Out of the Ashes

Chapter 24

Leeches, Snakes, and Spiders

The Forest of Death looked exactly as you would expect it to. The anime did it justice because it was dark and pretty dank with creepy crawlies everywhere. Kyuketsu so far had probably saved Bu and I's asses about a dozen times because we didn't notice some kind of deadly leech or bug or animal and Kyuketsu, who was all about this kind of shit, knew what these things were. The Forest of Death was annoying in that you couldn't really tell what time it was if you didn't expend a load of chakra to climb to the top branches of the trees to see the sky.

My heart was racing as we jogged through the forest. Bu and I were really not having a good time. Kyuketsu was on alert and kept directing us in a different path away from these crazy large black leeches. Considering Kyuketsu wasn't letting them touch Bu, because that would be a hysterical sight, it was safe to assume they did some kind of damage through touch. I was trying my hardest to recall everything I could about the Forest of Death episodes of Naruto. But so much was unclear. Orochimaru went after them day one, right? And Sasuke and Naruto were out for a day? Then they do stuff for the next few days until the final day where they end up at the tower? But what time did Orochimaru attack them? I was concerned, to say the least.

"Fuck!" I yelped as a leech almost dropped onto my head and I narrowly got the hell out of the way.

Kyuketsu shushed me, "Do not yell. It'll agitate predators."

"The predators will agitate me." I grumbled. Bu stifled his snickers and Kyuketsu threw a dirty look at me.

As we kept moving it felt like the leeches were growing in numbers and we moved into the trees and off the ground.

"Kyuketsu, should we be concerned their numbers are growing?" I questioned as we detoured away from a tree covered in leeches.

Kyuketsu stopped on a branch and eyed the tree we had detoured away from. It started to move suddenly and Bu's mouth dropped, as did mine, as what looked like black slime poured from the bark. The leeches started to come together and Bu and I looked at Kyuketsu in panic.

Kyuketsu nodded solemnly, "Bog leech. A giant mass that can split its body into hundreds to thousands of conscious masses."

"So you're telling me, this thing, is all those leeches we've been running into!?" wheezed Bu, looking considerably paler than usual.

"Correct. We should run." and Kyuketsu took off. Bu and I shot after him and we stopped caring if we stepped on a leech because we really did not want to stick around while that thing formed itself into a boss fight. We sprinted like mad for about fifteen minutes before Kyuketsu stopped us at a stream and we cooled off for a moment.

Bu eyed me, "Fu, you're sweating like crazy."

"I'm hot." I retorted, leaning backwards on the rock I claimed as my chair.

"Do you recall burning the roofs running in Kunoyiba?" Kyuketsu questioned. I stared blankly at him for a moment before I realized what Kunoyiba was. Spoiler: it's the town Raito fought us in.

I nodded slowly, "I suppose."

"Your Natural Fire is a gift. Train it." Kyuketsu ordered seriously. I blinked at him and he gestured to Bu who leaned away, "Consider Bu. He rarely uses his Katon jutsu during fights because he is still training his reserves and they drain him quickly. You however don't seem to expel much, if any, chakra to use your Natural Fire. It is a great asset to your style."

"It doesn't usually hurt you either." Bu piped up and Kyuketsu shot him a dirty look. Bu returned the look before he nodded and continued, "Yeah, I know you're afraid of fire Fu. But the only thing that is usually damaged is your clothes when you get angry enough where you light things around you. Even when you try and breath fire it doesn't burn you."

"It still hurts." I retorted, "Fire coming up your throat is a bitch."

"But there are no lasting burns." Kyuketsu concluded, "Utilize the tools you have."

I rolled my eyes at him. We left that spot and continued moving. We ran into the last people I wanted to run into about half an hour later, at least what felt like half an hour. Well, Gaara's team I suppose wasn't the last people I wanted to run into. I preferred him to Orochimaru.

We stood in a clearing with our teams facing each other. Temari and Kankuro squinted at me, recognized me, suddenly looked sorry for me, but didn't say anything. Gaara looked over us and the clearing was silent.

"I'd uh, rather not fight." I said slowly and Bu gave me a questionable look and I shook my head at him. Kyuketsu, clearly sensing something off about Gaara, trusted my judgement.

Gaara's sand lifted in the wind and my mind went through several quick shitty plans. Eventually, I came up with this: Can my fire turn Gaara's sand to glass?

I probably looked incredibly badass because I didn't actually want Gaara to fight me. I wanted Gaara to acknowledge I was cool too since I could control fire majestically like he could his sand and maybe, hopefully, but unlikely, leave. So I threw my left arm out and widened my legs into a cooler stance than just standing there. I did something I had never done before, which was I tried to multitask what I was focusing in regards to chakra. I wanted to swirl flames around my feet and left arm. The left arm thing didn't work in the slightest although my fist started to smoke. Most of my attention was admittedly on trying to do a cool fire circle at my feet and I managed one, although it wasn't very big. It was pretty close and it just wrapped around my legs, barely skimming me.

I pretended I wasn't terrified by the fire around my legs and I took my smoking hand and pointed at Gaara, "Seriously. Lets not do this."

