Authors note: Hi guys! I hope you guys enjoy the story. It's something I decided to write on a whim. I love NaruSaku stories but I haven't read to many of them in a while. Recently I got back into them and I decided to write my own, enjoy! Also leave me a review!
She awoke in a bed, but where the bed was she had no idea. Her head was pounding and the bright lights in the room were adding to that. She winced as she tasted a metallic substance in her mouth but she knew it wasn't blood. She felt nauseated and dizzier than she'd ever been in her life. After some time she again tried to open her eyes and make out her surroundings.
She noticed an IV in her arm and her eyes focused enough to observe Fluids slowly dripping down into her body. She brought a hand up to her forehead and felt bandages wrapped around her skulls. The pink haired medic then scanned around the room. There was a double window but the shades were drawn. Judging from how the shades were backlit it looked to be night time.
She kept scanning the room until her eye's she caught sight of the konoha symbol engraved in the wall above the entrance to the room. There was no doubt about it; she was in a konoha hospital room. However, she couldn't help but notice the room seemed a little bit different from the village's standard hospital room; she was accustomed too.
She tried to set up in the bed to no avail quickly falling back to her pillow. She bit her bottom lip as pain surged throughout her body. She couldn't recall how she got here but there was one thing for sure, someone had thoroughly kicked her ass.
This was a feeling that was very foreign to her. She hadn't been in a real life or death fight or had a true challenge since the fourth grade war. She was deep in thought when she noticed the door open and a nurse who she didn't recognize stepped into the room.
"Sakura-san you're awake!"
Squeaked the young medic as she almost dropped her clipboard and papers she had been carrying. Sakura didn't know why the girl was being so formal with the "San," Abbreviation. Nevertheless, she decided to brush off the young nurse's polite manners. It still bothered Sakura that she had been working in the Konoha hospital for eight years and could say she wasn't familiar with the woman.
But in her current situation she was honestly just too exhausted to care. The only thing she knew was she was home and for now that's all that mattered.
"That I am," Sakura replied, giving the best smile she could muster which in turn probably looked more like a grimace.
"Well let me check your vitals and make sure they are all stable," The young nurse quickly scurried over to the bed and started jotting down numbers on her clipboard. The nurse was now eyeing monitors that Sakura was connected to as she continued to talk.
"You know you gave us all quite a scare, Sakura-san. Hokage-sama sent out quite a few search units to look for you. In fact I heard he personally lead one of the units himself,"
Sakura closed her eyes in exhaustion but continued to converse with the young nurse.
"All of this fuss over little old me?" Sakura questioned.
"Sakura-san you've been missing for over a month now. Everyone was starting to get worried about you," The young medic chimed out as she hugged the clipboard to her chest and gave Sakura a concerned but caring smile.
Sakura frowned at the nurses words. Something didn't add up here, she was missing for over a whole month? Sakura was about to question the young medic but instead hissed out in pain. It seemed like even thinking too much was causing her headache to magnify in intensity.
The medic noticed Sakura's discomfort and quickly put a Green chakra infused hand on Sakura's head causing her to relax a bit.
"You're exhausted, out of chakra and in general you need to rest for a while. I'm sure as soon as the search units get back they will want to have a talk with you but for now you need to rest and regain your strength,"
Sakura was going to protest but in her current state she decided it would probably be better to just listen. There would be time later to figure out what happened to her. For now all Sakura knew was she was home and safe, that was a start.
So with a deep sigh Sakura faded off to sleep.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
The next time Sakura woke up she looked around the room and discovered a clock hanging on the wall. It was a little past four in the morning and Sakura let out a frustrated sigh. She didn't know what day it was or how long she had even been out.
However, on the bright side of things she was feeling better now. She sat up in her bed and she realized it would still be difficult to walk but at least her headache had subsided. The medic was thankful she had function of her upper body at the least. She stretched out her arms and twisted to her left and right. Sakura made a very disgruntled face as the pain was still very much present in her body. But the discomfort she felt now was nothing compared to what it was earlier. She wiggled her feet and scrunched up her legs with a gleeful sigh. She had calculated that she still had control of her basic motor skills.
Sakura took a deep breath and concentrated just enough chakra into her right hand. She then went about chakra scanning her body. After a quick analysis it appeared that her chakra pathways were left unimpacted from whatever had happened to her.
