Inner Sakura screamed. Inner Sakura cried. She kicked against the shackles that bound her and struggled like a wounded animal. Inner Sakura wanted, no, needed to be anywhere but in front of those eyes.
Outer Sakura pushed Inner Sakura away. Outer Sakura needed to be in the forefront now, she needed to be the strong one, she needed to be the quick thinking leader and Hokage that her team relied on. She couldn't afford to be Inner Sakura just then and so Inner Sakura was pushed down to a place that wouldn't see the light of day.
"I will be," Outer Sakura growled, pushing herself up little by little. ". . .Hokage," she declared in a voice that was much braver than what she was feeling. That was alright though, the Hokage didn't actually need to be strong, she just had to look strong. For now this was the best she could do. Sakura faced the Grass ninja again, meeting her eyes and finding that the fear they instilled was just as much of a lie as the courage she felt. Of course they spoke of many awful things, but ultimately just like bravery, fear was a lie. Whether brave or afraid the Hokage has to get the job done.
If the Grass ninja was surprised by Sakura's ability to overcome her terror inducing technique then she didn't show it. The Grass ninja only had eyes for Sasuke, it was almost as if Sakura didn't exist.
Sasuke's breath quickened and Sakura's eyes darted towards him to see that he had cut himself and was rising slowly. Her eyes flicked back to the Grass ninja just in time to see the kunai headed towards her. Dodging was difficult and even though she had pushed the fear away the backlash from the trembling had made her limbs feel heavier. Nonetheless she avoided the projectile, seeing that Sasuke had managed the same, then she led the way, making for a rather large tree that would allow them to distance themselves from their attacker. As soon as they were out of the Grass ninja's vision it was like a switch had been thrown and Sakura felt a huge weight leave her shoulders. The utter elation felt was distracting, but she couldn't afford to think about it for now, Inner Sakura had dealt with that normally and she wasn't here now. Outer Sakura didn't need elation or relief, she needed a plan. Eyeing Sasuke she could tell that he agreed with the sentiment.
She stood and examined her surroundings for something that she could use, some way to get away from their attacker or to trap them. So engrossed was she in her plans that she didn't see the giant snake until she was already falling and by that point her mind had blanked.
That thing was gigantic. How was she supposed to fight that? She wanted to cry and scream, she wanted to hold onto Sasuke tightly and wait for him to save her.
Miraculously she managed to roll and scream at the snake. She didn't know what to do. She was going to die.
Outer Sakura repressed Inner Sakura again, pushing her further back and sent a few senbon heading straight for the snake's eye. The snake fell, writhed and died. Sakura breathed heavily. That had been too close. Inner Sakura was repressed for now but she wasn't going to like being pushed away for long and if anything stressed her more she would start pushing back.
The snake ripped open from the inside and Naruto appeared but Sakura was already far too suspicious and asked for his personalized codeword immediately. Sure enough the henge flickered and the Grass ninja was once again in front of them, sending off waves of terror that were setting Inner Sakura screaming in a dark and secluded corner of her mind. Outer Sakura was calm and collected though, Outer Sakura had a plan.
"We need to do something to trap her," she mumbled to Sasuke who was barely holding onto consciousness. He most likely didn't have such an effective way of stifling the fear coming from the Grass ninja which could be viewed as either fortunate or unfortunate.
The Grass ninja seemed to overhear Sakura though and started laughing. She claimed that they wouldn't be able to trap her, which Sakura thought was just something she was saying to derail them. Then she mentioned the sharingan and Sakura was derailed.
She had heard stories of the famous sharingan of course, the bloodline limit that was exclusive to the Uchiha. However not all of them were guaranteed to get it and from what she knew Sasuke had never displayed any use of it which had led her to believe that he didn't have. Sasuke looked mortified at the mention of it, however, and looked away in embarrassment when he admitted that he didn't have it. Was it a rite of passage? Did this have something to do with the famous Uchiha massacre that his brother enacted? Who was this Grass ninja and what did she want from Sasuke?