"Gaara, we already have enough scrolls. This is a pointless fight when we could make it to the tower faster." Kankuro tried rather quietly, although Gaara probably hardly heard him from how hard he was staring at me. I grabbed at more of the chakra in the air and the flames grew a bit, now licking my skin and heating me up. I felt a bead of sweat forming on my brow but I looked at Gaara, unafraid. By unafraid I meant my body wouldn't move and my face was tensed in concentration so that I didn't look afraid.

Without a word Gaara turned around and walked out of the clearing. Temari and Kankuro looked completely flabbergasted he actually left us while I immediately pulled away from the nature chakra and the flames at my feet died down and left a burnt circle on the grass. Temari and Kankuro scurried after Gaara and I leaned against a tree with a hand against my heart. I thought I was going to have a heart attack right then and there.

Kyuketsu regarded me with an amused and triumphant smirk, "Your Natural Fire is a useful tool, yes?"

"I'll shove a useful tool up your ass, Kyu-Kyu."

.

We moved on after Kyuketsu explained to Bu that Gaara was incredibly off and I explained his chakra was like a ball of murder. Moving on led us to the real person I never wanted to meet ever though. That's right.

We ran right into Orochimaru and Team Seven.

Honestly, everyone knew this was coming. I did. Kinoe did. All the Samsaras. It was something that was guaranteed to fuck me over. Yet I was still rendered motionless by fear when I felt a chakra so powerful that it couldn't have been anyone but him. I should have led my team away, but I didn't. I made a choice when I sensed his chakra. I made a choice that I wanted to do something. I don't know what I was thinking that time, rather I don't know what I was thinking I could do. I was pretty much useless.

I can probably take all the blame for the world state after these exams. But that didn't concern me at that very moment. I kept going so that we almost literally ran into Team Seven and Orochimaru.

We landed on a branch above where Orochimaru stood facing Sasu and Naruto. I almost fell off the branch due to the feeling that Orochimaru's chakra gave me. It just felt plain icky.

Orochimaru hardly looked at us, but in a voice that sounded so horrendously evil, murmured, "And so the other Uchiha falls right into my hands as well."

His voice made me realize exactly what I had just brought us into. All that thinking I hadn't been doing suddenly started happening and well, I realized I was an idiot.

My first thought was, I have just made a fatal error. My second thought was, Naruto and Sasu were working together that's pretty good. My third thought was why did Orochimaru have the goddamn Sword of Kusanagi out.

I was surprisingly calm considering the clusterfuck I walked myself into. It seemed like Naruto and Sasu were a force to be reckoned with when Orochimaru was playing with them as the genin. But Naruto had orange chakra that was burning into my senses oozing from him and Sasu's chakra was erratic and low. But I didn't think Orochimaru had bitten him yet because Sasu's chakra was still Sasu's.

"Shicho, run!" Sasu barked, "He's not a genin!"

"I fucking know that!" I replied and somehow my usual snark found its way out, "You would find a Sannin to fight!"

"Orochimaru of the Sannin." Kyuketsu, firm and slightly dazed murmured. Orochimaru's head twisted and I got my first look at the real Orochimaru. He was paler than I was with slit eyes and a thin face. He was very unsettling to look at, if I was honest. There was a glow to his skin that I wasn't very sure about and in my mind all I could hear was his theme playing on repeat. Other than that he was exactly as one would expect the real Orochimaru to look like.

Orochimaru smiled with his lips curling up, "My, this is exciting. Gatarui Kyuketsu-kun is here as well."

That, Orochimaru naming Kyuketsu, was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. Hearing Orochimaru refer to Kyuketsu like that chilled me to my bones. All the fight in me seemed to cool off and I just felt fear seep through me. I tried to make sense of it. Kyuketsu had been called the false Aburame for a reason, I supposed. Gatarui.

Gatarui.

I didn't know what the name translated into. Gatarui could come from the word for arachnids, and that made complete sense. Kyuketsu's name, now that I think about it, I had always translated to meaning mission. But Kyuketsu, when spelled with kanji, could be bloodsucking. A reference to his spiders, then.

Can you tell I was so nervous I was breaking down?

Bu brought me back into the world though because he tackled both Kyuketsu and I off the branch we were on. Naruto's body broke through said branch and in horrified fascination I watched as he continued through another tree. Bu managed to land us semi-softly but Kyuketsu was unresponsive other than the occasional utter of "Orochimaru of the Sannin..."

Orochimaru somehow managed to break Kyuketsu, but at that point I was more concerned with the present instead of the possibilities.

I saw Orochimaru's neck stretch impossibly and reach for Sasu and before my mind was working my arm was. Orochimaru's head stopped and a kunai darted past his face only centimeters from his nose. Was that my kunai? Yes, yes it was. He looked in my direction and I can't say I regret trying to save my brother but I definitely did not want Orochimaru staring at me. Orochimaru retracted his head and started to walk towards us. I shivered and felt feeling come back through my limbs.

I stood up and Bu jumped up next to me. My mind worked faster than usual and I made a decision that even as I look back on, I will not regret.

"Bu take Kyuketsu and run." I ordered.

