I'm sorry guys. I hate the canon-heavy stuff as much as you do.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything associated with it. All rights to Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto and the other proper entities.
Summary: Sakura had been by his side since he lost his family, following him around since they were seven years old, trying to ease his loneliness in whatever way she could. He didn't even know why he allowed it. He just silently allowed her to claim the seat next to him at the beginning of every term.
Rating: M
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Pairings: SasuSaku / eventual light NaruHina
Rays of Spring Sunshine
Chapter Eleven
If luck was the sole requirement for promotion, Sakura privately mused that Naruto would be Hokage already.
"Seriously, Naruto?" She shook her head. "You couldn't figure that out?"
They were following the second examiner, amidst the crowd of examinees. As usual, Sakura walked between the boys, facilitating conversation and acting as a buffer.
"I'm not surprised." Sasuke snorted.
Naruto stuck his tongue out at Sasuke. "When did you guys figure out that we were supposed to cheat, anyway?" He asked.
Sakura made a face. "I didn't figure it out, exactly… but I realised pretty quick that they expected us to." She admitted sheepishly. "I didn't cheat."
"Hah! You either, Sakura-chan?" Naruto crowed. "Looks like Sasuke is the only dirty cheater here!"
"The only reason Sakura didn't cheat was because she's smart enough not to need to, dumbass." Sasuke sniffed. Sakura felt her face burn. "Besides, we were supposed to cheat. You're probably the only idiot in the room who didn't figure out that they wanted us to."
Sakura's heart thumped through the explanation of the second exam, the warm, pleasurable feeling of Sasuke's praise quickly becoming icy terror at the prospect of having to potentially fight to the death. She wasn't ready for this. Her book smarts had carried her through the first exam—she didn't know what she would have done if she'd been forced to cheat—but her combat abilities were far below that of her teammates.
She was going to hold them back.
If it were only her, if she were the only one whose future was on the line, she would have dropped out. She had been confident in the written test because of her book smarts, and while she was sure she could manage to survive in the wilderness for a week or two, there was no way she was ready to fight anyone to the death. Honestly, she didn't think Naruto had it in him to kill, either. Maybe in self-defence, but… and Sasuke… well, it was something she didn't even want to think about.
Still, she took the consent form and signed it along with the others, barely holding her hand steady as she handed it to the examiner. Sasuke tucked their Heaven scroll in his supplies pouch, and the three of them shuffled off to their assigned gate.
When they arrived at the gate, they used the time to take stock of their supplies. They'd packed their shinobi tools, having learned from Kakashi that a good shinobi never went anywhere without a fistful of shuriken and a handful of kunai, but none of them had thought to pack enough food and water for more than an afternoon. Their only comfort was that others were likely in the same boat.
"Our first goal should be to find a water source." Sakura nodded to herself. "We can go a few days without food, but water is too important."
"The examiner mentioned a river." Sasuke said thoughtfully. "But all the other teams will make a beeline for it. It'd be safer to find a pond or lake."
"But we need to fight the other teams for their scrolls!" Naruto protested.
Sakura sighed. "But if there are too many enemies, we'll be overwhelmed." She shook her head, long pink hair swaying with the movement. "We need to be smart about this. We can't afford to get caught in a brawl."
"Fine." Naruto huffed.
The three of them sped into the forest at the sound of the horn, Sasuke leading the other two. For once, Naruto didn't try to fight him to take charge. They slowed their pace when they'd made a decent trek in, taking the time to identify familiar plants and animals.
A scream tore through the air, causing them all to tense up. "That… that was a person, right?" Sakura breathed, turning her face toward the sound. It wasn't exactly close, but the fact that they could hear it at all was cause for concern. "I have a bad feeling…"
"It-it's fine, Sakura-chan!" Naruto hastened to reassure her, though he sounded less than convinced himself. "But hang on a sec, I gotta pee."
