Gai sighed dramatically, lips quivering slightly. "But, Lee, where are they now?"
"Sakura demanded we should bring them out of the village. We were on our way to the border of Fire country, when suddenly..."
----------
Looking up in determination, Lee nodded at Shikamaru's words.
"He's right, Neji! We will stand against them as one! Gai-sensei has taught us to be strong even in the face of death. What a man would I be if I abandoned you, Tenten and the wonderful chil. Testament of your youthful love for one another!" Lee said, his eyes smiling proudly into the distance. He had already readied himself, having taken on his famous fighter's stance, one hand behind his back and the other one pointing towards the advancing enemies.
A light breeze played with the foliage on the ground, encircling them in its cool embrace.
The first figures appeared on a tree ahead of them and Lee's features hardened, eyes narrowed as he waited for the unevitable to come. He would fight them with all he had. And if he had to he would play his final trump card... the Lotus blooms twice in Konoha, he himself had told Sakura so many years ago and now was the time to protect something precious. Precious not only to him.
The breeze picked up slightly and Lee tensed visibly, ready to dash towards them in a heartbeat.
Just before the first sound nin landed in front of the three friends, Lee's eyes caught sight of a small cloud of sand crawling eerily across the ground towards them...
Frowning, he didn't get the chance to follow his train of thoughts, a volley of shuriken and kunai suddenly showering down at them.
To his right, Shikamaru was already busily catching enemies with his shadow-binding-technique. At the same time his shadow crawled up the ninja's bodies and, judging from the sounds of their desperate attempts to inhale, slowly choked them to death.
"Lee! Watch out!"
Startled, Lee turned around, just to find three men jumping down at him from a nearby tree, the sharp edges of their kunais glinting metallic in the moonlight.
Blocking two opponents with his arms, he landed a hard kick to the third man's stomach. He crashed into a large trunk, wood exploding under his back from the impact.
With a small smile tucking at the corners of his mouth, Lee grabbed the arms of the other two sound nins and started whirling around in a semi-circle. Forced to follow Lee's movement, the two men tried to stop the Konoha shinobi from executing his plan.
Which obviously consisted of the two enemies, a fast spin and a large tree trunk.
The oto-nin were slammed into the hard bark with a sickening thud. They fell down onto the mossy ground unmoving, their limb hands no longer able to hold the kunais.
Having not bothered to watch his opponents go down, Lee had already engaged another two ninjas in a taijutsu fight.
Naturally they didn't stand a chance against the man who had been training the body arts for most of his young life.
"Konoha senpou!" Lee yelled, kicking the sound-nins into oblivion.
Turning around, he surveyed the scene in front of him.
Ten dead men were lying scattered in a circle around the white-eyed Hyuga, who had taken on his famous stance of the clan's specialty, 'the gentle fist style, 64 hands of Hakke.
Those oto-nin who were unlucky enough not to die immediately after the attack, were doomed to suffer a slow death by the inability of their inner organs to function properly anymore. With their keirakukei (chakra channels) damaged beyond repair, it was only a matter of time until their hearts would stop beating.
A slight noise from behind startled Lee out of his internal musings and he turned around immediately to check on the source of the noise.
To his shock, he found three hostile ninjas standing in front of the fallen tree Neji had put Tenten and his son into to hide them from the arriving army of enemies.
Shock clearly written across his features, Lee stared wide-eyed at them, boots rooted to the spot and legs unable to move for a second.
"Hey, look what we've got!" One of the trio said, pulling out a chuunin vest with a squirming baby. "Looks like we found a fresh Konoha bastard!" Chuckling, he tossed it over to his comrade and bent down towards the hole, obviously intending to drag out Tenten as well.
It was then that something klicked inside Lee's mind and his legs followed the order of his brain to move again.
To him it felt like he needed an eternity, but in reality he was by their side within an eye's blink.
He remembered kicking the one with the tightly wrapped child hard in the chest. The ninja was so perplexed that he let go of the bundle and went down on his knees, wheezing and struggling for breath.
