Kill Your Heroes

-Chapter Sixteen-

Ligyrophobia (Part II)

Sakura struck as soon as she saw the ghost, the hilt of her kunai impacting with a sickening crack just behind Dosu's temple.

He crumbled instantly and she began to pivot toward Zaku next, but Kin's hand was already slapping down on his shoulder and she was regretting the seconds she'd thought to save pulling the stabbing end of her kunai free.

The blast of air hit her like a wall and she wasn't entirely certain the creak from her ribs was a product of her imagination, but she skidded back some twenty feet from the force of the blow, digging the fingers of her open hand into the turf and using chakra to keep herself from being sent tumbling.

To break free that easily, she's either a genjutsu specialist or they're ridiculously overqualified to become chunin. Probably both, Sakura thought to herself as she just avoided another blast, the wind ruffling her hair. And one's got a weapon I can feel but can't see.

Her body was trembling from the fear and the frustration, but she forced her breathing to slow from its quick, erratic pace. She wasn't going fresh into this battle. Sakura didn't need to compound that.

Not when she was facing two enemies who were the subordinates of Orochimaru. If she was facing Zaku alone, she'd feel more confident in being able to test the limits of his ability without getting critically injured, but there was also Kin to consider. And as she dodged another blast, this one carrying kunai in it, and found herself sprouting a shoulder full of senbon needles for her trouble, she spared enough time for a single, vile thought that encompassed Orochimaru, the proctors, and Naruto.

Then she didn't have any more time to spare.

They were both rushing her, and while that gave them both space to mock her freely, it took every lesson that Kakashi-sensei and the ninken had painfully inscribed into her mind and muscles to just keep herself from further injury. The senbon burned and pulled every time she moved her arm, but she'd only managed to pluck out the most painful, though action was working the others loose.

"God, this is annoying," Kin snarled as Sakura twisted herself out of the way of another barrage of senbon, one passing so close to her right eye she'd swear she'd felt it brush against her eyelashes, and she had to shove through a wall of almost in my EYE! to not freeze up. "What good are you when you won't even scream? We're here for Sasuke, not to waste time playing with the likes of you."

Need something to change the field. If it stays like this, I'm going to make a mistake. And that will be it, she thought with gritted teeth. I just need to-

The sound of bells jerked her full attention back to the external battlefield as she flipped backwards, well behind the line where a group of senbon, bells still tingling merrily, divided the battlefield.

"What, just going to keep running away?" Zaku taunted. "Man, I knew Konoha-nin were pathetic, but that's just sad. You can take care of her, Kin. I'll see if I can't find our prey. No way does a Konoha-nin just leave her teammates. He's gotta be around here somewhere." He glanced over to where his teammate still lay unconscious. "If Dosu doesn't wake up soon, he's gone to miss out on all the glory."

Kin shrugged, in a 'it's his problem, not mine' sort of fashion, fresh senbon already splayed like spines in her hand. Sakura had two kunai in hand and she darted forward, ducking beneath the jangling group of senbon in her attempt to get at Kin.

She saw the shadow wave.

She had only a split-second to decide and as she felt the senbon go deep, burning as they pierced skin and her movement tore muscle, she had a moment's regret, but she gritted her teeth and shoved herself forward. As she pressed onward regardless, she heard the previously still bells jingle and she braced herself for another attack.

It was only when her stumble wasn't a single misstep that she could right, but like the first signs of a stroke, a terrible inability to move her body like she ought to be able to, that she had the first premonition of Kin's real ability. She couldn't get her eyes to focus, seeing double, triple, more, and it was difficult to even stay upright.

Sakura almost fell, caught herself awkwardly with one hand, and her stomach lurched. Bile spattered across the ground and the back of her hand. Kin's laughter seemed to chase her as she made a retreat that followed a drunkard's path, weaving and tripping, but urged on by desperation to a quickness that meant she saw the world as a series of multiple afterimages, worse than any feverdream. But she kept at it, pushing herself up again and again as she almost fell.