Sakura then glanced over to her left side where the IV was still dripping methodically into her. There were quite a few monitors she had never seen before. This technology was something she had not been trained on. She studied everything she could find about the Shinobi medical field. She and her Shishou were always looking for ways to advance Konoha's medical capabilities. But this technology was foreign to her, it showed different chakra readouts among other things she wasn't quite familiar with. However, given the current state of her being she just chalked up her questioning state as exhaustion. Maybe she had seen something dealing with this technology and just couldn't recall it at the time.
With a sigh of relief laced with a little bit of pessimism. Sakura laid her head back down on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. She was trying to recall the events that led her to be in the hospital.
She remembered traveling but she couldn't remember who she was with, or where they were going. She closed her eyes and tried to focus her mind on what had happened and how she ended up here.
She laid back back on her pillow staring at the ceiling trying to jog her memory. All of a sudden her memories hit her like waves crashing against the shore line. Sakura had to shut her eyes due to the searing pain in her head.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
The summer breeze wrestled through her hair causing a few wild strands to protrude on her vision. Sakura quickly tucked a wild strand of hair behind her ear. The sun was out and she could hear the wrestling of leaves in the trees around her.
She had been traveling with Sasuke for the last six months. The couple would bounce around from place to place, never staying in one spot too long. About once every month or so Sasuke would send a message to Konoha reporting on their situation. The goal was to find leads on what they were searching for. But at times what they were searching for wasn't always clear to Sakura. There were many times they would chase a lead to a dead end and have to start all over from scratch.
This in itself was quite monotonous after a few months, but at least she had Sasuke to keep her company. Sasuke always emphasized that they were looking for something ancient and powerful. But therein lied her problem, he never elaborated on what was so ancient and powerful, or how they would find it.
However, currently their travels had brought them to the mountains on the outskirts of the land of fire. They had hiked a considerable distance into the mountains before coming across some ancient ruins. The ruins looked like they used to be a pretty extensive city. But that city was long gone and in its place was a shell of hollowed out buildings, weathered stones and not much else. She couldn't help but think this would be another dead end. Sakura however shook the negative thoughts from her mind. She wouldn't voice them to Sasuke, he was actually kind enough to invite her on his journey. That in itself was a big step for Sasuke and their growing relationship.
She was still in awe of when he first came back to the village. It had been 2 years since the war and she started to think he would never come back. Before he left he told her he needed to leave to atone for his sins. He also stated this was something he had to do alone. But before he left he gave Sakura the most symbolic sign of affection he'd ever shown her. Two simple fingers to the forehead, to most this might seem silly but to her it meant the world.
The next time she saw Sasuke he was waiting for her outside the hospital after she got off work. She was extremely surprised to see him. He had a cool almost emotionless demeanor about him as he leaned against the hospital gate entrance. He was wearing a rather large cloak with a sheathed sword Sticking out from behind him. His head was wrapped in a travel turban.
As soon as he saw her he gave a small genuine smile. This is something she was not accustomed to when It came to Sasuke. He was always so indifferent and cold towards her. It only in their last few encounters had he shown her any type of acknowledgment. But this time was different, especially after talking to him as he walked her home. This time he didn't come back to give Kakashi sensei a report, or hang out with Naruto. No, he came back specifically to see her and that made her heart swell. She always wanted and dreamed about the day he would call her his, she just never thought it would happen.
Still, there was a part of her that felt uneasy about this newfound level Sasuke and her had reached. Her uneasiness didn't stem from Sasuke, he was bright and much more cheery then she had ever seen him. More so she felt she was betraying herself and her other friend. Yet, she tried not to dwell on this fact as she pushed all those negative thoughts to the far reaches of her mind.
Sasuke had been in the village for a few weeks before he informed Sakura that he planned to set out to travel again. However, this time he asked her if she would like to accompany him on his travels. In the past few weeks they had become much closer to the point you could almost say they were dating.
The keyword here was "almost,"Sakura and Sasuke had never really talked about it. Sasuke wasn't much for talking and Sakura was not going to bother him about it. She assumed it would be a subject that eventually they would talk about and for her there was no need to rush that.
Thinking about her newfound relationship with Sasuke made her recall the kiss he had given her. She smiled recalling the night he walked her home after having dinner together.