Her thoughts were interrupted by an oblong metal object rising out of her stomach. What was that? It looked oddly like a sword, but swords didn't come out of stomachs, that would be silly. She looked to Sasuke for an explanation and her eyes widened when she saw that his eyes had turned red. Was that the famed sharingan? How had he activated it? But no, it wasn't the sharingan because everything was turning red. Why was everything turning red?
She gasped as the pain caught up to her and Inner Sakura rose to the forefront stabbing a knife through Outer Sakura and taking up the rest of her consciousness. As the ground rose up towards her she felt the fear, felt the pain. The fear from the Grass ninja crushed the air from her lungs, making it impossible to scream and as warm blood seeped out into her dress, making it damp and heavy she felt the pain rising from her stomach to her head where it eventually took away her consciousness.
At some point the pain became too unbearable and her eyes opened wide as she screamed at Naruto who was trying to burn her. Why was he trying to burn her? She needed to tell Naruto to stop. She didn't want to burn, she didn't want to die.
He didn't let up though and she passed out from the pain again, preferring the solitude of the darkness.
Throughout the night she was in a half state of awake and sleep. She couldn't tell what was real and what was a fevered dream. The only part she was sure of was when Naruto tried explaining his sealing arrays to her. No dream could be that boring.
When she finally woke up properly it was to see Naruto facing off against three ninja. Naruto in his classic style was using whatever flash tags he'd set up in the area, allowing him to see perfectly in intervals with his goggles down. All of that passed through Sakura's head in an instant, however the words to leave her mouth weren't the ones that she necessarily expected, nor anyone else for that matter.
"Ooh. Pretty lights."
(O_O)
Naruto was tired and he smelled bad. He prided himself on being able to look friendly at most times, but, as Sasuke had pointed out to him, when Naruto was tired even Sasuke thought twice about going near him. It had been part of a longer lecture from Sasuke about how looking fearsome could end a fight before it started, most of it hadn't stuck though. Naruto preferred lulling someone into a false sense of security wherein he could defeat them without having to expend too much effort. Fear was useful, but he thought that friendliness could be even more useful. Maybe all of those wars had been started just because the opposing sides had been too afraid of expressing their feelings. Okay it was unlikely, but it was possible.
When the sun rose and nothing had happened the whole night Naruto had allowed himself to relax, which would prove to be a mistake, or at least it could've been if not for a good amount of warning beforehand.
The squirrel had given the game away. The fact was that animals didn't like Naruto and in the academy it had made it difficult for him to hunt effectively. Even without that there was the fact that he smelled strongly of toasted snake, snake guts, burnt flesh and sweat. The idea that any animal would come near him was so absurd, especially one that wasn't a predator.
He threw a kunai at the squirrel only for it to miss, causing the squirrel to scarper, revealing an explosive tag on its back. Naruto eyed his hands wearily, he must have been more tired than he thought to have missed that shot. He looked at Sasuke and Sakura who were both still passed out and he grimaced. He needed some sleep and they didn't seem like they were planning on waking up anytime soon. He could only hope that whatever happened to Sasuke wasn't too bad.
"There goes breakfast," Naruto grumbled aloud to throw off anyone that was watching. Instead of doing what one would normally do if they were expecting an ambush by panicking or other, he calmly strolled up to the thrown kunai and pulled it out of the ground, looking at it oddly. "Man I'm tired," he yawned. "I don't think I can manage much more of this."
He hid a smirk as three ninja let themselves down from whatever tree they had been hiding in, all with condescending sneers on their faces. Naruto didn't want to make any assumptions but it appeared that they had fallen for his act.
He put on a panicked face upon seeing them and pretended to stumble backwards. "H. . .how?" he stuttered, channeling Hinata. He reached for his kunai slowly and raised it in front of him, holding it weakly to give the illusion of his utter exhaustion. "I assume you're here for my scroll. We have the heaven one, so you can take it if you just leave us alone," he said truthfully. He would do almost anything to avoid a fight right then.
One of the sound ninja, he looked like a hunchback with all of his face covered save for his eye, let out an evil laugh that told Naruto he probably practiced it in front of a mirror. "We can't do that. We'll happily take your scroll but first we're here to fight Sasuke."
Naruto scratched his head. "He's unconscious you know?"
