Previously:
"!!" Sakura gasped when April launched herself forward to stop the dangerous enemy. She jumped up the branches to chase after him, but the gaps were large, and without chakra to supplement her moves, her speed suffered. 'I'm not going to make it…!' she realized with wide eyes, muscles burning as she pushed harder.
SHINK! SHUNK! SHINK! SHINK! SHUNK! SHING!!
The grass ninja flinched, grinding to an abrupt stop in order to avoid the shurikens and kunai that almost pierced his skull. "..." He looked from the weapons stuck in the branch before him to the direction they had come from.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke!! April!!" a familiar voice apologized.
"!" Sasuke gasped, whipping his head around in surprise.
Naruto grinned down at them from his high perch in another tree. "I forgot… the codeword!!"
Chapter 47: The Purpose Is…!!
"Great job, Naruto!!" Sakura exclaimed, feeling unbelievably relieved to see him again.
'Yeah, great job...' April thought, grinning, too. She had no clue where he had been up until now, but she knew he wouldn't go down that easily. Without wasting a second, she used the momentary distraction to catch up, leap into the air, and throw another kunai, which forced the enemy to back up more as she flipped to land next to Sasuke and adopted the bai jong stance again, ready to back him up for the next attack.
"Naruto!!" Sasuke shouted up at him. "I know you think you're cool and here to save us… but forget it!! Run away!! This one is on a whole different level!!!"
The grass ninja glared at April, unable to decide which of the two interlopers was the bigger nuisance. He turned his attention back to Naruto and smirked. "Hehe… looks like you defeated that giant snake… Naruto-kun."
"!" Naruto and April both frowned at the remark.
'This guy sure looks like a snake...' Naruto thought, noticing the strange way his seemingly boneless body was wrapped around the branch. 'I see… so it was him behind it...'
'Does that mean he also sent one of those things after Naruto…? Why does he seem to be going out of his way to target the boys? Is it because they're the two strongest on the team, so he wants to eliminate them first…?' April wondered, furrowing her brow. 'Anyway, it's good that Naruto found us… I was desperate before, but it's dangerous for us to get too close to this guy. But now Naruto can use his shadow clones… we might be able to injure him or at least distract him long enough to buy time to escape and set a trap...'
'With him coming to save us… It's not like we are in a better situation,' Sasuke thought anxiously, furrowing his brow and gritting his teeth. 'What to do?'
"Hey!! Hey!! It looks like you were picking on the weak!!!" Naruto gloated, enjoying his moment in the spotlight.
"Yeah, you're real cool, Naruto!" April told him as a bead of sweat slid down the side of her face. "Now come closer and listen to what I have to say!!"
'This is bad… all four of us will be killed…' Sasuke thought, cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck. There was no way they could beat this guy. He had to do something. 'There is no other way...'
"!" April and Naruto furrowed their brows and frowned in surprise when he suddenly deactivated his Sharingan.
The grass ninja also furrowed his brow, wondering what he was planning.
"What are you..." April started to ask Sasuke, when he cut her off.
"We will give you the scroll..." Sasuke told the grass ninja, shocking his teammates. "Please… take it and leave us."
"!!" Naruto gasped indignantly, gaping at him in disbelief. 'Wha?!!' he thought incredulously. What the hell was Sasuke saying!?
"Huh?" Sakura said, stunned.
'What the hell is he saying…!?' April wondered, disturbed. Even if they gave him the scroll, there was no guarantee that he would let them go. That was the same mistake her parents made. They had thought those men broke into their home to rob them, when the truth was they intended to murder them from the start. 'For Sasuke to say something like that under these circumstances… Is this meant to be some kind of ruse? I hope he isn't panicking again… That snake attack really seemed to freak him out...'
The grass ninja smirked.
"Sasuke!!! What the hell are you talking about?!!!" Naruto shouted angrily at him. "Why would you give the scroll to the enemy?!!!" He was really glad that April was the one carrying it, or who knows what that jerk might have already done with it!
"I see… very smart..." the grass ninja said, causing April to tense when he moved to adjust his position to something more comfortable. "The only way for prey to escape a predator… is to give the predator a different meal."
"You heard him, April!" Sasuke said. "Hand it over."
April glanced between her teammates and their enemy. She narrowed her eyes at him and concentrated. She could still sense his bloodlust. This guy was a killer through and through. They were nothing but prey to him, he had said so himself. He saw them as objects, not people. She couldn't believe he would them go that easily. "… No."