XxXxXxXxXx
It was later in the night and they had been walking down the street. At this time of night not a lot of people were walking the streets, so the walk home was fairly secluded. Sakura felt like she had run out of things to talk about for the night. She subconsciously thought she had been ranting a little bit too much.
But to Sasuke's credit he sat and took in everything she said, only giving her a smile and nodding. Sasuke was encouraging her to keep talking however, she thought he was just being nice. He would only add bits and pieces to the conversation and only when egged on by Sakura.
As they arrived at Sakura 's parents house they awkwardly stood at the front door. Sakura looked at the ground as she teetered back-and-forth on her feet. To say the situation was extremely awkward to her was an understatement. She had her hands clasped together at her waste and she didn't know what to say. Her current state of embarrassment wasn't helped by the young Uchiha, who just kept staring at her with those deep obsidian eyes of his.
It almost happened too quickly for it to be real, he reached up with his hand and lifted her chin so she was looking at him. He then gave her a small smile as he leaned in and put his lips to hers.
The kiss was quick but his lips were soft and warm and his scent was charming. It really was a great end to a very nice date. Sakura was hoping the moment would never end.
The Pinkett Stood in front of her parents house leaning forward, lips puckered with her eyes close. She didn't realize Sasuke had already pulled back and was now staring at her with an amused smile on his face.
Sakura finally realized how foolish she must have looked to Sasuke at that moment and jumped back shaking her head. She thought her blush could light the dimly lit streets of Konoha.
"g-goodnight Sasuke-kun," Sakura quickly turned around and ran into her house without uttering another word to her companion. As soon as the door was shut she leaned back against it and let out a sigh. Her hands then immediately went to her lips and touched them, almost not believing the events that just transpired. On one hand she was ecstatic about the fact that Sasuke finally reciprocated her feelings. But on the other hand she felt guilty like she was betraying her goofy knuckleheaded friend.
"Naruto," she absentmindedly thought about her blond haired friend out loud for a moment.
No, he wasn't HERS anymore she thought shaking her head. Then the fact dawned on her that Naruto was never hers. Naruto was Hinata's and nothing was going to change that. For god sake's Sakura had basically helped get them together. For the life of her she couldn't understand why she felt this way. Was it not right for her to be happy and find a little piece? This is all she had wanted since she was 12 years old to be acknowledged and loved by Sasuke. She knew he acknowledged her and was pretty sure he cared about her as well. Still, when it came to Naruto she hadn't even talked to him in weeks. He had been so enthralled with the Hyuga heiress that he all but forgot about her she thought.
She was happy, and she told herself she would start acting like she was happy. That's why she would do her damnedest to make sure she didn't think about Uzumaki Naruto.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
"You want me to, what?" Sakura questioned curiously with her mouth partially open. She had just gotten off from her shift at the hospital and Sasuke was walking her home.
Sasuke let out a sigh thinking he wouldn't have to repeat himself.
"Would you like to go with me on my next trip? I'll be leaving soon and I thought maybe you'd like to come with me this time?" The dark haired man mused while glancing at the pinkett as they walked down the busy street of Konoha.
The question took Sakura by surprise and she cringed inwardly thinking about how off guard he caught her. She stopped walking and turned to look at Sasuke with an expression he couldn't quite gauge. "Well….I-I," Sakura started stuttering and teetering on her feet.
Sasuke began to see conflict in her face and read her body language to a T. "Look, why don't I give you a couple of days to think about it and you let me know?"
Sasuke said in a nonchalant tone as they stood in the middle of the bustling village street. He didn't want to push her into anything she wasn't ready to do.
She was about to reply when she saw something that really shouldn't have irritated her, but it did.
There was a patch of spiky blonde hair further down the street that couldn't be missed. It was site of Naruto and Hinata holding hands as they walked down the street. The two just looked so natural together. Sakura noticed how the villagers gave the two smiles and compliments as they passed.
Sakura didn't know why but seeing the two together made her stomach hurt. She always thought getting those two together was such a great idea yet, now that it was a reality she wasn't sure she liked it. She always thought even though they were together he would still be there for her as a friend. Even so, her bigger problem was she wasn't sure why she didn't like it. To add insult to injury she was pretty sure that Naruto had been avoiding her. Nevertheless, she couldn't blame him for that because she had definitely been avoiding him. Anytime he came around and asked her to do something she would always say she was busy or couldn't get off work.