Until she stumbled in such a way that she couldn't recover from, over a protruding root that her genjutsu-addled senses missed. She cried out heavily as she landed and again as Kin's blunt nails left trails down her scalp, closing over her ponytail. "Under all that blood, your hair's softer than mine," Kin said in a tone full of disgust. "You must be so proud of it," she sneered, yanking hard. Sakura curled forward like she trying to pull away and Kin turned into a movement of her violence, pressing her head down until she was driving her forehead into the grass.

Her hands hidden by her body, Sakura formed the familiar handsign for concentration.

Genjutsu, kai, Sakura thought to herself as she forcibly interrupted her chakra. The nausea and disorientation disappeared instantly and what was left was Kin, doing nothing more than the bullies at the Academy had done. Must not have had anyone to pull her hair, she thought nastily. Hurts less when you're pulling all of it.

She levered herself up, even as Kin tried to press her head back down, and saw that despite or rather because of Kin's efforts, her broken-wing gambit had worked.

Sakura's hand closed firmly around the wrist of the hand clutching at her hair and she lunged forward, her free hand dropping her kunai to stiff-arm the wire hidden in the grass.

The wire above her head, almost indistinguishable from spider silk as it swayed in the breeze, suddenly whined with tension as it was pulled tight enough to play pizzicato on.

And from where Kin was standing, tight enough to slit her throat, if she'd been incrementally slower at bringing up a kunai up to keep the wire from slicing into her skin.

The black-haired kunoichi was cursing aloud as she tried to hold it steady, the kunai itself pressed uncomfortable tight against her neck, and Sakura was silently cursing well-honed reflexes, but that didn't stop her from spinning her body up into a kick and catching the hilt of the kunai with the base of her heel, driving it straight up into soft flesh.

Kin had managed to shift back, just as little, as Sakura's kick had meant she'd shifted her grip on Kin's arm. Her hand on the hilt changed the angle unfavorably and Kin had tilted her head back by reflex, so though Sakura felt the resistance of bone, the kunai scraped along the outside of her jawbone rather than going up into that defenseless triangle between jaw and neck.

Bleeding freely, Kin dropped the kunai, hand coming up to check the severity of the wound, while the other dipped into her pouch.

As soon as her foot touched back down, Sakura hooked one foot behind Kin's knees and jerked hard enough that the other girl fell heavily. Sakura drew one of her knives as she pounced, angling for the liver, managing to drive it perhaps half an inch before Kin landed a ringing blow upside her ear that snapped her head to the side and toppled her off the other girl.

She managed to recover her feet before Kin could reverse the situation, struggling hard not to clutch at her ear like Kin was the neck wound.

It was difficult not just because of the pain, which was bad enough, but also because a faint, tinny noise was all she could hear out of it. She tried hard not be set off-balance by that, either physically or emotionally, but it would be so, so easy to just run away now. It hurts, it hurts, was throbbing in her ear, the burning of senbon, the soreness of overworked muscles.

Her grip tightened as Kin brought another handful of senbon up to her face and sneered at her through them. "I'm going to make you pay for this," she promised.

Sakura tensed, but before either of them could make any move toward the other, a voice from just behind Kin interrupted. "Just so you know, I'm taking this," a cheerful voice interrupted and Kin half-turned on one heel, to reveal a ninja who couldn't have been more than two foot from her. 'This' was a scroll, being waggled idly in one hand.

The ninja would have been cute in almost any other setting, with the soft-angled features that would always make him look years younger than his real age. His hair was in purposeful disorder, his fringe kept out of his face on the right by two yellow star barrettes that would have appealed to Sakura when she was about eight, the hair itself a light brown with a strangely purple tint to it, his eyes a shade of yellow.

His clothing built on that image of childishness that he'd reinforced with his manner of speech, his shirtsleeves long enough to obscure his hands almost entirely. "I took it off that fellow over there," he continued blithely, using the scroll to point to Dosu, "as he didn't look like he needed it. Just so you're not wondering where it went later."

"You—," Kin said, darting forward, but he plucked a long knife from a horizontal sheathe behind his back as he tucked the scroll away. He dodged her strike, opening up a slice on her arm when she overextended herself slightly. It wasn't a very long cut, but Kin's eyes widened and then she screamed.