"!!" Sasuke stared at her, taken aback. What was she thinking!? This was their only chance! "What the hell do you mean, 'no'?!! You bitch!!" Sasuke yelled at her, grabbing her roughly by the front of her shirt. He couldn't afford to die here! He still needed to take his revenge! He wouldn't forgive anyone who got in the way of that! "What are you doing?!! Do you understand the situation?!!! Are you trying to get us all killed!?!! Weren't you the one spouting all that crap earlier about not letting us die?!!!!"
That grass ninja's eyes narrowed slightly when he noticed part of the seal on the outsider's stomach was exposed when Sasuke grabbed her. He had thought there was something strange about that girl's chakra flow. This must have been the cause. What shame. He had been curious about her abilities since the old man made a special exception for her, but now the seal would prevent him from being able to see her jutsus.
"Calm down, Sasuke..." April said, grabbing his wrist and shoulder so she wouldn't fall off the branch when he shook her. Her first instinct was to fight back and restrain him, but she had a feeling antagonizing him in this state would only make things worse. It was obvious now how terrified he was. He wasn't thinking clearly. She needed to help him see reason. "Handing over the scroll—!!" She grunted and winced in pain when he slammed her back up against the tree trunk, pressing his arm against her throat, cutting off her oxygen to make her pass out, while he reached around to remove the scroll from her pouch. The attack was so unexpected, so shocking, that she had no time to react.
"Sasuke-kun!?" Sakura screamed, eyes wide in fear and disbelief.
WHAM!!
As soon as April's body started to slump, Naruto lunged at Sasuke and punched him as hard as he could with a fierce glare in his eyes, clenching his teeth in anger.
"What was that all of a sudden?!!!" Sasuke demanded angrily, escaping to another branch, while Naruto caught April's limp body before she fell. The moron couldn't have at least waited until he had the scroll!? This was no time to fool around!
"Sasuke… Naruto… What are..." Sakura said, furrowing her brow. What were they doing at a time like this!? Why were they all attacking each other?
"I forgot the codeword… So I can't test it, but..." Naruto said lowly, setting April down safely. "You're Sasuke's fake, aren't you?"
"What?" Sakura asked, shocked.
"You total moron!! I'm the real Sasuke!!" he yelled, scowling at him.
"Liar..." Naruto said, straightening up to glare harshly at him. "There's no way such a stupid coward like you… a coward who would attack his own comrade… is the Sasuke I know!!!!" he roared furiously, panting heavily from the effort of holding himself back from pummeling him more. "I don't know how strong this guy is, but… What guarantee is there that he'll let us go if we give him the scroll?"
"…!" Sasuke furrowed his brow, surprised by what he was hearing.
"Of course, April already knew this… You know she did!" Naruto continued sternly. "That's why she said 'no' and told you to calm down… And you attacked her!! Your own teammate!! You're the one too freaked out to understand the situation!!"
Sakura stared at them, stunned. She realized that she had also been too scared to think clearly. She couldn't believe that Naruto had to be the one to point this out.
"Hehehe… Naruto-kun..." the grass ninja chuckled eerily, licking his face with his long tongue. "You are correct!!"
Sasuke flinched in shock, gritting his teeth when he finally realized how right Naruto was, and how stupid he had been.
The grass ninja pushed up his sleeve, revealing a tattoo on his arm. "Since I can..." He bit his thumb. "… Just kill you and take the scroll," he finished wickedly, smearing his blood over the markings.
Naruto glared at him. "Shut up!!!" he growled, charging straight at the enemy as he began forming seals. No way he was going to let that happen!!
"No!! Run away!! Naruto!!" Sasuke yelled, startling April awake again.
"!" She gasped as her eyes popped open and darted around in search of the danger. 'Don't tell me he's charging in alone…!?' she thought when she spotted Naruto, leaning against the tree for support to straighten up, still a little disoriented.
'Damn it… I've lost respect for you, Sasuke!!' Naruto thought angrily, disappointed in him beyond words. There was no excuse for he did to April!
"Summoning Jutsu," the grass ninja said, completing his seal.
"!" April flinched when the wind and leaves swirled around him in large, powerful gusts. "Get back!! Naruto!!" she yelled anxiously as the branch cracked and splintered under her feet, only managing to escape to another one just in time to avoid being crushed by the giant snake that had suddenly appeared under the grass ninja's feet.
"!!" Naruto gasped from his position in the air, staring down at it with wide eyes. Not another one! "!!" he cried in alarm when the snake's tail shot out at him. His eyes widened further when he realized he wouldn't be able to dodge.
"Naruto!!!" Sasuke, Sakura, and April screamed as he was swatted away like a fly by the snake's mighty tail. At that velocity, any normal person's back would break the moment it collided with another hard surface!