Sakura felt like she would be somehow interfering in the blonde's new found relationship. Even so, she never figured that Naruto would stop seeking her out. You might say this was somewhat childish of her but she couldn't help it. She always figured he would just keep being the persistent knucklehead he was. Naruto never gave up on anything so why did she feel he was giving up on her. The idea truly made her upset that she felt that way. Naruto had every right to be happy and his happiness didn't mean catering to her. She was just being selfish but in our hearts of hearts she couldn't help but be selfish.
The distance between the two only grew with Sasuke's surprise return to the village. The blonde hero used to seek Sakura out, or meet her at the hospital for lunch, or train with her awol. He used to just show up out of the blue knocking on her bedroom window in the morning. It used to irritate Sakura that he would wake her up before her alarm would. But now looking back on all the memories that the two had together just made her sad. The pink haired medical ninja was upset that the bond between Naruto and herself seemed to weaken significantly over the last year since he had begun dating Hinata.
But that was a good thing right? Sakura was his friend, just a friend; and he should spend time with his girlfriend. In fact Naruto had a lot more on his plate than just a girlfriend. He had become a global celebrity, Kakashi sensei and Tsanade-sama had him training diligently to become Hokage in the future. He even accompanied Kakashi sensei and Tsanade-sama on different diplomatic missions. The orange clad ninja would take turns traveling with both the current and former Hokage. Foreign diplomats loved his loud go get it attitude. Yet, the Hokages made it clear that procedure and etiquette were key when handling diplomacy. Naruto had settled somewhere in the middle, still keeping a bit of his child-like behavior. However, he also had an energy of seriousness around him when needed. From what Sakura could tell Naruto was actually doing a pretty good job of soaking up the information the two leaders were giving him.
She recounted the many times she would get off work and they would have dinner together. He would always have something new to tell her, it might be random things about his day he thought were interesting. Or it could be about a mission he just got back from. She giggled in her head recalling the day he found her on duty at the hospital to tell her he made jonin. She had just gotten out of surgery and was covered in blood, her hair was in a messy bun and she was sure she didn't smell the best. Sakura remembered she was both annoyed but also humored by the situation. She had the medical staff reluctantly kick him out of the recovery ward and make him wait in the lobby. When she got out to see him almost an hour later he was pouting like a child that didn't get their way. There was just something so funny about the man who was arguably recognized as the strongest ninja in the world beaming about becoming a jonin.
Even though he was a ways away from her their eyes still locked simultaneously. The only problem with the moment was neither of them made any movement towards each other. It was almost as if time stood still for just an instant. His deep ocean blue eyes pierced her soul as if they were trying to say something. Yet, her emerald green eyes were trying to look anywhere but at him. There was just one problem, she couldn't look away. She would never admit it to him, or anyone else, honestly she wouldn't admit it to herself. Still, deep down she knew Naruto had a power over her. That was scarier than any enemy combatant they had ever faced.
They both remained silent and stood frozen and rooted to their respective positions in the street. This was Naruto. She didn't understand why she couldn't just walk over and say hello. There were a lot of things she wanted to say but she just couldn't bring herself to approach him.
So in her rational mind she did the next best thing she could think of. She jetted to her right quickly walking down the next street. The pink haired medic casually acted like she had never seen him. This little interaction between the two however did not go unseen by Sasuke. But he chose to ignore it, if there was something there between Naruto and her he would wait for Sakura to tell him.
Naruto on the other hand couldn't help but feel his heart sink a bit when Sakura walked away. Naruto was strong, but even he had feelings. It hurt him that Sakura was avoiding him so avidly. If she didn't feel the need to even say hi to him anymore that was fine. His main goal was to make sure that she was happy, and if Sasuke made her happy then so be it. He would make sure to give her space and not intrude on her personal life anymore. After coming to that conclusion the blonde haired ninja quickly broke his train of thought and got back to enjoying his girlfriend's company.
As soon as they were far enough away from Naruto, Sakura turned around to Sasuke.
"I'll go with you Sasuke-kun," Sakura smiled as she gave him a confident look.