While catching the falling baby, Lee turned his unprotected back to the third man. In the corner of his eyes he could see the shinobi who had taken hold of Tenten's collar, pulling out a kunai and aiming for Lee's side.
What happened next was still a mystery to Lee.
All he knew was that something had wrapped around his ankle and had literally cut the ground from under his feet, sending him flying to the soil.
There he lay still, sprawling on his back with the wailing and squirming baby in his hands.
As he looked up into the sky, he could make out the two men floating some ten feet above his head, covered completely in a thick layer of sand.
"Sabakukyu... (desert coffin)."
The next thing Lee knew, was that they fell dead before his feet, their crashed bodies looking like they had been buried underneath a house.
At the same time his ears caught the screams of the last remaining sound-ninjas as they were overtaken by the same fate as their comrades mere seconds ago.
"Hey, wimp! You alright?"
Turning his head slightly to his right, Lee found Shikamaru sitting on the ground, leaning back against a tree as he tried to catch his breath. Right in front of him, a slender woman was standing, grinning cockily down at him. She was resting her elbow casually on a large fan she had dug hard into the ground.
"Stop yelling." Shikamaru told her and added in a murmer, "women are so troublesome..."
Sighing, Lee closed his eyes for a second, inhaling deeply to calm his itching nerves.
"Are you alright?" A voice directly above him, startled Lee and his eyes snapped open immediately.
He stared right into the black-rimmed eyes of Sabaku no Gaara, the new Kazekage. He had his arms folded across his chest and a sand gourd, larger than Lee could remember, was strapped to his back.
"Yes, thanks to you." He got up into a sitting position and looked down at the again silent baby.
"Tenten!"
Frowning, he gazed around to find Neji carefully lifting his unconscious fiancee up in his arms. Tenten was lying half-way out of the fallen tree, her breathing shallow again.
Neji was stroking her features with an almost feather-like touch, whispering soothing words. Probably to calm both Tenten and himself.
"Is it 'his'?" Kankuro, who had just taken up position beside his younger brother, nodded his chin towards Neji, not bothering to use his hand. Which were both buried deep inside the pockets of his overall. He too had his special weapon tied securely onto his back.
"Yes!" Lee retorted, finally getting up from the ground and almost standing to attention in front of the two sand-siblings.
"This is Hyuga Neji's son!"
"Yo." Shikamaru's voice suddenly errupted from behind Lee. "You here to lend us a hand"
"As a matter of fact, yes." Kankuro replied, watching as the other man stopped beside Lee.
"Was about time... dunno how much longer we could have lasted. The Fifth told me, that ya already know the basics. Orochimaru attacked yesterday after he had lured most jou- and chuunin into an ambush at the border. I have no numbers regarding casualties, nor do I know of the whereabouts of Lady Tsunade herself."
"Temari, get the squads to move out." Gaara told his sister, who merely nodded before jumping off towards the waiting army of sand-nins.
"I will come with you!" Lee declared, looking as determined as always when he wanted to have his way.
"Here!" With that he pushed the unmoving bundle into Gaara's arms, either not noticing or ignoring the look of horror and disbelief on the Kazekage's face. "Take care of this baby and please, I beg you in the name of Neji and Tenten, protect it at all costs!"
Not waiting for an answer of the dumbfounded man, Lee turned around and followed the leaving sand-shinobis back to the village.
"I'll go with him... here is a letter from Haruno Sakura. There's all you need to know for Tenten's treatment"
Nodding towards the two brothers, Shikamaru too disappeared behind the large trees of the forest.
"Ha! Ya got some tough job there, Gaara! Who'd have thought you have a babysitter inside ya!" Kankuro laughed, slapping Gaara on his back.
----------
Frowning down at the gurgling baby in his arms, Gaara wondered for the umpteenth time why 'he' was standing in the middle of a forest with a child?
He was the Kazekage and not the babysitter for this Hyuga brat.