One of the other Sound ninja smirked. "Then we'll kill him. Don't get in our way."
"Don't be so impatient Zaku. We can wait until he wakes up," said the only female member of the Sound team.
Naruto nodded. "That sounds good. Can you guys keep watch while I take a nap?"
The shortest of the Sound team cocked his head at Naruto. "Are you an idiot?" he asked.
Naruto shrugged. "Some would say. So can I trust you all to keep watch or am I going to be forced to do it myself?"
The Sound team looked at each other strangely, turning back to Naruto. "Sure you can trust us. Go to sleep. We'll wait here until Sasuke wakes up," Zaku said, doing nothing to hide his smirk.
Naruto raised a thumb to them then turned to rifle through his pack. If his calculations were right he should be expecting an attack in three, two, one. . .He turned and slammed his fist into the face of the shortest of the sound team, grinning at the audible crack of his nose. Then he lowered his goggles, flared his chakra and got to work.
Ever since he'd started practicing with flash tags he had been using the goggles, but they were somewhat of a hindrance and when a flash tag was being released he couldn't actually see. But he still navigated the battleground mostly unhindered. The secret was his enhanced sense of smell which allowed him to spot his enemies without actually seeing them. The flash tags were more for the purpose of disorienting the enemy and for more exact attacks. However setting off traps wasn't a problem even while lacking vision and the traps he had were many. He needed to move quickly though as he had a limited amount of flash tags. He just needed to corral them towards his explosive tags and- there. He flared his chakra and one tag exploded.
It didn't have the desired effect and instead of blowing the tall male, Zaku was his name from what Naruto recalled, across the forest clearing, he brought his hands up, somehow diverting the explosion. Naruto was so surprised that he didn't notice the shorter ninja approach, swinging wildly. Naruto dodged instinctually, backpedaling as he set off a flash tag to cover his escape.
Something was wrong, he was dizzy and nauseous. He doubled over and threw up the water and field rations he had been eating during the night. "Not again," he moaned.
He looked up at broken nose finding that what little vision he had was now blurred. That was fine, he didn't need to rely on his vision. He closed his eyes and launched himself forward. The movement only served to make him more nauseous and he was pretty sure that he would've continued to throw up if there had been anything left in his system. As it was he fell short and felt a fist colliding with his face, provoking a similar feeling to that of before, only this time it was much much worse.
Zaku and the girl had regrouped, Zaku looking a little singed but otherwise unharmed. "Come on Dosu, finish him then we can get the Uchiha," said the girl.
Naruto looked at them and retched onto the floor again, hiding his smile. Maybe they had escaped his first attack and his second, but he always prepared too much which meant that the Sound ninja were essentially walking through a minefield. Of course the explosions shouldn't kill them, not if Naruto gave them medical attention quickly enough. He just needed to flare his chakra and this fight would be over quicker than he could say-
"Ooh. Pretty lights."
No, that wasn't it.
"Don't worry Sakura, I'll protect you until I die."
No, that wasn't it either.
A fourth figure stepped onto Naruto's minefield obliviously making him groan. What the hell was Rock Lee doing here ruining his plans? He tried to tell him to go away but he couldn't manage the words in between retches.
"Your eyebrows are so bushy," a mumble came from Sakura who had chosen the absolute worst moment to wake up.
"Yes. It is a sign of my springtime youth," Rock explained, not taking his eyes off the enemy.
Naruto could admire his bravery in the face of danger but this really wasn't the time. If he could only just get Rock to go away. Maybe he could attack him or something.
The ninja he now knew as Dosu swiped at Rock, totally missing him and before Naruto could shout a warning, Rock was also struggling to stand, although he kept his composure better than Naruto. Well, Naruto supposed he could just wait for Rock to get his butt handed to him then drag him out of the way. Groaning, he pulled himself up into a sitting position to watch the fight. He couldn't be bothered with fighting anymore.
Rock fought well, he was very fast and Naruto was glad that Sasuke hadn't taken his offer to fight earlier. Although he didn't use any jutsu he was wicked fast and strong. It didn't mean much though as Dosu didn't need to hit someone to beat them, so that even when Rock activated some special ability, that made him faster and stronger, he still lost that fight. Finally.