The easy smile never failed as Kin backed away from him, her breath coming as high-pitched pants, like little smothered screams. Her steps were unsteady and she'd gone pale, the first beads of sweat forming on her brow. Sakura got her first good look at his knife then and found it strange and cruel looking, with full, deep serration along the length of the blade. There seemed to be some sort of decorative pattern etched into the blade, but she couldn't make it out and she wasn't about to risk getting closer.

"Kin, what the hell—" Zaku demanded as he dropped down from where he'd been surveying the nearby area, but he cut himself off when he saw someone else had joined the field.

"Got—our—scroll," Kin managed to pant, "your—turn," and then she retreated, almost collapsing against a tree at the far edge of the clearing as she emptied her stomach.

Zaku's eyes narrowed as he glared at the interloper. "What village are you from? Shouldn't you be with your team, not butting in on other people's battles?"

The stranger shrugged. "Does my village matter? No one's friends in this forest. And as for my team, well," and there was a strange look in his eye for all that his tone never lost its lightness, "the sandman came and took them all away, so I really, really wanted to hurt somebody. And when I came upon you bunch trying to take down prey too big for you, I couldn't resist. That's okay, right, onee-san?" he asked, directing the question to Sakura. That he asked in the same tone a child might ask for a cookie was unnerving, but she dipped her head in assent. Better one questionable ally than yet another enemy.

Zaku took it as a challenge, because this time the blast from those holes in his hands was much, much more powerful, digging a furrow as it went. But while Sakura leapt aside, the stranger didn't move, but before the air-blade could touch him, he'd sheathed his knife, his hands flowing through signs, and he made a sharp gesture with his mouth, like a dog barking.

She couldn't see it with her eyes, but the evidence—dust and grass blown away by a collision of wind fronts, suggested wind-nature ninjutsu.

Zaku scowled, but it was movement from Dosu's previously still body that worried her. The stranger followed the direction of her gaze. "No preferences, nee-san, one pain's as good as another," he said with an offhand salute, strolling lackadaisically toward the bandaged Oto-nin. She tried to shove that strange, brittle hardness in his eyes out of her mind, because Zaku was coming.

She wondered bitterly if those tunnels required far less chakra than regular nature manipulations and just how deep his equipment pouches ran, because he wasn't offering her opportunities to close and showed no signs of the exhaustion she was feeling. And without closing, she had no way to end this battle in her favor, just desperately maintain the stalemate.

He'd come down out of the trees, at least, and a thought came to Sakura.

She had explosive notes in her pouch and a reluctance to use them, but the thought was heavy in her mind that if she'd struck harder, faster, more decisively, then she'd have one more death on her conscience, but one less fear driving her. And she discovered that this was one line she was willing to blur, if it meant survival. Whether that was admirable or not, she didn't know, but she did know that the only thought in her head wasn't one of regret, but a focus on watch my left, not my right.

She never looked up, not once, relying entirely on her memory, as she made a calculated retreat. She tried to keep track of everyone and everything in the clearing, but found it beyond her skill, so did what she could to make her next attacks count, because timing was going to be everything.

Kunai, tags slapped hastily on their handle, blasted dirt into the air, concealing the flight of one kunai that did not fly with its fellows. A second, heavier wave forced him back and covered the noise of lesser explosions overhead and she rushed in, to give him no space to pay attention to anything but her. Something, though, must have alerted him to the danger, for at the last possible second, almost too late, he looked up.

It was enough to save his life, but the massive trunk still clipped his shoulder, several tons of wood crashing down and tearing it free from the joint, breaking the collarbone and driving him to his knees.

When the trunk hit the ground, it did so with a low, powerful sound and a rumble that shook the earth.

"Oh, not bad," a voice commented at her shoulder and she glanced over to find their interloper looking on with an air of distinct satisfaction.

Both of them jerked when a sudden, ominous aura suddenly pervaded the clearing, a forerunner to an eruption of purple-tinted chakra. Sakura stilled, her heart beating loud in her ears, as she took note of just where that chakra was coming from. "Sasuke-kun," she said, voice breaking on the second syllable of his name.

"Who?"

"My teammate."