A slight noise caught his attenion and without looking up, Gaara lifted his hand slowly. After some seconds he closed it into a tight fist.
Some meters away he could hear the last choking sounds of his opponents as the sand coffin squeezed them to death.
Sighing, he concentrated again on the squirming baby, noticing that the boy's lips had started quivering and watery, puffy eyes closed tightly shut as he started crying in a loud, steady tune.
"Stop." He told the baby in a low tone of voice, which would normally make even the biggest enemies scramble away in fear.
Unfortunately, 'this' enemy showed absolutely no sign that there was even the slightest bit of fear in any body part of his tiny form at all. The only sign that the baby had noticed him at all being a short pause between two wails and the opening of his bright eyes.
The clear white eyes, that were the trademark of the Hyuga clan and Byakugan users, looked up at him for a short moment and Gaara wondered whether this child would ever be able to use his special eyesight even with a woman as his mother that didn't possess the kekkei genkai of his father's famous family.
Suddenly, the baby's crying started again, even picking up in volume and saliva was bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
With a grunt, Gaara turned around, heading to where his older brother was leaning against a large tree. He was watching a man with an ANBU mask forming the final seal of his jutsu and concentrating hard on the soil of the clearing the shinobis from suna had decided to put up camp in.
A low rumble spread out through the ground, the trees shaking slightly. Suddenly the soil broke up and the top of a roof appeared from below, slowly being pushed out of the ground from the building that was making its way into the clearing.
After some moments of silence, only interrupted by the creaking sound of the building, the ground stopped shaking and the masked man got up from where he had been crouching on the ground in front of the three-storey house and walked across the clearing to where Gaara had taken up position beside Kankuro.
"This should be enough of a provisional hospital." The man said, lifting the mask, that resembled a cat, slightly and swept a hand across his features.
"Yes, it'll work just fine." Kankuro declared, walking past the man and heading to where a small army of shinobis, Konoha and Suna, were taking care of the wounded they had been able to carry out of the destroyed village.
Nodding towards the Konoha ANBU, Gaara followed his brother, the baby still wailing in his arms.
"Lord Kazekage!" Indifferent eyes watched as a Konoha kunoichi walked up beside him. Gaara knew her from the last two visits he had paid to this village.
"Yes, Shizune?"
"I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, Rock Lee has put you in, but from here on I will take this child." Shizune said, already in the process of taking the baby from Gaara's secure hold. To her dismay he didn't let go of the newborn, instead glaring down at her.
"Is he in need of medical attention?" He asked her in a low tone of voice.
Frowning, Shizune looked nervously down at where her hands were hovering dangerously near the baby's chest.
"Uhm... no?" She finally answered in a timid voice... not that she was afraid of him...
"Does he need food?" Gaara asked her again.
"No... babies normally don't drink during the first few hours after birth..." She mumbled, attempting halfheartedly to lead the topic into another direction.
"Is there a problem with me taking care of this baby that I am not aware of?" Gaara directed yet another question at the stunned medic, who, in return, withdrew her hands from where she had placed them above the child's torso so fast, that it almost seemed like she had touched something hot.
"No, no, no! Nooo, there's got to be a misunderstanding!" Shizune hastily replied, shaking her head and bringing her hands up in a defensive manner.
"Then I fear, I can't let you take him with you."
Mouth agape, Shizune watched as Gaara walked past her, leaving no room for arguments as he showed her his back and headed again to where Kankuro was by now helping fellow shinobis to carry wounded inside the large wooden house.
It was then that something caught his attention. Or better the 'lack' of something.
During his 'inquiry' the baby had stopped crying.
Lying peacefully inside the large blanket he had been wrapped into some half a hour ago, the newest member of the Hyuga clan stared happily into the dark-rimmed eyes of Sabaku no Gaara.