Naruto moved over to Rock and dragged him somewhere safe, much to the confusion of the Sound ninja, then readied himself to flare his chakra.
"Don't worry Sakura, we'll save you," called a voice he recognized as Ino's, jumping over a bush to stand in the middle of his minefield, followed by Choji and Shikamaru who was at least eyeing the ground under his feet wearily.
"No damnit. Go away," Naruto shouted.
Shikamaru at least seemed to understand but Ino didn't. "Who are you? We're here to protect Sakura and show her how the real Hokage fights."
"Ino," cried out Sakura, tears suddenly streaming from her face. "I miss you so much. You're my best friend forever."
Ino blushed at that and looked away, coughing into a hand. "Is she feeling alright?"
"No. She got stabbed," Naruto deadpanned. "Can you go now?"
Ino shook her head. "Didn't you hear her. I'm her best friend. The Hokage doesn't abandon her friends."
Naruto groaned again. "Alright, you know what. All oof you do what you want. I'm going to sit over there until you're all done fighting. Coming Shika?"
"Don't you dare Shikamaru. Your team leader commands you help us with this fight," Ino declared as Shikamaru tried to follow Naruto.
"Such a drag," he mumbled, but fell into formation as Naruto dragged his two teammates out of the way.
Sakura was acting strange. She had stopped crying but for some reason the usual, stoic and analytical expression she usually carried was gone, replaced by a wide eyed innocent expression that looked curious of everything. "You look so strange with red hair, Naruto," she expressed without any prompting. "You used to look like the old pictures of the fourth Hokage and he was so handsome."
Naruto grunted a response, realizing that the poor girl must be seeing things. He didn't look anything like the Yondaime. Finally managing to stash them somewhere that stray projectiles hopefully wouldn't reach. Sasuke seemed to be stirring and Naruto tried to shush the fighters so that Sasuke could get his rest. This was a real pain. He was sure that if Shikamaru had become the leader of his team they would never have barged into a fight so recklessly.
Looking up to see the fight, he noticed that Shikamaru had caught Dosu in his shadow and was making him do odd tricks, Ino was slumped over, most likely having taken over the girl's body and Choji chasing Zaku around after having turned his body into a giant wrecking ball. They had a chance if they played their cards right, but after watching the fight Naruto was forced to wince. The Sound team was good and slightly ruthless. Sighing he supposed there was nothing to it. They would get beat up, Naruto would clear their bodies away from the minefield then he could finally set off his tags.
"Do you enjoy picking on little kids?" came another familiar voice, revealing himself to be Neji Hyuga, Rock Lee's teammate probably wondering where his teammate had disappeared to. Tenten was standing next to him looking slightly awkward at Neji's need to give a speech before attacking. "You all attacked our teammate," he directed to the Sound team. "Although Lee is a weakling and probably deserved it. I'm sorry to inform you that you're going to pay." With that he activated his byakugan. He looked down at the fight and Naruto realized what he must be seeing. Neji blanched upon seeing the ground, turning to look at the fighters with a bewildered expression on his face. "Why are all of you fighting on a field of explosive tags?"
Naruto brought his palm to his forehead. Ninja these days, no subtlety.
"What are you going on about?" Dosu asked.
Naruto stood up and waved frantically at Neji, trying to attract his attention. For a guy that could apparently see everything he had a surprising amount of tunnel vision.
"The ground you're all standing on is covered in hundreds of explosive tags," Neji explained, prompting Naruto to give up.
Shikamaru was the only one not surprised by the turn of events. "Knew it," he muttered.
Besides for him all the other ninja had stilled and Dosu was looking between Naruto and Rock's prone form, a level of understanding suddenly dawning on his one eye that Naruto could see.
"Yo Neji, do you want to tell them where my birthmark is as well?" he shouted angrily, which set Sakura into a giggling fit.
"You're funny when you're angry. Can I see your birthmark?" she asked earnestly, making Naruto sigh.