Sasuke cast his eyes around the surrounding landscape as Sakura and Naruto bickered; Sakura ended up threatening Naruto into going to take his leak in the bushes. Everything seemed quiet, but there was a slight unsettled feeling in Sasuke's gut. It only intensified when the other boy returned.
Sasuke knew immediately that it was an imposter. He felt his gut clench as the fake stepped closer to Sakura, who was busy berating him for being crude in front of a girl; he flash-stepped in front of her and struck the Naruto-fake across the face with his fist, sending him flying back a foot and crumbling to the ground.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cried shrilly. "What was that for?!"
"Where's the real Naruto?" He demanded of the imposter. He heard Sakura make a confused sound behind him. Honestly, the girl was smart, but apparently her observation was as bad as the blonde's.
"What the heck are you talking about?" The imposter demanded, wiping blood off his jaw.
"Don't play dumb. Your shuriken holster is on the wrong leg. Naruto's right handed." Sasuke scoffed. "You're even worse at henge than the idiot is."
The imposter sneered and released the transformation. "Damn, you kids are better than I thought," he sneered. "Which one of you has the scroll?"
Sakura had never been more afraid in her life. Sasuke and Naruto had managed to fight off the first guy who had impersonated the blonde, but this other guy was in a whole league of his own.
She couldn't move; Naruto was gone, blown away by some kind of attack she couldn't recognise, leaving she and Sasuke at the mercy of the Kusa-nin who was slowly approaching, kunai at the ready. She felt tears well up as nausea washed over her, brought on by the sheer murderous presence of the enemy. She'd never felt anything like it. Even the encounter with Zabuza hadn't felt like this.
She couldn't move.
She was going to die.
She was going to die.
SHE WAS GOING TO DIE!
Sasuke's arms came around here and then there was the sensation of flight, awareness coming back to her as they landed with a hard jolt on one of the tree branches. Sasuke didn't stop to let her down, hands clutching tightly around her back and legs as he sprinted as far away as humanly possible from the Kusa-nin; they only stopped when Sasuke stumbled, sending Sakura skidding along a thick bough as he dropped her.
"Sasuke-kun!" She crawled up to him as fast as she could. He'd collapsed against the trunk of the tree they were in, panting rapidly and wrenching a kunai from his thigh. He'd been hit…! "Are you—"
He slapped a hand across her mouth, and she got a good look at him, finding an expression she'd never seen on his face before. Pure, unadulterated terror splashed across his features, making him pale and wild-eyed. His hand trembled across her mouth, his eyes frantically scanning the way they came for signs of pursuit. She'd never seen him like this before, ever—not even during the nightmares that he occasionally had during their sleepovers, when it sometimes took him a good ten to thirty seconds for him to come back to reality upon waking.
And then she noticed the snake. But Sasuke hadn't.
She wrenched her face away from his hand. "Sasuke-kun! Snake!"
He threw her away from him as he jumped as far away as possible, screaming something that Sakura couldn't really understand; but the fear in his tone seeped into her gut and turned to ice. He released a volley of shuriken that shredded the giant creature, killing it.
And then their attacker was back, rising from the corpse of the dead serpent. "You shouldn't relax, not even for a moment." He drawled, voice sickly sweet and coaxing. And then he looked directly at Sasuke. "Prey should always flee from a predator."
The man did some kind of jutsu that turned his body into a snake, slithering up the trunk of the tree at rapid speed. Sasuke stood frozen in place, watching with wide eyes as the enemy got closer and closer, only to be stopped by a volley of shuriken.
"Sorry, Sasuke!" Naruto's voice called out from above them. Sakura's eyes snapped up to take in the sight of their orange-clad friend, standing with his arms crossed on a higher branch. "I forgot the password!"
"Naruto!" She couldn't help the relief that flooded her at the sight of him. He and Sasuke, they could do things together. They'd be able to beat back this guy and they'd get far, far away. Right now she didn't care about passing the exam. She just wanted to get out of there.