Acting on pure instinct, without even thinking, April bent her knees, gritted her teeth, and focused every ounce of energy she possessed into her legs with the desperate prayer to reach him in time. The wood of the branch she was standing on splintered a little under her feet.
"!!" the grass ninja and her teammates gasped when she shot forth with such speed, that she seemed to completely disappear for a moment before reaching Naruto, who she immediately wrapped her arms around to catch, cradling his body protectively against hers, before he slammed into a large tree branch, and then used the hard surface as a springboard to push off in time to avoid being hit by other debris, landing safely on different branch. She had crossed the large distance between them in a matter of seconds.
'This girl…!' the enemy ninja thought, narrowing his eyes at the sudden spike he sensed in her chakra. 'Did she just break the seal…?'
"April-chan..." Sakura said, while she, Naruto, and Sasuke stared at their panting teammate, stunned.
April flinched when she felt a sharp stab of pain and grabbed her stomach. "AAARGHHH!!!" she screamed, falling over in agony, crippled by an intense burning sensation.
"!!" Naruto gasped when he saw the way she was clutching her stomach, and wrenched her hands away so he could pull up her shirt to see what was wrong. "Wha?!!" he gasped, eyes widening in horror when he saw the red hot seal glowing angrily against her skin.
"!!" Sasuke and Sakura gasped, too.
"Hehe… I see..." The grass ninja chuckled darkly when he saw what was happening. "The seal they placed on the fourth member doesn't simply suppress chakra by cutting off the afflicted's access to it… It absorbs it! And if someone with this seal manages to produce enough chakra to overcome the constant drain and still have some left over to mold… its rate of absorption will increase at a rate directly proportional to the amount that the body was forced to produce… With the amount it must have taken to accomplish such a feat, hehehe… that girl will die…"
"!!" Sakura gasped, horrified.
Naruto's shoulders trembled. He gritted his teeth in frustration and let go of April. "EAT SHIT!!!!" he yelled furiously, diving from the branch to deliver a drop kick with enough force and raw power to break the giant snake's nose, making it bite its own tongue. He turned his head to glare at the enemy responsible for causing the events that had put April in her current condition with murderous intent. The whisker-like markings on his face became rougher and bolder. The pupils of his feral eyes sharpened into slits.
"!!" The grass ninja gasped with wide eyes, startled. 'This kid… no way...'
'This chakra… is Nine Tails'…!?' April thought, sensing the change as her vision faded, and she blacked out from the excruciating pain of having her chakra drained at an unnatural rate. Since she always had to produce three times as much chakra as any normal ninja to begin with, it made the seal's effect on her three times worse.
"UOOOO!!!!" Naruto yelled as he continued to assault the snake with a barrage of punches, sending it crashing down through several branches, snapping the thick limbs in half as it fell, before the giant reptile retaliated by trying to flick him away with its tongue. Naruto used the tree he was flung at for a springboard and threw himself right back at the enemy with another fierce war cry. "ARGGGGHH!!!!"
'Naruto has snapped… but… why is Naruto so strong!?' Sakura wondered, shocked by the awesome display of might.
"!!" Naruto gasped when the grass ninja quickly formed several hand seals and exhaled a great billow of flames to blow him away before his next attack could reach him or his snake.
"Waa!!!" Naruto cried and grunted in pain, slamming into a tree so hard that the impact put out the flames.
'Those eyes...' the enemy ninja thought, furrowing his brow. 'There's no mistaking it...'
"…!!" Sasuke gasped with wide eyes, shocked. 'That is Naruto!?'
"Hehe, this is getting fun!!" the grass ninja exclaimed, making his snake move again. "Sasuke-kun, now it's your turn!! What will you do?!!"
"!!" Sasuke choked, trembling with fear, too terrified to move.
"Sasuke-kun!!!" Sakura screamed frantically, knowing she would never make it time.
The enemy ninja smirked sinisterly as he and his snake closed in, but then a blur of orange suddenly shot out in front of Sasuke, and the snake was forced to slide to a halt.
"!!" Sasuke gasped, astonished when he saw what saved him.
There, straining against the giant snake with it's injured nose pressed against his back, and stabbing it with a kunai in each hand, stood Naruto.
The grass ninja stared down at the unpredictable boy with his brow furrowed and his eyes cast in shadow.
"Hey…" Naruto panted, his breathing labored from the effort of holding the monster behind him at bay. "You alright..."
"…!" Sasuke stared at him with wide eyes.
"…" Sakura was too stunned for words.
"Scaredy-cat?" Naruto finished with a smirk, raising his head to look his staggered teammate in the eye, with blood dripping from his busted nose.