Brows pitched upward in question, he followed her gaze. "Your teammate," he repeated with an intonation whose blandness spoke for itself. "In that case, I'm going to feel free to leave, nee-san. It was fun to play, but it seems like your teammate's in a snit. Here, nee-san," he said, pressing something into the palm of her hand. "A present, for being a good sport about the scroll."

She didn't even glance down to see what it was. "The scroll didn't matter to me," she said bitterly. "You could have had ours, if you'd liked. Thanks, for helping."

A soft huff of laughter. "I don't think you really needed it, but the opportunity was too good to miss. If I couldn't touch the Suna-nin, the arrogant Oto-nin were good enough. And I just needed the one scroll," he said. "It's the principle of the thing. If my teammates died for the mission, I could at least finish it, promotion or not."

With that enigmatic statement, he was gone and Sasuke-kun crested the trunk of the tree like a demon from some deep hell, his eyes gone red with Sharingan and markings like black flames crawling across his skin. He moved strangely, not quite a stagger, but as if he wasn't in full control of his body either.

He surveyed the battleground, Zaku still on his knees, clutching at a shoulder than sat far lower than it should have, Dosu panting from his brief bout against the stranger, shaking his head every so often like he couldn't get himself to focus, and Kin still making those terribly pained noises, tears streaming freely down her cheeks as her arm swelled, the edges of the wound turning blue.

But Sakura was also breathing heavily, senbon still caught in her flesh, the shallow gashes of kunai she hadn't quite dodged trickling blood, and her whole body felt like a bruise from Zaku's attacks.

This was apparently enough to offend Sasuke-kun, because his eyes swept over the Oto-nin like a hawk looking over rabbits staked out as bait. "They hurt you," he observed in a low, steady voice, his feet carrying him surely down the trunk to where Zaku was and the other boy struggled to his feet.

Sakura didn't even see Sasuke-kun move, but suddenly he was behind Zaku and he had him on his knees, his good arm twisted back in a suppression hold. "I should make this part of a matching pair for that," he said, twisting the arm back and up until it cracked and Zaku screamed.

The self-satisfied smirk that twisted Sasuke-kun's lips was just like the one he'd worn in the genjutsu Kakashi-sensei had shown her. She trembled as those black flames slithered across Sasuke's pale skin, flinching as he twisted Zaku's arm further simply because he could. She listened to him talk about power, and being an avenger, and a man he'd do anything to kill.

She wanted to stop him, wanted to pull him away, but Sakura was afraid to touch him.

"Sasuke!" she said sharply and his head came up, his gaze meeting her own. His eyes were wild again, but this time not with fear. "Sasuke, stop this. They're finished. It's over. We...we've won," she said, the last word bitter on her tongue.

She didn't like the way Sasuke regarded her, but he let Zaku go, only to pin the ninja with his foot when he would have stood. "He hurt you, Sakura," Sasuke told her. "You shouldn't feel sorry for him."

Sakura hadn't, not until this moment, and it was less that she felt overwhelming pity for the enemy shinobi and more that she was disturbed by Sasuke's actions. He wasn't that stranger she might never see again. He was someone she'd thought she'd known. Someone she'd trusted. She took tiny steps forward, until she was standing at Zaku's head and she drew him up roughly by his collar, Sasuke moving his foot so she could, and Zaku struggling to gain his own footing. "Go," she ordered Zaku curtly and for once all his trash-talk seemed to have evaporated.

Sasuke's eyes said he didn't like allowing them to retreat and Sakura hurriedly tugged free the last of Kin's senbon, letting them fall to her feet. And then, mastering herself, she hugged him tentatively, making a gentle shackle of her arms. "Please," she whispered, "let them go."

Sakura didn't know if she'd regret sparing them, but some deep instinct told her she'd regret it more if she set Sasuke on them while he was like this. She'd feared his abilities, once, but this was the first time she'd feared Sasuke himself. This wasn't her teammate, this boy who talked about power regardless of price and looked at the ugly marks seething across his skin like they were some kind of revelation.

Orochimaru had said Sasuke would seek him out.

She'd never expected the boy she'd adored to be swayed so easily, but even as the marks retreated, she still couldn't make herself feel at ease around him.

As she buried her face in the crook of his neck, she just wanted Sasuke-kun back.