Sasuke Paused for a minute, giving Sakura an emotionless face. But after what felt like forever his gaze shifted, lightning up and giving her a silent head nod. They continued walking about the village going in no particular direction besides away from Naruto and Hinata.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Sakura and Sasuke continued their outer sweep of the ancient city. Working their way from the outskirts of the city into its center in a gridded pattern. But the further they made their way into the city the worse the vibe got. Sakura could feel a dark dense energy affect her more as they got deeper into the city. The feeling was sluggish, as if she had to walk through quicksand a mile long. Sasuke also seem to be more on guard, moving much more cautiously than earlier.
The closer they got to the city center she noticed there was no vegetation or wildlife. It was like there was an invisible barrier was put in place. Anything that had life was not represented as they got closer into the city's center. Sakura and Sasuke both non verbally communicated to each other that they needed to be on guard. They didn't know what it was but something or someone was watching them.
They were fairly deep into the city center when Sasuke motioned them to a dome shaped building. Sakura recognized some different ancient text on the walls of the building. Those she could not decipher the text she knew it had to be from around the time of the sage of six paths. As they descended further into the building they both noticed a light energy coming from behind two giant doors. Sakura thought this was something you might see in a King's Palace. The doors were quite impressive but she could tell there was something lurking behind them that she wasn't too keen on.
Sasuke activated his Sharingan and examined the large doors before motioning for Sakura to come forward.
"I want you to break these doors down," motioning his head towards the two giant doors.
The pinkett nodded diligently, taking out her black gloves and slipping them swiftly on her hands. She then backed up and started molding chakra into her feet and right hand. Sasuke immediately backed up not wanting to get in her way.
In the blink of an eye Sakura was off to the races Heading for the door. Just before she was in striking distance she jumped into the air. She figured her downward momentum would put even more power into the punch. The medical ninja descended towards the door at an impressive speed.
"Shannarō!" Sakura yelled, bringing her fist down precisely in between the two doors. The force of the explosion was so much that it shook the entire building. Dust and debris was flying everywhere. Sakura had successfully turned the two doors into millions of pieces. She also succeeded in destroying a good part of the floor where the doors have been as well.
As the dust settled Sakura regained her composure, never letting her guard down. If someone didn't know they were there they would now.
"Nice job," Sasuke said lightly as he walked in front of Sakura into the newly opened room.
When the dust settled the pair observed a white sphere in the middle of a large dome like room. The spear had to be about 10 feet wide by 10 feet tall. It looked to be made up of pure chakra. However, the sphere was surrounded by a golden cage of energy. From a quick observation the golden cage acted as some type of containment barrier.
The energy of the sphere was dense and powerful, more powerful than almost anything she ever felt. The only thing Sakura could compare it to was Kaguya's power. The sphere had the same malevolence as the Divine's tree's chakra. It gave her an unnerving feeling, a very unnerving feeling. She quickly looked to Sasuke with worried eyes.
Sasuke however was unphased by the energy. The Uchiha glanced over to Sakura. "Calm down Sakura, we are here to destroy that thing,"
"I got it, the power from that thing just had me a little shook for a second. How do you know we can even destroy it?" Sakura questioned.
"The only thing we can do is try, to be honest I like our odds," Sasuke smiled, taking a step towards the sphere.
That's when a mysterious figure appeared in front of the sphere. The person was dressed in a white cloak and looked to be male. The man's cloak looked similar to what you might see from the sage of six paths. He had red eyes and silver hair, his skin was very pale. His face was covered in wrinkles and cuts. On the back of the white cloak was more ancient writing that they had seen earlier. Analyzing his hip, Sakura could see he was carrying a rather old looking sword. There was one thing for sure whoever this man was, he had an immense amount of chakra.
"That's as far as you go, you know the two of you shouldn't have come here. It's been ages since I've had company," The cloaked man stated.
"And you are?" Sasuke asked, narrowing his eyes.
The man looked at Sasuke with an amused smirk. "I'm the gatekeeper and you humans are intruding. The cost of your curiosity will cost you your lives," The silver haired man responded with a deadpanned voice and straight face expression.
"We have no quarrel with you so as long as you get out of our way you won't get hurt," Sasuke rebuffed as he grabbed his sword preparing for an inevitable fight.
"My, my for a child you sure do talk in absolutes. I'm guessing you are here for the sphere, correct? I can tell you many men throughout the eons have tried to destroy it or use it and all have failed," The man said narrowing his maliciously red eyes.