----------
"Cling to life and live miserably... hate me... despise me. Those were the last words you gave me before you disappeared that day." Sasuke told his older brother in a calm voice. "I 'did' cling to life... because life was all I had. And I learned to hate you from the darkest part of my heart... "
Clenching his hands into tight fists, Sasuke stared into the cold orbs of the other man, finding no emotions at all in them.
He on the other hand once again cursed his own inability to stay detached and focused, blaming both himself and the people he had once called friends (and hoped to be allowed to call so again in the future).
If he survived...
"You told me, hatred was the only way of gaining the power I would need to kill you. Hatred that made me blind for what was directly in front of my eyes. I went down a road I shouldn't have taken... " The words stuck in his throat when he remembered the years in Orochimaru's tomb. The pain and humiliation he had been forced to endure.
The loneliness and desperation.
"You are still foolish, little brother." Itachi suddenly told him, his stance shifting the slightest bit as he prepared himself for what lay ahead.
"Yeah... you're probably right." A short chuckle escaped Sasuke's throat as he shook his head slightly.
"But now it is my turn to measure my capacity!"
There was no warning as Sasuke's hand moved to the shuriken holster at his thigh and threw five of the deadly weapons at his older brother with deadly precision.
Itachi was gone before the shuriken could even hit him, their sharp edges imbedding themselves in the wall of the house behind him.
Looking calmly around, Sasuke saw a flicker of movement some ten feet to his right. He stamped hard on a small log that was lying by his feet, making it fly off the ground. He grabbed it in mid-air and brought it up in front o his face. He felt a small impact as ten kunais bore their heads into the beam, staying stuck in the wood.
His black eyes had long ago turned into a bloody red, three pinwheels seemingly surrounding Sasuke's pupils.
With his right hand he pulled out three of his brother's kunais. He clasped them in between both his hands and formed a seal at the same time.
Counting silently to three, he suddenly threw them towards an empty spot to his left.
His sharingan saw the movement of his running brother like in slow-motion, telling Sasuke exactly where Itachi would be one second in advance. Sasuke had long ago learned how to use this one second to his advantage.
One kunai imbedded itself in a lantern, the second one meter in front of it in the floor and the third landed a heartbeat behind the end of Iachi's cloak.
With a hot blaze of fire, they exploded, the flames shooting high into the air and burning everything in close proximity to ashes.
But Sasuke knew there would be more needed to get his brother than such a genin trick.
Right on cue, Sasuke felt something tighten around his chest.
'Chakra strings!', he thought as the pressure around his upper torso increased.
Suddenly he felt the ends of his nerves tingling.
Itachi was somewhere behind him...
"Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu!"
A large wall of fire rolled towards him, engulfing everything in the street in a deadly embrace.
Eyes wide, Sasuke exhaled immediately and, giving the strings no time to adjust to the new girth of his chest, brought his hands together and formed a set of seals in the second that was left before the wall eventually reached his unprotected body.
Itachi exhaled the last chakrafied oxygen and watched as the flames died down.
For a fraction of a second, surprise registered on his face when he found the spot where Sasuke had been standing surrounded by a solid wall of ice. It hadn't even started to melt from the heat of his jutsu, the chakra string still leading through the ice to where his brother was probably still standing.
For a very long second, the street was silent, the only noise being some lonely explosions in the distance and the sound of water gushing out of broken pipes down into the streets.
Suddenly a jolt of pain ran through his back, startling Itachi. He jumped back from the source of the pain immediately.
Sasuke had appeared right behind him and had used the memento to pierce his brother's back with a kunai.
Not giving his older brother time to react, Sasuke attacked frontally with a short sword and a kunai occupying both hands.
Itachi blocked the kunai with his bare forearm, ignoring the stinging pain and the blood dripping down his arm. He suddenly twisted it around, making Sasuke lose his grip on the weapon. Itachi grabbed the kunai without hesitating and swung it around, the weapon clashing with the blade of the sword.
"It seems you have finally lived up to my expectations, little brother." Itachi told Sasuke in a monotone voice, pushing the kunai against the sword and forcing Sasuke back some centimeters.