"Whatever, just carry on your fight. I'm not going to set them off so just pretend that I'm not here," he called out and slumped his shoulders. Turning back to face Sakura and Sasuke he wondered what was wrong with Sakura and hoped it wasn't permanent.
"Where's Sasuke?" he asked suddenly, standing back up.
"He got a cool tattoo," Sakura murmured. "Sasuke shouldn't have gotten it though. He's cool enough without the tattoo."
Naruto looked back at the battlefield in a panic to see Sasuke standing in the midst of enemies, facing off against the three Sound ninja while Shikamaru ushered his team out of the way and Neji sat pretty.
"I heard you were looking for a fight," Sasuke said to them, loosening his neck with a few audible cracks. "Well you found it."
Zaku looked like he wanted to join the fight and the girl mirrored him, but Dosu backed away. "Don't be hasty Zaku," Dosu started to say but was cut off by Zaku activating a jutsu.
Naruto couldn't believe his eyes. In one second Sasuke had gone from standing calmly at the other end of the clearing to getting under Zaku's guard, attacking him relentlessly, putting him in a lock and finally breaking his arm with a crack that sounded around the clearing. In that moment Naruto was able to see Sasuke's face and Sakura's insane ramblings suddenly made sense. Spreading from the seal on his neck were small black patches of ink, covering his face and left arm. The other change that Sakura likely hadn't noticed was the rage on Sasuke's face. Naruto hadn't seen that type of rage for quite a few years now and he didn't like it. He needed to do something to stop it.
Dosu was backing away from Sasuke slowly who was approaching with a lazy gait and taunting the Sound ninja while Zaku cried out in the background. Naruto wasn't sure when it happened but at some point in the fight Sasuke must have also knocked out the girl because she was lying on the floor next to Zaku.
Naruto looked down at Sakura to make sure she was alright before he went off and did something stupid. He looked and didn't find as once again his teammate had escaped his care. Sakura was stumbling across the clearing, the action clearly hurting her. Right before Sasuke could land a killing blow on Dosu Sakura draped her arms around Sasuke and leaned against him, declaring the one thing that Naruto didn't ever think he would hear in such a situation. "Sasuke has the coolest jawline ever."
Naruto didn't know if it was the declaration or the weight but Sasuke stopped in his tracks as if coming to stand in front of a wall. Slowly and very carefully he patted Sakura's head as she giggled against him. The ink was receding from his skin, going back to the seal on his neck and Sasuke appeared to be coming to himself. Then he collapsed to the ground, bringing Sakura with him, where she lay against him, rubbing her head comfortingly against his back.
Dosu looked at them strangely then held out his scroll. "You would've won this fight. You're too strong for us Sasuke. Take our earth scroll as a gift and know that when next we meet we will be stronger." With that Dosu dropped the earth scroll in front of Sasuke and started loading his teammates onto his shoulders.
In the meantime Naruto had sidled over to Sakura and Sasuke's prone forms with an unhappy expression. "Which one of you wants to tell me what happened?"
(O_O)
Team seven stumbled into the tower on the third night, having formed a coalition with team ten they had quickly helped the team get their matching scroll before setting off towards the tower. Although things were awkward at first. Ino hadn't believed Shikamaru when she was told that Naruto had dyed his hair and Sakura had spent most of the time giggling. It got to the point that Naruto was forced to apply knockout tags to Sakura's head while they travelled to prevent her from giving away their position. They had considered volunteering Ino's mind arts only for Ino to refuse claiming that she didn't want to see what was going on inside Sakura's head just then.
There had been a couple of close calls with a team that specialized in genjutsu, but as soon as Shikamaru's brain got working the two teams were able to make easy work of them even without Sakura's assistance. Shikamaru had an interesting style though, he never gave the orders, more that he would approach Ino with suggestions and she would think them over, choosing the one she liked most. It was a dynamic that was surprisingly similar to team seven's.
Although their time passed without anything really eventful happening, Naruto had an itch throughout the journey that told him they were being watched. Every now and then he would turn around and catch a figure darting away. He wanted to say that it was Kabuto, but truthfully he had no idea. It had put him on guard though and he hadn't gotten much sleep over those three days.