"I can't say I didn't warn you," Sasuke replied, as he molded chakra into his rinnegan and sharingan.
"Sakura, I can tell this guy is strong so we are going to take him as a team. After that we're going to destroy that sphere, It poses a great risk to the world,"
Sakura nodded preparing herself for what she knew wouldn't be an easy fight.
"I see so you possess the rinnegan and sharingan. You two simpletons think you can come in here blowing things up, destroying my door, and now you look to threaten me? I tell you children these days have no manners,"
Shaking his head the mysterious man slowly lifted his hand up and snapped his fingers. Instantly the broken stone in the room began to rebuild itself. The doors Sakura shattered earlier began to put themselves back together. This caught both Sakura and Sasuke off guard.
When the doors were fully formed back together they slammed shut, it was at this point the room began to change. They were no longer in the ancient room, but in a black limitless void of space. The man didn't move and neither did the sphere behind him.
"You see this place, this is where you die," The man said gesturing to the void he had taken the two Konoha ninja to.
"I see so we walked right into your trap," Sasuke assessed unsheathing his sword.
Without further word from the silver haired man his sword clashed with Sasuke's. They were locked in a battle for strength, neither of them gaining the upper hand. It was then Sakura came out of nowhere taking a swing towards the man's head, which she missed by centimeters. It was at that exact moment Sasuke disappeared and reappeared above the enemy.
He had a chidori in his hand and brought it down on top of their new enemy's head. However, his chidori fizzled out before it could make contact with its target. Sasuke quickly disappeared and reappeared next to Sakura putting space in between him and his adversary.
The man began laughing thoroughly amused with the two ninja's effort. "I hope you to understand that neither you're little ninjutsu or genjutsu will work in this void against me,"
"No matter it doesn't change the outcome of this fight," Sasuke breathed. He was now behind the enemy with his sword in hand. Sasuke swung his sword barely missing the enemy. Before Sasuke could launch another offensive attack the enemy brought his sword toward Sasuke's stomach and he was forced to counter.
The two were moving at such a speed it was hard for Sakura's eyes to keep up with their movements. She had to just wait for an opening, if she got involved right now she would only hinder Sasuke's effort. She may have caught up to Naruto and Sasuke when it came to power. But her speed was not on par with either of her old teammates. The fact that their newfound enemy could keep up with Saskue was impressive. There weren't many humans alive that fast.
Both men's swords clashed back-and-forth, neither side gaining the upper hand. But after what seemed like forever Sasuke noticed his stamina and chakra started to dwindle. This didn't go unnoticed by his opponent who took the opportunity to go for a blow to the head. Sasuke realized this at the last second and barely moved out of the way of his opponent's sword which grazed his cheek. The silver haired man smiled devilishly as he found an opening in Sasuke's defense and kicked him in the stomach. The blow sent Saskue flying with an incredible amount of force. Sasuke's sword flew through the air before hitting the golden barrier. This created a large spark as the sword flew off of the barrier.
Nevertheless, Sakura found her opening and appeared next to the enemy. Her fist quickly connected with the man's stomach sending him a few feet off the ground. She then quickly followed that up with a chakra infused punch to the face sending the man flying backwards. Their enemies body smacked into the golden barrier around the sphere creating quite an impressive light show. The gatekeeper's sword flew through the air for what seemed like forever before slowly piercing the barrier then quickly falling to the ground.
The energy that reverberated from the barrier caused the void they were in to waiver. But they weren't back in the old ancient ruins as before. More so, Sakura could only assume that they had been pushed into some other dimensional void. Sakura quickly jumped back to Sasuke to make sure he was ok but before she could check on his wounds he waved her off.
"I hate to say this but I think if we don't get out of here he's going to kill us. It appears that when you engage in combat with this guy he slowly drains your energy. The process is exponentially accelerated by being in this void of his. This place is literally sucking the chakra out of our body's" Sasuke breathed heavily as he stood to his feet.
"That doesn't leave us with very many options," Sakura added as she saw the enemy slowly getting up, his eyes now glowing red.
"Indeed it doesn't, that sphere seems to tamper with this dimensional plane he's got us in. But I'm assuming he's the only one who can get past that barrier. I think our best shot is for you to distract him so we can get one good hit on that sphere. I noticed earlier my sword didn't pierce the barrier but his did. I need to gain control of that sword and strike a decisive blow to the spear," Sasuke explained, getting ready to attack again.