"What?" Bu sputtered, "No, we fight-"

"Bu fucking take him and run!" I spat, "He's unresponsive!"

Bu's chakra flickered with emotion. He was angry and scared and his chakra was like a raging fire. It was trying to consume everything around it as it moved in irritation. But Kyuketsu was indeed unresponsive. He was dead to the world and Bu's chakra deflated as he knelt by the calm, still chakra that was Kyuketsu. Kyuketsu was always calm. But Kyuketsu was never still. Not like this. I was scared for him.

I stood in front of Bu and Kyuketsu and I drew my pathetic little tanto. Orochimaru eyed the little sword and I felt like I brought a toothpick to a sword fight. Bu lifted Kyuketsu into a fireman's carry and I felt his chakra dash off. I drew my senses within myself because I could feel Naruto charging up chakra a few trees away. My legs were shaking as Orochimaru casually came towards me and when he was only a few meters away he stopped.

"What interesting eyes you have." Orochimaru murmured as I pushed chakra to my eyes and brought out my sharingan. I narrowed my eyes as Orochimaru looked me dead in them. You usually didn't do that if you were facing an Uchiha, obviously, but Orochimaru was arrogant. He was strong. I was nowhere near strong enough to keep him in any kind of genjutsu, nor would I be able to use something like Itachi's Tsukuyomi.

I couldn't let Orochimaru talk or move first. He was charismatic and a master at mind games. He was also the strong opponent and I wanted to try and get off on the offensive to surprise him. If I could stall long enough Anko would arrive, I think. Or some ANBU. At this point anyone would do as long as they could stop Orochimaru.

I lunged forward with the tip of my tanto aiming for his gut. Orochimaru's lips quirked in amusement and he waved Kusanagi. He didn't slice, or swing, he waved. Kusanagi was a legendary sword and I almost felt tears of frustration well up in my eyes as my tanto was cleanly sliced through. The blade fell to the ground with a soft clang and I dropped the handle with no more use for it. Even with my sharingan, even with my speed, even with everything I knew and could do, Orochimaru was still faster, stronger, and better.

Fushicho whispered, calmly for once, "Open my cage, Veronica."

I didn't have time to answer back because I had to get the fuck out of the way when Orochimaru suddenly swung towards me in what was probably a lazy way for him but a rather quick attack in my genin experience. I jumped to a tree branch and Orochimaru stayed on the ground, looking up at me with this humored look. Sasu was coming towards the fight now and I really didn't want him to come this way. I would rather Sasu had run and left me in the dust. In this scenario I wouldn't have blamed him. I wouldn't have thought bad of him like I did of my brother in my previous life.

But Sasu charged in like the reckless idiot that was his friend. So many things happened at once. Bu landed next to me on the tree. Sasu tried to stop as Orochimaru turned around to bite him. Naruto came out of nowhere like an orange bullet. And Sakura, who had probably been hiding this entire time, tossed a kunai while jumping towards the branch Bu and I were on.

What had she been thinking, I wondered. Did she throw the kunai because she saw me before? Did something happen to change her? What had I done to cause this? What had I DONE?

"That idiot." I uttered softly, my heart almost stopping, as Orochimaru flung the sword of Kusanagi and it cleaved through the kunai Sakura threw. Orochimaru bit into Sasu's neck as the sword, spinning like a frisbee, met Sakura. Sakura tried to block it. She held up her left arm and she moved her body. Sakura would have been fine, sword completely missing her body, had she not tried to block the sword. Sakura landed on our branch and Bu caught her as this splatter of blood followed her and spilled onto Bu and I. My eyes weren't on Sasu anymore. They hadn't been since I watched Sakura move. Sasu getting the curse mark was expected. This? THIS? This was not.

My eyes had been stuck on Sakura as the Sword of Kusanagi cleaved through her arm like it was butter and sliced off her arm from about the middle of her bicep.

My breath was caught in my throat as Sakura's arm smacked me in the face, because that was some irony right there, and I fell backwards off the tree branch. Bu yelled my name and I landed on my back on the ground. The arm bounced a few meters away and I sat up. I stared at the blood on myself in morbid fascination.

Sakura's blood.

This shouldn't have happened and yet, it did. It happened and it was entirely my fault. I didn't have time to be laying there, stunned and mentally berating myself. Yet I didn't have the willpower to move. I fucked up.

"Hey, dumbass! Wake up!"

Fushicho was calling for me and it was all blurry until I looked up to see Orochimaru approaching me. Sasu and Naruto were laying on the floor and I didn't know what Bu was doing with Sakura. Did Orochimaru tamper with Naruto's seal? I wasn't quite sure. I hadn't been paying much attention.

I was next. I didn't know what to do-what could I do? Me, the girl who's afraid of her only good ability.

Of course Bu was a dumb bitch and he wanted to try playing hero. Bu had little bombs between his fingers as he descended down towards Orochimaru but Orochimaru, with fingers so fast I didn't even see the hand signs (Rather, I didn't comprehend them. My sharingan probably saw them but I was just not mentally there.), blew him away. Literally. Bu disappeared from my sight with a few explosions sounding in the distance and in that moment, I reached into my mind. I reached for the cage door. I reached for Fushicho.