"Maybe it is time to see what hatred helped you to achieve..."
Exhaling slowly, the pinwheels of Itachi's sharingan shifted into an even stranger shape.
To his surprise, Sasuke's eyes had also already transformed into the deadliest weapon of the famous Uchiha clan, the two black and red orbs glaring angrily into those of his older brother.
Jaws set, Sasuke watched as his surroundings changed dramatically, the last thing of 'this' world he saw in the corner of his eyes, being a tile that was just in the process of falling down a roof to his right...
Where the poorly illuminated main street had been was now the large garden of his birthplace, the rich colors of his memories having been replaced by the sickly combination of red, black and white of the genjutsu.
"You know that this has never happened before in the history of our clan, Sasuke?" Itachi suddenly asked, bringing Sasuke's mind back to the fight.
They were standing in the middle of the garden, the small pond his mother had loved to sit by being the only barrier between the two brothers.
As he leaned over slightly, he could see his black and white features being reflected by the red surface of the water.
"A fight within the Tsukiyomi (moon of the underworld). Even I do not know what will happen after we lifting the doujutsu." Itachi paused as he, as well, looked into the water, red from the reflection of the crimson sky above them.
Sasuke didn't answer verbally.
Instead he lifted his hand, a long katana having suddenly appeared in his tight grasp. The head was pointing directly at Itachi's chest.
This was 'his' world as much as Itachi's... he would need anything he knew about this genjutsu to damage Itachi's mind enough to get an advantage.
'He' had been trapped in his brother's Mangekyu before. And unlike his brother, Sasuke knew what would be waiting for him in the real world afterwards...
----------
"You better make it, you ass..." Naruto mumbled under his breath, taking a better hold on Kakashi's pants as he felt his former sensei slowly sliding down his shoulder where he was slung over.
"I still have to beat the crap outta ya for pulling those fucking stunts on us..."
"Naruto"
Frowning, the young man in question looked up to find Sakura watching him carefully with concerned eyes.
"'s nothing... just wondering what's happening back there"
"You're not the only one." The pink-haired kunoichi answered, averting her eyes and staring instead at her running feet.
Where they were heading exactly, Sakura couldn't tell. All she knew was that they had to get Kakashi as far away from the two fighting brothers as possible. She didn't have enough chakra left in her system to even stabilize him, let alone healing his mind completely.
Looking up, Sakura's eyes travelled across the broken houses and streets. No tree inside the village was still standing and every building was at least one story shorter. But apart from the unbelievable destruction they came across, Sakura realized that there hadn't been any attacks from sound nins so far. They hadn't in fact even seen a fight between sound and leaf and the gigantic snakes had disappeared, too.
Konoha had gained the upper hand at last.
"How 'bout that one?" Naruto asked, nodding his chin towards a small hut that looked very familiar to Sakura.
"The Ichiraku?" She asked incredulously, staring at the small house, which appeared to be the only one within sight that wasn't in danger of collapsing.
"Alright"
With that they sped towards the large entrance of the ramen stand and dashed inside, jumping over the counter. They crouched down low, Sakura with kunai in her uninjured hand and Naruto glaring daggers at potential enemies. To their surprise there actually 'were' two ninjas already occupying the small space between the counter and the stove.
"Kurenai? Asuma?" The female shinobi looked up at the trio in bewilderment, stopping dead in what she was doing.
Brows knitted into a confused frown, Sakura noticed that Kurenai had just been in the process of tying a part of her dress around the upper half of Asuma's right thigh. The floor where he was sitting, leaning heavily against the counter behind him, was dark red, the puddle of blood slowly growing.
"Sakura!" Kurenai exclaimed, turning around and showing her with blood stained face to the younger woman.
"It won't stop bleeding... I can't make it stop..." She said, but couldn't continue as her lips started quivering.
Sakura noticed, that her eyes were unfocused and her features were even paler than normal. Tainted hands were trembling violently, almost unable to hold the makeshift bandages anymore. Hot tears were running down her cheeks, washing away the grime and blood.