"My rinnegan and sharingan are virtually useless as long as we are stuck in this prison of his. It seems the more I infuse chakra the faster this place drains me. So using the rinnegan to teleport out of here is out of the question. But if I can somehow get a hold of his sword it might be good enough to break his hold on this place,"
"So you think agitating the sphere is going to break his hold on this realm he's got us in?" Sakura asked as she prepared to execute their game plan.
"Precisely, if we can break his hold over this domain then we can regroup and figure out how best to handle this guy," Sasuke reasoned as he focused on their enemy who now looked very annoyed.
"Let's do this Sasuke-kun!" Sakura yelled as she punched her fist into her hand. Before Sasuke could reply she took off at lightning speed towards their adversary. Sakura could tell he was still shook up from hitting the barrier. She was hoping this would slow him down just a bit. Sakura assessed she only needed to keep him distracted long enough for Sasuke to do his thing.
She thought she had caught an opening on his right side. But he dodged it and slammed his fist into her face sending her tumbling back.
The medic thought to herself Sasuke was right, she was losing chakra and it was making her movements sloppy. However she quickly gained her balance and launched herself at him again.
The silver haired enemy smirk as he dodged Sakura's punches. "Don't you fools get it? Your efforts are futile, now prepare to die!" He yelled as he held out his hand and his sword flew back to his grasp. But before he could reach Sakura, Sasuke was back in his way.
Sasuke and the gatekeeper went back at it once more. The silver haired Combatants moves have become much more wild. The man was definitely to the point of irritation with the two of them. Sasuke was trying his best to keep up but it seemed the weaker he got the stronger their enemy got. It helped a little bit that Sakura grabbed a kunai knife and engaged the enemy with him.
After exchanging blows for what seemed like an eternity Sakura disappeared and reappeared behind their enemy. She wound up her fist and swung it at lightning speed. But the old guardian was ready for it ducking at the last moment, making the trajectory of her fist straight towards Saskue's face. The young Uchiha sidestepped Sakura's fist missing it by a hair.
The gatekeeper then swung his leg back around kicking Sakura towards the barrier. She hit the barrier with blistering speed. As soon as her body made contact with the Barrier she felt like a million volts of electricity were going through her body. However, their enemy had made a crucial mistake. When contorting his body to kick Sakura he dropped his sword.
Before Sakura could get up Sasuke quickly grabbed the man sword and infused as much chakra as he had left into the blade. He then jumped into the air and sent the blade flying towards the barrier like an arrow primed for it's target.
"Sakura, move!" Sasuke yelled as Sakura struggled to get away fast enough from what she knew would be the impact zone.
"Damn you!" Their enemy screamed as he tried to intercept the blade in mid air to no avail.
The blade hit its target, and a wave of energy erupted from the spear. Knocking Sasuke and Sakura off their feet. The Gatekeeper who was still in mid air was blown further away by the blast. Sakura lost sight of his body as beams of white light started to shoot everywhere across the void. The dark abyss they had been fighting in then started to crumble around them. The void changed back into the room they had been in. Sakura and Sasuke immediately headed towards the entrance, yanking on the door handles with all their might. Sasuke did not have enough chakra to form a susanoo to protect them. So Sakura quickly tried to slam her fist into the door with the little chakra she had left. But this time the doors did not budge an inch.
Beams of white light from the sphere were sporadically shooting all over the room. Yet, to add to the panic the golden cage that had contained the sphere of energy started to melt. Sakura looked to Sasuke but before she could say anything a beam of light struck him and he disappeared in an instant.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura screamed out as she turned to look at the energy spear which had now erupted in an epic meltdown. The shockwave was heading right for her and she knew that with her chakra Basically depleted she wouldn't survive. Before she could do anything a beam of white light enveloped her and her memory went blank after that.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Sakura gasped, quickly sitting up in her bed. "Where is Sasuke-kun?" She thought to herself, her chest heaving up and down at a sporadic pace.
What if he was dead, was he injured, maybe he had already gotten out of the hospital? There was so much she didn't know about the situation, it made her stomach churn.
She pulled the blankets off of her and swiveled herself so that her feet were on the floor. She was determined to figure out what the hell was going on. But as she braced herself to get up she slowly fell back on the bed. If she was painfully honest with herself she would have to admit her legs felt like that of a newborn deer. She was just about to go for another attempt to get up when the hospital room door opened.