And I opened the goddamn prison.

Somehow my body got to its feet and I felt this dark tingling sensation wrestle with me throughout my body. As the feeling reached my feet flames swirled around me. Fushicho managed to do what I tried to scare Gaara with. Fushicho forced us to smile although there was something so eerie about the way my face felt I was sure that it was an unsettling expression. Orochimaru paused for a moment as if he had noticed the change in me. His eyes flickered over my face and his lips curled.

Fushicho made my body feel weird. I still had some kind of control, where I could have moved if I wanted to, but I really didn't. In this case Fushicho had full control over our body. Fushicho didn't move like I did either. I was lazy and my fighting style did not contain any flips or general weird movements. I didn't like the extra movements because they drained my energy faster. Fushicho however moved like something possessed. She moved my joints unnaturally and she was faster than I was even with all the extra things she did.

Despite all this though, Fushicho was still using a genin's body as her puppet. While she definitely maximized what my body could do it was still nothing compared to Orochimaru. Had I gone against Gaara Fushicho may have been able to pull out a win with her control over my Natural Fire and speed. But Orochimaru was a Sannin. Orochimaru was Orochi-fucking-maru. Fushicho was offensive and her thoughts on defense seemed to be "The best defense is a greater offense". She used every single one of my projectiles on him and just kept a kunai for a melee weapon. Orochimaru couldn't really care any less though and when he decided to swat me away, he did so.

I didn't feel it as I slammed through a tree and left a vaguely Fushicho shaped mark. Though Fushicho likely took the brunt of the feeling for that.

"Son of a bitch." swore Fushicho, "This is tiring. I'm not used to this."

"What's our best bet?" I demanded.

Fushicho didn't answer because she got out of the way of Orochimaru's neck coming in for a bite.

"I do not want that on my neck! Get the hell out of here!" I growled and Fushicho complied, ascending into the trees and leaving burning branches behind on each step. Orochimaru's neck was insanely creepy and insanely fast. He was getting closer, I could feel it, as Fushicho pushed herself through the branches and up the tree. When I swore I felt hot breath on my neck we were saved by Anko crashing through the bushes and intercepting his path.

We didn't stay and chat or try to help. Fushicho booked it and we looped around to where everyone was unconscious, well almost everyone. Naruto and Sasu were right where I left them but Sakura was hyperventilating and having a full blown panic attack against a tree. Bu must have tried to tie a tourniquet around what remained of her bicep but she was bleeding through. Despite me wanting to go to Sasu first, Fushicho led us over to Sakura.

"You'll be fine when you wake up." Fushicho, in a voice that sounded most certainly not like my own, promised her before knocking her out.

I felt Fushicho's power receding in my body. But with the last of her power Fushicho pulled chakra to our left hand and she covered Sakura's stump. There was a smell of burning flesh that sent me through a series of flashbacks that were not pleasant in the slightest. The smell brought me back to my own death and my skin tingled. I could almost feel myself burning. Fushicho's grasp on my body faded completely and just in time. She faded away just as Sakura's wound was cauterized enough where she wasn't losing a shit ton of blood.

My body felt like it was made of lead and I collapsed onto my side next to Sakura. I closed my eyes so that I didn't have to look at her wound. I was given probably five minutes of rest where I could hear a fight in the distance; likely Anko and Orochimaru. They were getting quieter and quieter and Anko was hopefully leading him away purposely. Eventually after my five minute break I heard footsteps approaching. I pushed myself up, totally not ready for a fight but ready to get us out of this situation with some bullshitting, and standing in front of me was Kyuketsu.

We stared at each other for a good minute. I was staring at him in disbelief and he was looking at me with this slowly growing guilty expression. Keep in mind, Kyuketsu doesn't do guilty expressions. Like ever.

Kyuketsu looked at Sakura, then at me. He glanced over at Sasu and Naruto. Bu wasn't in our line of sight but I vaguely felt him on the edge of my minimized range.

"I'm sorry." Kyuketsu stated, bowing his head to me.

I raised an eyebrow at him and Kyuketsu got to his knees to bow to me, "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you and Bu."

"You wouldn't have made a difference." I told him, awkwardly trying to assure him I wasn't mad in the slightest, "That man, Orochimaru, is far stronger than the three of us even together could hope to face now."

Kyuketsu made a noise of acknowledgement and he stood up. He helped me to my feet and he wiped his hand across my face. When he pulled it back I saw I must have had blood splattered across my face. I rubbed with my sleeve and Kyuketsu nodded at me. I felt like I wasn't doing much to the blood that was dried to my face but at this point we had a bigger concern with four unconscious people.

"You wanna go get Bu? He's that way." I pointed in the direction of Bu's signature.

Kyuketsu smirked, "I think he'd rather wake up to you than me."

"If he doesn't wake up I'm leaving him there. No way am I carrying his fat ass when I feel like this."

