A lot of chapters rolled into this one, a few things have been changed again.
Hope you are enjoying it! I promise the story goes longer than it did before :)
Happy Reading!
While he was searching for the ninjas, he felt a charka signature move in the distance. "Che.." he exclaimed with smirk. These clones were very well done to be able to fool the Rinnegan. "A medical nin….obviously… " Sasuke Uchiha was excited. After all this time, he was up against a worthy opponent and he had been itching for a fight. He touched the clone and sensed 6 miles out closer to the border. He took off at lighting speed. As he got closer to the chakra he couldn't help but shake the familiarity of it. He knew this person's chakra, but it was altered somehow. The second he got behind the Anbu Kunochi and saw the pink hair, he knew who he was up against.
Sakura felt his presence and in a split second they had their kunais out battling with each other on the tree branches until they landed in a clearing. They circled like predator and prey, which was which it was hard to tell. They battled it out with shuriken and kunai, neither aiming to strike a fate blow until Sasuke used the shadow shuriken to knock of the Anbu mask.
Sakura's reserve chakra diamond grew into an elaborate mask as Sasuke's hand lit up with Chidori. They charged towards each other. Sakura flipped over him to avoid the chidori. He grabbed the container on her back. Quick as a flash sakura did some hand signals in mid air. Sasuke released his mangekyun shanringan and there was a blinding glow of light and the very next moment Sasuke and Sakura were both inside the Susano with each one holding on to the either side of the wooden box. Sasuke was stunned "How did you…"
They fought using Taijutsu inside the ultimate shield, neither letting go of their end of the box.
Sakura aimed a Chakra Punch at sasuke which he doged. Still holding on to one edge of the box he drew his sword from the other hand, and she drew her's. They fought ferociously and then Sasuke found an opening before he knew what he drive the sword thorough her and a wave of instant regrets washed over him.
Sakura had closed her eyes a fraction of a second before the sword hit her. In that moment her whole body glowed with green healing chakra. The mask on her face spread all the way down the edges of her face to her neck.
A tear slipped down Sasuke's eye and Sakura smirked "Too late…" she said. In that instant in a there was a flash and Sasuke was back to where he saw Sakura inside the Susano the first time. "What did you do?"
—
Sasuke was positive he'd killed her and yet there they were facing each other. His sword was sheathed and on his back. Both of them were holding either edge of the box that he was supposed to steal from her.
Sakura chose not to answer, glaring at him she asked "Why are you here? Who hired you?"
"That is confidential… Whats in the box?" Sasuke retorted
"That is confidential…" Sakura bit back
"Fine, i'll find out for myself…" said Sasuke as he used his free hand to create a chidori and aimed a lighting punch at sakura. She didn't even try to doge as it. She coughed up blood as soon as it hit her and smirked at him "Told you last time, too late…" another flash and they were back again to the start
"Sakura! what have you done?"
"Who sent you?"
"I'm Asking the questions here…"
"You lost that right 5 years ago…"
Another fit of rage, another death, another flash of blinding light and they are back to the beginning once again. After about 5 more times Sasuke had had enough….
"What am I supposed to do to end this?" Sasuke asked
"You can't end this alone, neither can I, but together we can, I however don't feel like helping you right now…" Sakura snapped
"What do you want?" Sasuke asked
"I want answers…." She said as she relaxed her stance
Sasuke relaxed his stance. Both of them still holding on to either edge of the box. After a comfortable silence of 2mins in which Sakura glared at him and he glared right back, he said "What do you want to know?"
"Why did you never fight back when you were ambushed in Konoha?" she asked. A delicate eyebrow raised as he looked at her thinking 'why does she care?'. He looked away from her face as that all too familiar sense of self loathing came crashing back "because I was partly the reason for the destruction and it was my penance…"
She narrowed her eyes as she bit back with "Well at least that's one thing we agree on… times up!"
A blinding flash and back to square one.
—
"It's a time loop" he said as they both relaxed their stance after the reset "Where did you learn to do that?"
"You weren't only one who left the village to train before the war, Naruto, Shikhamaru and I travelled too… So did Neji, Hinata and the others… We probably had it a lot easier too, diplomatic missions and such… " she replied
"hn…" was all he could muster. As he looked at her, he remembered days. Those days where he saw into her soul and gave her a peek into his. He remembered how dedicated she was to becoming a medical nin… He wondered what happened? What was she doing in Anbu?
"Why did you let Tsunade and me experiment on you? Tsunade was especially viscous about the procedures… You even said no to the anaesthesia…." she asked breaking him out of his reverie
"Penance… " he said
"That can't be your answer to everything…" she stated
"Time's up" he said
Another flash and back to square one.
Time stood still for them inside the shield but time kept passing outside and in the matter of a few hours Sakura would be very late. Sunagakure would inform Konoha and search parties would be sent out for her. She needed to get out of this and fast. If anyone found them, there would be hell to pay for on both ends. On the flip-side, if she kept him there, his clients would rear their faces and it would be all to easy to take them out…
The question was, how long until Sasuke figured out how to break the Time loop… She needed to ensure their next interaction distracted him enough to put his mind off the infinite loop
—
"Why did you leave?…" she asked
"It made no difference if I stayed…." he said
"What if it did…" she asked
"Why did you join Anbu?" he retorted
"I didn't " she said
"And yet here we are…" he stated mildly agitated
"I'm surprised you can string words to form sentences… I remember you being pretty monosyllabic " she bit back
"Why are you stalling?" he snapped
"Time's up…" she smirked
The reset just kept on happening. The questions flowed from both sides with no responses from either. Every 5 mins there was a new battle of wits. With every 5 mins they fell more into ease. With every 5 mins the viciousness dropped a little. With every 5 mins the questions got more personal. With every 5 mins Sakura got more delayed and Sunagakure sent a message to Konoha about the missing scroll with the map containing locations of the actual hidden burial sites of the fall end warriors with bloodline limits
"Stop it Sakura… Stop trying to help me"
"I stopped a while ago… and who says I'm trying to help you?"
"I'm not hunted, I have done no crimes to be put into a Bingo book, my useless clients are not about to show up… so why? Why am I still here?"
"….."
"Oh now she has nothing to say…" he sighed exasperated!
Another flash another reset
—
"Did you mean it?" She asked
"Mean what?"
"Everything you said to me… before you left…"
"I don't even remember it…" he lied
"How convenient…" She snapped
Another flash another reset, the sun had begun to sink into the horizon when they came back
—
"They are here…" Sakura said
"I'm surprised you sensed that…" Sasuke replied
"The susano sensed it…" she said
"How are you inside it? What did you do? Used some of my blood from your experiments? Were you so desperate to be powerful that you would resort to stealing…"
A slap resounded across the forest and Sasuke was stunned and Sakura was glaring at him
Another flash, another reset but this time silence as they both just stared at each other with heaving with rage.
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