"Naruto, shut up!" Sasuke roared, red eyes never leaving the Kusa-nin. "I know you think you're being cool and saving the day, but we can't take him! He's on a whole other level!"
"Oi, you!" Naruto ignored him. "Snake-face! Quit picking on the weak!"
And while Sakura would normally have decked him for such a statement, for the moment it was so normal sounding that she couldn't help but be comforted.
"Look," Sasuke's voice was far from even as he dug the scroll out of his supply pouch, his eyes fading back to black. "I'll just… give you the scroll. Just… please, take it and leave us."
"What?!" Naruto roared as Sasuke tossed the scroll toward the other ninja. He leapt from his perch and snatched it out of the air.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Sasuke demanded. "Don't you get what's going on here?!"
And then Naruto punched Sasuke.
"You're a fake." Naruto declared. "I forgot the password, so I can't check, but the Sasuke I know isn't such a stupid coward!" And if Sakura hadn't been there all along, she might have agreed. But she'd seen what this guy was capable of, had been immobilised by his mere presence alone, and understood why Sasuke was so very afraid. "There's no guarantee he won't kill us anyway after we give him the scroll!"
After that, everything was a blur. The other guy summed another huge snake as Naruto rushed himself him, but he was taken out with some weird kind of jutsu to the stomach and flung to the side. In desperation to prevent Naruto from being killed by the fall, Sakura, knowing she couldn't reach him in time, flung a kunai and pinned him to the trunk of the tree by his jacket. For the first time, ever, she was grateful for Kakashi's negligence regarding her training; she never would have made that shot without her extra target practice.
As Naruto dangled by the back of his jacket and Sasuke stood immobile, something in Sakura snapped. For the first time in her life, she was screaming at Sasuke. She hardly knew what she was saying; she was so high on adrenaline and fear that she wasn't thinking straight, the words pouring out of her like a poisonous fount.
And then Sasuke reactivated his sharingan.
The change was instantaneous. One second, he was standing, frozen on the bough where Naruto had saved him from being eaten by a giant snake; the next, he was flinging shuriken and kunai at the enemy and pulling on the wires that he'd attached to them, capturing the man and binding him. Never letting go, he made a string of hand signs that Sakura was unfamiliar with and sent a jet of fire so hot that Sakura had to shield herself from it at the older man. She felt sure that he would be burned alive, but to her dismay he was still standing, the thin metal wires that were binding him burned away to nothing.
Sakura couldn't move again. She same feeling of terror and imminent death that had arrested them at the beginning of the fight had come back at full force.
"Just as I thought. I want you." The man purred, eyes on Sasuke. "Your eyes may be even better than your brother's."
"Who the hell are you?!" Sasuke demanded, terror and anger warring for dominance on his face.
"My name," he said, voice changing from the slightly high-pitched tone he'd been using into something darker, slimier. Sakura saw with a jolt that half of his face had melted away, exposing a second one underneath. "Is Orochimaru. If you want to find me," he held up the scroll he'd stolen from Naruto, showing them as he burned it, "then survive these exams, and come find me."
"Why the hell would we do that?" Sakura demanded. "We never want to see your face again!"
"Ah, but Sasuke-kun hasn't got my little parting gift yet." Orochimaru purred. And then, to Sakura's horror, his face darted forward like a snake, teeth sinking in to Sasuke's neck.
Pain.
All Sasuke could feel was pain.
He was distantly aware of Sakura shouting at Orochimaru, shouting his name, taking his hand and shouting for Naruto to wake up and come help them. He couldn't think beyond the searing, burning pain that began at his neck and spread across his entire body.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura's voice came from far away. He vaguely felt something—her fingers? He wasn't sure—squeeze his fingers, and then the world tipped and went black.
Unfortunately, these scenes are a little too important to skip over, considering they're integral parts of the story and introduce important characters. I glossed over what I could, but I really do wish I could skip them.
Non-canon stuff next chapter! I promise!