There was an elephant in the room. Kyuketsu wasn't acting like himself. There was something forced in his expressions that led me to believe he was hiding something from me. But regardless I started walking towards Bu's chakra. I kept my attention on Kyuketsu's signature though and as I walked towards Bu Kyuketsu tried to rouse Naruto and Sasu. When I found Bu I initially panicked because I thought he was dead from the amount of blood covering him. But then I remembered he had caught Sakura and we were both sprayed from the original cut.

Bu was probably knocked out from the force of getting thrown a good distance away. I peeled Bu out of the indent in the tree that he created and I carried him piggyback towards Kyuketsu. Every step felt extremely heavy but I pushed forward and when I got back to Kyuketsu I was amused to find he found what looked like where Sakura hid in canon, except it was in the tree instead of below it. I dropped Bu and Kyuketsu tended to everyone's wounds. I was pretty useless in this aspect so I just closed my eyes and kept watch.

My meditation was ended some time later when Kyuketsu tossed a scroll at me. I jumped because I hadn't been expecting it and then I looked at the scroll after giving its thrower a dirty look. The scroll was the usual item sealing scroll although Kyuketsu had marked the flap with a bloody finger print.

"What is it?" I questioned. Bloody finger prints usually meant there was a bounty or dead body or something else that would scar you for life if you opened it not expecting something horrifying.

Kyuketsu pointed to Sakura over his shoulder with his thumb, "Her arm."

"Gah." I dropped the scroll in my bag, "Why me?" I mean, an arm would absolutely scar me for life if I didn't expect there to be one in this scroll.

"She likes you more than me." was Kyuketsu's answer. I rolled my eyes and Kyuketsu came to sit next to me. We watched the four injured for awhile in silence. Eventually I was able to get my thoughts in order. I didn't really want to ask Kyuketsu about why Orochimaru recognized him. I didn't want to hear something that I didn't want to hear. But I needed to know. Who was Kyuketsu?

I turned my head to look at Kyuketsu, "Hey, which is it? Aburame Kyuketsu, or Gatarui Kyuketsu?"

Kyuketsu inhaled deeply, as if he thought he had gotten out of anyone noticing that. But he resigned himself to his fate.

"I suppose I should tell you. You deserve it." Kyuketsu nodded to himself, likely trying to convince himself I deserved to hear it, "My parents were nuke-nin. My mother was a lower Aburame who defected to be with my father, a man she met on a mission. She kept in touch with her sister in the clan while traveling the nations with my father. They had two sons, me and my brother. Orochimaru wanted our father's bloodline. He came after us and in the chaos my mother and brother were left behind as my father took me. We assumed they were dead and my father kept me until Orochimaru came after us again. My father brought me to the village when I was eight. He killed himself. I met you when I was nine."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say due to the abruptness of it all, "Kekkei-Genkai suck, don't they?"

He made a noise of agreement. How Kyuketsu-esque of him to throw his life story on me like that.

"You never explained what you could do to us." I commented.

Kyuketsu nodded, "You've seen my arachnids. I am like the Aburame in that I house these dangerous arachnids inside my body but I cannot use the kikaichu that the Aburame use. My father's Kekkei-Genkai entails being able to synthesize poisons and using your fangs to inject them, using clan jutsu, and my brother and I were signed onto the Spider summoning contract."

"That's... pretty cool, actually. Can you do any of that yet, aside from the summoning that I've seen?" I questioned. Kyuketsu looked down at his knees as he debated something.

"I am able to use a few minor jutsu and I have the handsigns memorized to the major jutsu but I am unable to perform any of those. My canines are able to transmit poison although I have not experimented much there." Kyuketsu pulled his knees into his chest and he leaned his chin on them.

There was silence for awhile. I thought it was a peaceful silence but I couldn't tell Kyuketsu was thinking. He was clearly on the edge about something and I wasn't sure what. We just had a pretty serious talk considering how secretive Kyuketsu normally was.

"Fushicho, is there anything you've kept from us?"

It came out of nowhere and I almost choked. I blinked at him, confused as to what he thought I could be hiding. I mean, I was hiding a shit ton from everyone but it wasn't like I was hiding who I was.

Okay.

I was hiding Veronica, but not Fushicho.

"No?" I answered, tilting my head in confusion. Kyuketsu searched my eyes before accepting my answer with a nod.

"Alright." Kyuketsu rested his forehead on his knees again.

Kyuketsu was taking first watch and I was dozing off when I heard him utter, under his breath in a way that I wasn't supposed to hear it, "Thank you for being my friend, Fu."

I smiled into my arm.

.

Kyuketsu woke me up for my watch and after he was asleep I had a relatively boring watch. I remembered the Oto nin that came after Sasu about two hours into my watch so I went around setting up traps with things I stole from Bu's pouch. Then I returned to our camp and waited. I didn't wake up Kyuketsu for his next watch.

Sakura woke up as the sun started to rise. I heard her shift and I left the opening I was sitting in to kneel beside her. When Sakura opened her eyes they were filled with tears.

"I'm alive?" she whispered.

"Mm." I nodded, "You're alive. So is Sasu and Naruto."

"Thank goodness." she closed her eyes again.

"Fushicho-san, is this a dream?" she asked me. Her tone suggested she was begging me to tell her that yes this was a dream.