Without wasting another thought, Sakura crawled across he small space towards the two fellow Konoha ninjas and laid a assuring hand on Kurenai's shaking shoulder, squeezing it lightly.
"It's alright. I'll take over from here, ok?" She said in a calm voice, smiling gently up at the other woman. Kurenai nodded slowly, letting go of the bandage reluctantly and edged away from the man with the beard.
"Asuma? Can yo hear me"
For some long seconds, the hut was silent, interrupted only by the short gasps of the injured man.
"Yeah... " Asuma finally mumbled, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as another wave of pain apparently ran through his body.
"That's good. Tell me, how did you get that hole in the first place, huh?" Sakura asked him, her hands already forming a triangular seal above the gaping wound on his thigh. Blood was spurting out of the injury in time to his heartbeat, meaning that the weapon had ripped open the leg's main artery.
"Damn sound n... Argh!" Another wave of pain caught him unprepared and his jaw muscles clenched and unclenched as he tried to breathe through the pain. When Sakura looked up, she found Kurenai kneeling right beside him, her hand caressing his cheek as she whispered soothing words. Her other hand was intertwined with his, her thumb stroking a circular pattern across his skin.
"Hey, Asuma... what did happen?" Sakura had to keep him talking. If he lost consciousness, she couldn't tell whether he'd ever wake up again.
"Attacked... from behind..." He replied in between gasps, but his voice was already barely audible and even Kurenai had to move closer to his cheek to make out his words.
As Sakura looked down at her hands, a wave of nausea suddenly washed over her and her vision blurred. She could barely see her fingers anymore and had problems keeping her eyes open. So this was it. Healing the deadly wound on Asuma's thigh would be the last thing she would be able to do. Her chakra reserves were empty.
Sakura had hoped to be at least able to stay conscious, but it seemed she had overdone it.
"Naruto?" She asked with a trembling voice.
"What? Can I do anything?" His concerned voice sounded dull in her ears.
"Promise... promise me, not to... don't do anything dangerous... please... don't get yourself killed." She whispered, black and white dots dancing through her vision.
"What do you mean"
"Don't get killed... I won't... don't leave me alone here..."
With that, Sakura's eyes closed slowly, the last thing she heard being Naruto as he yelled her name.
----------
The pain was nearly unbearable.
Looking down at his hands, Sasuke found them covered in white liquid... his blood.
Slowly he fell to his knees, hands resting on the ground for support as his body threatened to collapse from exhaustion and pain. There were still at least six kunai sticking out of various parts of his battered body, the blood seeping out of uncountable wounds in a steady stream. Sasuke almost wished he'd finally run out of blood.
'For how much longer will I be able to keep the jutsu upright?', he asked himself silently as he looked up from the black ground and into the red sky. A strangely colored moon shone down at him mockingly.
He was so damn tired. It felt like the fight had already lasted for days. But it was hard to tell here, where nature was reduced to memories and pictures made up in their own minds.
A slight movement caught his attention and when he averted his gaze from the moon, Sasuke found his brother standing some ten meters away from him in the middle of the main street. At least a dozen kunai and shuriken were sticking out of his back from Sasuke's last attack and a short katana was still imbedded deeply within his thigh. Itachi hadn't even bothered to pull it out.
His normally stoic features were contorted in pain and his chest was heaving heavily. The two brothers were at their limit.
"In here, we will never die..." Itachi suddenly said, white blood running down the corners of his mouth. "Maybe it is time to finish it."
'Finish it', Sasuke repeated it in his mind, a small chuckle escaping his lips.
His brother was right. In this genjutsu, they could continue fighting each other, even killing each other for as long as their minds could stand the trauma. But that was not the way he wanted Itachi to die. He needed to it with his own hands. Face to face.
"Right."
The two men closed their eyes simultaneously...