"Sakura-san, you have some visitors here to see you," The nurse from earlier chimed happily as she came into the room. She quickly noticed sakura trying to get out of the bed and went over to help her.
"Sakura-san, do you need to use the bathroom?" The young nurse inquired as she put Sakura's arm over her head to help hoist her up.
"No, I don't want to use the bathroom, I want to figure out what the hell is going on here. More importantly I need to figure out where Sasuke-kun is," Sakura huffed as the young nurse helped shift her back onto the bed.
"Well I have good news for you then Sakura-san. Most of the search parties that were looking for you are back. Hokage-sama and others are here to see you as we speak. I just wanted to make sure you were decent before they got in here," The young nurse assured the pink haired ninja.
"I'll be fine, maybe Kakashi-sensei can help explain all this to me. At these words the young nurse gave Sakura a questioning glance but quickly shook it off.
"I'm sure your visitors will help fill you in on what happened," after the nurse reassured Sakura she rather quickly left the room to get her visitors.
Before she knew it the door to the room opened again. Sakura held her breath as she saw who walked through the door.
In came a worried looking Naruto, but not just any Naruto. His hair was much longer than the last time she saw him. It was protruding over his headband on the left side of his face. His wardrobe had completely changed in the last seven months since she had last seen him. He was wearing tan colored pants with a black jacket. However, the jacket had an orange stripe going down the middle of it where the zipper was. Not to be cliché but the sleeves had orange stripes circling around the ends of them. He had a Jounin vest on and over that was an orange cloak with black flames at the bottom of it. There was some writing on the back of the cloak, but Sakura couldn't quite make it out. Leave it to Naruto to put some nonsensical writing on the back of his clothes, she thought.
However, before she knew it Naruto was hugging her. In fact he was hugging her so tightly she figured he thought she would disappear. She leaned into the hug accepting it, under any other circumstances she would have pushed him off, but she missed him. She hadn't seen her friend in almost 7 months. Or at least Sakura figured it had been about seven months. Even so, it had been longer than seven months since she had been this close to him. She relished in that fact as she took in his scent. He smelled so much like himself and she missed it.
The scent of cologne, mixed with a tiny hinge of sweat, and a lot of ramen. His scent invaded her senses, it was like his aura took over her. Just as she was losing herself in her blonde friend's presence a hand came up to cup her face. This shocked her, the only one who had ever touched her face so intimately was Sasuke. Even so, she definitely didn't feel this sense of euphoria when he was touched her.
That's when she thought to herself, why was she being so intimate with Naruto? This was Naruto, her friend who happened to be dating Hinata hyuga. It was at that moment she heard the final straw hit her ears. "I missed you so much sweetie, you had me worried,"
"Sweetie?" Sakura said to herself out loud.
Before Naruto knew what hit him, Sakura quickly pushed him off of her. The blonde ninja could only get out a "What the," before he fell backwards onto the floor.
"W-Why were you touching me like that?! I-I think you need to learn how to keep your hands to yourself pervert!" Sakura yelled, her face as pink as her hair.
"A-And where is Kakashi-sensei!?" the nurse told me that the Hokage was coming to talk to me," Sakura huffed out; the flush on her face still very apparent. She crossed her arms and glared at Naruto like he had just committed a sin.
It was then that the nurse walked into the room again and noticed naruto on the floor. "Hokage-sama are you alright!?" The nurse quickly ran over to Naruto and helped him off the floor.
"Yeah I'm fine," Naruto quickly assured the young lady as he got back up to his feet.
"Hokage-sama?" Sakura said simply giving Naruto a blank stare.
"Hokage, since when have you been the Hokage?" Sakura questioned, now narrowing her eyes, thinking Naruto was playing a prank on her.
"Since like seven years ago when Kakashi-sensei retired," Naruto said, giving The pink haired woman a questioning look.
"Are you sure you're OK?" Naruto said as he got a worried look on his face.
Seven years she thought, she hadn't been gone seven years? To Sakura it had been a little over seven months since she was last in the village. It was at that moment the room started to spin and Sakura felt nauseous. Before Naruto could help her, Sakura 's head hit the pillow and she passed out.
To be continued!