"No. But everything will be fine. Don't worry. Me, Kyuketsu, and Bu, when he's done being unconscious, are here to help." I told her cheerfully, well, as cheerfully as I was able to. Sakura sat up using her remaining arm to push herself. She looked at where Kyuketsu had bandaged her stub. It was stained a dirty red now and I grabbed the bandages so I could change it. Sakura sat with her legs crossed and she looked away when I started to unwrap her stub.

"Fushicho-san, what can I do now?" she whispered.

"What do you mean?" I replied, starting the new bandage. I wasn't sure how tight to wrap it but I figured it was more so Sakura wouldn't have to look at the cauterized wound at this point.

Sakura sniffled, "My arm is gone. How can I be a ninja now?"

"You find a way around it." I told her, "We met a guy who could do one handed hand signs on our mission to Wave."

Sakura was silent. I didn't get to continue the conversation with her because in the distance there was an explosion. I reached my senses out and felt three signatures trying to get through my minefield on one side. Three other signatures, these ones familiar, were approaching slowly from another angle. Skipping around the trees was another signature.

I stood up after finishing Sakura's arm. There was another explosion, this one closer.

"Where are you going?" Sakura whispered.

"I need to take care of whoever is coming towards us." I told her confidently, "Don't worry about me."

Sakura sniffled and wiped her nose, "What if it's that man again? Orochimaru?"

"Then I'll lead him away." I promised. Of course she didn't know that if Orochimaru was coming our way I would probably be fucked. My bravado seemed to cheer her up and she watched silently as I looked out the opening.

"dOn'T gEt In OvEr YoUr HeAd." Fushicho, sounding tired and warped cautioned me, "I aM tOo TiReD tO sAvE yOu."

"Like I need your help against these guys." I scoffed but that was false bravado speaking. I waited and felt as the three signatures approached and proceeded to get bombarded by every potential trap that I had been taught. Considering Bu was my teammate, that was a lot. There were curses as they got closer and Kin complained about how they smelled now. As they got closer the traps suddenly got deadly but none of them actually got hit past a little bit of singing.

The closer explosions woke up Kyuketsu who looked groggy and confused. After another explosion he was wide awake.

"We have company." I said rather cheerfully, "We need another scroll right?"

"Don't be arrogant. It will be three on two." Kyuketsu warned. Sakura looked a bit worried at that idea but she didn't say anything. Kyuketsu stood up and joined me in peering out of our hiding spot as Dosu, Kin and Zaku appeared at the edge of the clearing. Kin looked very upset and I had to muffle my laughter as I realized her hair was singed and a bit shorter than expected. Dosu and Zaku were also a bit roughed up and Dosu called out.

"We're here to fight the Uchiha!" Dosu yelled, sounding extremely angry.

Sakura looked alarmed, "He's after you and Sasuke-kun too?"

I didn't give her a response. I jumped out of the tree and landed across from them. I turned on my sharingan, "This Uchiha sound good?"

"Perfect." Zaku grinned and stepped forward with his arms coming up. His arms looked really fucking weird by the way with the sharingan.

Before the fight even started though Kyuketsu landed beside me and pushed me backwards. He bit his thumb and slammed his hand down to the ground. There was a burst of smoke and Kyuketsu's chakra was suddenly missing over half of what it usually had. Considering he was already drained, he probably was lower than he was used to. Kyuketsu stumbled backwards and I caught him before he tripped over a root. When the smoke cleared a spider about the size of a small car, maybe a little bigger than a smart car, was taking up a majority of the clearing. It had some kind of armored skin and I almost screamed when it spoke. I heard Sakura muffle her own screams in the tree.

"Kyuketsu-sama, is this blood my offering?" the spider demanded peacefully. It clearly knew the three gaping Oto nin were its enemies.

"Drain them dry but do not damage any scrolls they carry." Kyuketsu rasped. The spider looked down at the three Oto-nin and lunged. They scattered in three directions and the spider followed after Dosu while Zaku and Kin looped around and came towards Kyuketsu and I. I feel bad but I dropped Kyuketsu and he fell sideways. I leaped over him and went to grab for my tanto when I realized I no longer had a tanto. I flipped, despite not liking flips, into a kick and met Zaku's fist with the kick. I parried Kin's kunai with the single kunai I did have and when I got the chance I faked Zaku out and kicked him across the clearing. I allowed Kin to wrap her fingers into my hair. She thought she was victorious.

"A little girl like you shouldn't be a ninja with hair this long-" she began but her sentence ended in a shriek when suddenly her arm warmers were engulfed in flames. She let go and I turned around and went for a roundhouse kick. She ducked under and tried to hammer her burning arm into me. I backed up with my eyes focused on the fire. Goosebumps rose across my skin. I hated fire. How cruel this world was to give me the ability to use fire. Why couldn't I have been the water bender instead of the fire bender? I'd much rather be Katara than Zuko.

Zaku returned quickly and the two worked together against me. Zaku got a few good hits against me and I felt my lip split open with one of them. I was being backed into a corner and when a senbon narrowly missed a pressure point and stuck into my shoulder instead, Sakura decided she had to help. She threw a kunai at Kin who avoided it easily. Sakura's throw was off by miles. Typically all ninja had to be able to be ambidextrous but I was sure Sakura didn't practice throwing kunai with both hands and there was also her pitiful state to consider.