As Sasuke opened them again he suddenly felt the bile rise is in dry throat and his stomach constricting. Everything around him was black. Pitch black.
Disorientated, he strained his ears into the silence, starting, when the sound of a tile smashing on the ground to his right startled him.
'The tile...', he thought perplexed. 'So the Tsukiyomi has only lasted for two seconds, huh!'
Sasuke closed his eyes for a moment and took a calming breath. His muscles were hurting, feeling like he had run a marathon in high speed.
When he opened them again, his surroundings were still bathed in black.
"Wh-?" He mumbled bewildered, feeling the panic gnawing at his consciousness.
Why couldn't he see anything? It was early morning, meaning that it had to be bright. But even if it had been night, Sasuke should have at least been able to make out the outlines of buildings.
Sasuke had never come across such absolute darkness.
'Am I blind'
The thought alone made him almost lose it.
What had caused it? Was it only temporary or would he be stuck in this blackness for the rest of his life?
'The Mangekyu...' That was the only logic explanation. Ever since Sasuke had been able to awaken this eyes, he had had problems with his eyesight. Things farther away than twenty meters had been slightly blurred and fuzzy.
If the short usage of those special sharingan had already caused slight deteriotation, then maybe having used them to counterattack Itachi's Mangekyu 'and' cast the genjutsu on him at the same time had caused the complete loss of his sight...
Suddenly a retching noise caught his attention, reminding Sasuke that his brother was still here, ready to kill him within a heartbeat. But judging by the sounds, the nuke-nin had other problems to take care of.
The retching had stopped and Itachi was fighting back the dry heaves that were still churning his stomach.
'What does it feel like to taste your own medicine, brother?', Sasuke mused, straightening as he took a first insecure step into the direction he presumed his brother to be kneeling.
This was 'his' chance to finish him off. Once and for all!
Drawing a kunai, Sasuke closed his eyes. Keeping them open in an attempt to 'see' was futile and occupied his brain too much, drawing his attention from his other senses. There were other things that 'mattered' now!
Smell, feeling, hearing. He had to rely on those only.
A slight breeze crawled across his face and some small pebbles rolled under his feet. The smell of fire and bile reached his nose and the sound of his brother taking a deep breath told him that the direction was still right.
Silently, he lifted his arm, kunai still in one hand.
Sasuke tried to imagine his surroundings. There had to be the broken building, Naruto had been buried under somewhere behind him.
And the drugstore of that old lady to his right. A large boulder, probably a part of the inn would be lying some feet away to his left, having crashed a bench and a lantern.
Again Sasuke could hear Itachi struggling for breath and calculated that his brother had to be already within a three meter range. Right on then, the chakra pattern of Itachi appeared, making the hair on Sasuke's arms stand up.
With ears trained to hear what wasn't there, Sasuke focused all his senses on his brother and aimed the kunai at a spot about two and a half meters in front of him. His other hand had already grabbed a shuriken, ready to finish the job within an eye's blink.
'Now!'
A jolt of pain ran suddenly through Sasuke's shoulder as a kunai sliced it open...
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FINIS?
Author's rambling II:
Well, well... long time no see, ne? I wish you all a wonderful new year! Lots of success and cookies and even more Naruto (no Kakashi for you! He's all mine! hugs him)
To answer a question in advance, which would probably sound something like:"Where the hell is the fight 'inside' the doujutsu?", I'll jump into a heart tearing explanation:
Time is nothing but a subjective sensation.
Itachi's and Sasuke's lil family reunion inside the genjutsu felt (for them) like days! Days!
I would need two (!) chapters to describe that part alone! My poor nerves revolted quite vehemently when I even thought about doing so. Also, the effect with the falling tile, which I sooooo love, wouldn't have been that good and, well... effective!
I hope you all understand though! I assume every singleone of you wonderful people (I'm a ass-kisser, I know o.O' ) would have in the first place! Now go and drop a review and if you want I'll answer the question above for you... again n.n
And always keep in mind: Time is what we make of it!