But they had made it, they were at the tower and none of them were dead. If they had to fight now though Naruto would have probably just quit, he didn't know how he would quit but he was confident that he could figure it out.
"So what now?" Naruto directed to Shikamaru who was gazing at a sign above them that didn't make much sense.
Shikamaru yawned and for once he wasn't the only one yawning. Ino looked as tired as him and Choji looked like he'd lost a significant amount of weight. Sasuke might not have acted tired, but from the way his head was titled Naruto could tell that he was one step away from sleep. In fact the only one on their team that wasn't exhausted was Sakura and she was almost giddy with excitement, she did sleep for most of the second exam so it was understandable. She did provide support during some of their fights though so it might not be fair to look at her as if she did nothing, but as of right then Naruto was very annoyed with Sakura and her bubbly personality.
"I assume we're supposed to open our scrolls now," Shikamaru said. "What do you think fearless leader?" he directed to Ino lazily.
Ino nodded in agreement. "That makes sense. There are clearly words missing from the plaque. The missing words are most likely on the scrolls."
Naruto shrugged. "Whatever you say fearless leader," he said smirking slightly then pulled the two scrolls from his pack, unrolling them with the practiced ease of someone that dealt with scrolls far too often, laying them out on the floor for everyone to see.
A puff of smoke, a few coughs and a figure rose up out of the scrolls, giving them a smug look that Naruto hadn't really missed.
Naruto groaned. "Don't tell me we have to fight you Mizuki," Naruto exclaimed, turning away. "I'm done. You guys fight him, I'm going to sleep."
On the other side of the room, Iruka had appeared from team ten's scrolls and they had all readied themselves into a battle formation. Mirroring them, Sakura had pulled out her senbon and looked ready to throw them at a moment's notice.
"Woah, hey. Put those away. The second task is over. Relax," Mizuki managed, holding his hands up defensively.
Sakura eyed him suspiciously but put her senbon away. "You were always my third favorite instructor in the academy, Mizuki," she admitted.
Mizuki looked confused at that. "You only ever had two instructors? Actually no, back on topic. Congratulations on passing the second task and with time to spare. I notice that you came in with team ten. Good on you. In times like these allies are more important than any jutsu you could ever learn."
"That's great Mizuki. Wake me for the next task," Naruto called, laying down in a corner and resting his head against his pack.
"You're not done yet Naruto," Mizuki said sighing. "I'm also here to explain the final message on the plaque. It's the Chunin's motto written by the Lord Hokage. It states that if you lack heaven seek wisdom and if you lack earth seek strength." He received blank looks. "It means if you're stupid then you should study and if you're weak then get stronger. Once you have both, missions will become easy."
Naruto chose that moment to stand up carefully and brandish a kunai wearily. "What are you playing at Mizuki. That's the vaguest motto I've ever heard. Half of that motto isn't even necessarily true and the other half is simple logic unless you're stupid. Are you planning on attacking us to prove that we don't have these heaven and earth concepts? What's your angle?"
Mizuki sighed. "Has anyone ever told you that you're really paranoid?"
Naruto blinked. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."
Shaking his head, Mizuki looked over to where Iruka seemed to be having an easier time with team ten. Or perhaps he was just better at lulling them into a false sense of security. Naruto wouldn't let his guard down.
Sasuke moved to Naruto's side and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's over Naruto. He's telling the truth. Look." He nodded to team ten who had been ushered out of the temple with relieved expressions. Naruto eyed them suspiciously but after seeing that even Shikamaru looked relaxed he let his shoulders slump.
"Sasuke's so cool," Sakura squealed and moved over to Sasuke to try and hug him again. He only just managed to avoid her in his tired state but his aversion sent her into tears making Sasuke cringe.
"Yeah. I guess it is over," Naruto said, smiling weakly and putting away his kunai. "Sorry Mizuki. Some crazy stuff happened to us."
Mizuki nodded. "So I've heard. Your sensei wants to see you three before you go home. Meet back at the academy in two days when the time limit ends." He nodded to them seriously then broke into a warm smile. "Good job guys. You make an old man like me proud."
"Proud enough to buy us ramen?" Naruto asked hopefully.
"Not in your wildest dreams."