Kin laughed when she saw Sakura, "Look at that! The long haired hime lost her arm!"

Sakura gripped another kunai and threw it wordlessly. It would have been pretty badass of her if there weren't tears streaming down her face.

It was honestly really lucky that Sakura had done that. Sakura was a friendly girl and she was, most importantly, a connection to others. When Sakura showed herself I was willing to bet Ino almost shit herself in the bushes because of her arm. Ino didn't even wait for Shikamaru and Choji. Ino erupted out of the bushes ready for a fight and Shikamaru and Choji followed after a moment of being astounded that Ino had actually done that. Meanwhile Lee, who had been watching from a tree, dove down like a hawk.

"Sakura-san is beautiful and strong!" Lee cried, slamming his foot into Kin's face.

Lee is a blessing, by theway. His backup would be great since Dosu wasn't present to fuck him up.

Ino faltered and her eye twitched as Lee clearly stole her thunder. Shikamaru and Choji came to a skidding stop by Ino. However from here things went relatively similar to the anime. While Lee was still up and moving, Ino's possession of Kin led to Zaku attacking Kin. Dosu returned looking a little worse for wear with his clothes and gear almost torn to shreds. The three of them together made for a deadly team and I looked around for Neji and Tenten. I found them watching a good distance away.

"We aren't here to play by the rules," Dosu rasped, "We only want the Uchiha twins."

"Sasuke-kun?" Ino echoed although she didn't move, "What do you want with Sasuke-kun?.

Kyuketsu sat up from where I had dropped him and he went to summon again but I smacked his hands away, "You are not dying of chakra exhaustion, you moron!"

Kyuketsu gave me a nasty glare but suddenly everyone in the clearing flinched. I almost fell to my knees as the overwhelming chakra walked out from the tree roots. I looked at my brother in horror when I realized Sasu's curse mark was acting up. The marks climbed around his skin and the intensity of it had shattered the lenses of his glasses. The way Sasu moved with the curse mark looked unnatural-like how Fushicho moved my body. My body lost all its feeling: I completely zoned out the fact that Sasu's chakra felt like death to me.

"Sasu!" I yelled, struggling towards him despite my body not wanting me to get closer, "Put that evil shit away now!"

Kyuketsu, as well as everyone else in the clearing, looked at me like I was insane.

Sasu ignored me, "Shicho, did they do that to you?"

"That's not important, put that away right this moment!" I wasn't even that badly hurt. Just a few marks on my face. If he could even see them; I didn't wash my face so it still probably had dried blood sticking to it. I was likely a horror show at the moment.

"I feel so powerful, Shicho. Who did that to you? I can make them pay." Sasu said, stepping forwards. The dust around him was kicking up as he walked. I was getting pretty pissed off he was ignoring me too.

"Sasu put that shit away right now!" I snarled, "That's not a good way to get stronger!"

"It's fine, Shicho. I feel better than fine. That guy gave this to me..." Sasu continued forward and I was afraid of what he was going to say next.

I stood up and came to stand in his way. Sasu and I locked sharingan. I growled, "You put that away right now or else I will put it away for you, brother."

"I understand now." Sasu said simply but his voice was so off that I felt my stomach twist and turn anxiously, "I must be the one to avenge our family."

"You dumbass, put that away and talk to me like a man! Don't be a dumb little bitch!" I snarled. Sasu stepped up to me and, nose to nose, we stared into each others eyes. Sasu's chakra was kicking up the dirt around us and my hair was whipping with it. We were probably a pretty epic sight, if not a terrifying one.

Sasu's eyes didn't show any sign of softening, "I will not let us watch anyone else die. No one will hurt the Uchiha anymore. No one will target us for our eyes. No one will try and wipe us out. I will kill all who oppose us."

"You dumbass, you absolute fucking-" Sasu grabbed me and moved me out of the way of Zaku's air current. Sasu let go of me and I could only gape as Sasu appeared next to Zaku so quickly my sharingan was probably the only thing that let me see him move. Zaku tried to blast him away but Sasu moved around him fluidly and grabbed a hold of his arms. He kicked out Zaku's knees and planted a foot in his back.

The crack of his arms had Sakura crying and Team Ten had fled back to their bush. I wasn't letting this fly. In the anime, Sakura hugged Sasu and begged him to stop when he went to go after Dosu. In real life, I tackled him to the floor and punched his chest a few times before he even had the chance to look at Dosu.

"Stop! Stop you moron!" I dug my heels into his sides to try and discourage him from getting up. I refused to let him do whatever he wanted and when he pushed us up to move us out of the way of Dosu's attempt on our lives, I grabbed Sasu in a headlock. Dosu stopped when two angry sharingans were briefly trained on him and he wisely chose to stay still so as not to get Sasu after him.

I tightened my grip and cut off his air flow, "Get a hold of yourself Sasu!"

Sasu couldn't talk because I was choking him but we struggled for a few moments until Sasu overpowered me. The dark chakra that had been emanating him touched my skin and I couldn't tell what was worse: Sasu's chakra or the demonic chakra that Naruto emanated. My body almost shut down right then and there. The dark chakra latched onto me and I screamed so loudly that my throat burned only a few seconds in. I retracted from my brother and fell to the floor, grasping my arm and writhing.

It was like a switch. As soon as Sasu realized he hurt me the marks retracted like it was nothing. He went to try and hold me, probably to comfort me or help me, but he hesitated when he realized his touch had done this. So as I twitched and tried to move my own chakra around the burning area in an attempt to get it to get the fuck off me, Sasu turned to Dosu. Dosu, in an oh shit moment, dropped his scroll, collected his teammates, and ran for his life.

I rolled onto my back as the pain started to subside but there was a lingering ache that I couldn't shake. Sasu stood over me with the faintest tears in his eyes.

"Shicho, I'm so sorry." he whispered, bowing his head to me, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You moron. Don't you know you should listen to me? Idiot." I laughed rather pitifully and sat up. I put a hand on his head and Sasu looked at me like I was something he had never seen before.

Sasu sniffled, "I wasn't lying though. I won't let anyone push us around anymore. No more kidnapping attempts. No more attacks. No more. I won't let you be hurt again."

"I'm a goddamn ninja, bro. You should focus on not using that damn chakra." I looked at my arm and found lingering marks from the chakra, "If these scar you owe me."

Sasu snorted and hung his broken glasses from his shirt so he could wipe his eyes, "Since when do you care about your skin?"

"Since Onna wants me to wear actual girl clothes. Can you believe her? I was tempted to wear the battle kimono for this but I'm not used to the sleeves yet." I huffed. Sasu and I's moment was ruined when we heard frantic footsteps and Ino practically tackled Sakura to fret over her arm. Sasu and I looked over at them.

"Sakura! What happened?!" Ino was sobbing hysterically, "You don't have-"

Sakura cut her off quietly, "I know."

Shikamaru and Choji quietly emerged from their bush and when I looked around I realized Lee had disappeared at some point. There were simultaneous groans from Bu and Naruto and when both sat up looking horribly confused, I rolled my eyes.

"You slept through a fight and a half, Bu." I said dryly.

Kyuketsu, who was apparently still conscious, uttered from across the clearing, "Say that again. Make him feel bad."

Bu squinted at me and then he gasped comically, "Fu you look like shit!"

I decided I needed a well deserved nap after that attack on my person. I plopped back into the dirt and Sasu looked tired but amused as I closed my eyes and refused to deal with anyone else's shit. Wake me up when we're at the tower, got it? No more, I say. No more. I want a nice nap.

"Hey," Fushicho whispered, "We've got a problem in here."

She sounded rather back to herself but she had a different tone than usual. She didn't sound as psychotic and angry as usual. She sounded, of course, tired and a bit concerned. She sounded human, is what I'm trying to say.

"Can it wait?" I replied. I didn't even envision myself in my mind's dungeon like usual. I was just drifting off into a nap. Or a coma. Or death. Preferably a coma.

Fushicho was silent, "After the preliminaries. No longer than that."

"Goodie. More problems. Exactly what I want in my life."

"It's not like things went that terrible."

I scoffed, "Not that terrible? Sakura lost her arm. And the more I think on it, the more I realize it's entirely my fault."

Fushicho hummed, "Kinoe did say not to try and change things and you decided to run at Orochimaru full speed."

"Yes I remember that. Don't patronize me."

Laughing, Fushicho's words were the last thing I remember before probably falling into a coma. Not even the good kind of coma. I'm talking about the kind where I was willing to bet I would wake up two days later confused and angry.

"You're not the smartest out there but I'm sure together we'll find a way to push things in the right direction with Sakura. Take a walk down memory lane and see who can inspire you because I have certainly found something interesting in those memories of yours."

AN:

This chapter was an asshole. A complete and utter asshole. Why is the Forest of Death so long? Gosh, get out of here Orochimoomoo.

I have trouble characterizing characters that aren't Fushicho's squad since I'm not sure what their characters are at yet. Especially Sakura since I am SO EXCITED to work the arm thing you have no idea. That wasn't a moment's decision, I planned that for so long. I am SO EXCITED.

As for what went down with Orochimoomoo: Fushicho did not get the curse seal. I knew long before this she would not be getting it because she probably would not survive it like Sasuke does. Also I did not want to make her more powerful that way. Fushicho knows its a curse seal and would refuse to use it at all, unlike Sasuke who is seduced by its power (In my mind).

My health has been garbage lately. Ugh. I have an infection and let me tell you I am not pleased. The medication didn't work the first time so we're trying again. It's a really common infection so why is the medication being dumb? I bet its to spite me. Grrr.

Fun Fact: If Kinoe was a Sim in Sims 3 his traits would be, with all expansions: Rebellious, Genius, Dramatic, Perceptive and Unlucky. No hidden traits for him.

Thanks to the following for reviewing (:

Thomas Drovin
Girl-luvs-manga
Guest
Silly Thoughts
Rileyyheartt