Shippuuden – I'll Win My Enemy's Heart, It's My Way of the Ninja!
By Unborn
Fandom:
Naruto
Pairings:
Naruto/Sasuke
Rating:
PG16
Spoilers
Warning: Shippuuden Manga roughly up to date.
This Chapter has been kindly beta-ed by Simple-Minded Idiot. And thanks those who reviewed! (I noticed the puntuation errors a bit too late -- but thanks, your inupt has been noted, Linsea and Noor.)
CHAPTER 5-- Shock
Everybody was on guard.
The shark-like Kisame moved away. It may have been a way to provoke or just his own sordid sense of humor when he invited the 'lady' (Sakura) to play. Sai and Sakura were more than ready to go. On the other hand, in Itachi's wing everything had gone quiet. Naruto was focusing solely at Itachi's feet.
'I knew this would happen,' Kakashi thought. 'The two with the most chakra in the village and the two most intelligent students against two Akatsukis… who do I back up?'
He seized both opponents and his students. 'Let's see, could I balance the teams? Sasuke would only fight Itachi and as much as I think it over, only Naruto has the endurance to fight this battle against the Sharingan of Itachi, even though Sakura is better at dispelling genjutsu...'
'Bah, for some reason I don't feel I'm going to be welcome in that team.' Kakashi then appeared behind Sai and Sakura with that thought in his mind, "Hey, guys! I'm going to keep you company for a while."
He exchanged a glance with Naruto and the latter seemed to understand. "Alright, Kakashi, I'll take care of it!" he said loudly with a grin.
Doesn't Naruto usually call Kakashi... Kakashi-sensei?
"Blockhead, if you're going to look away, why don't you lay down and let them take you?" commented Sasuke with inhumane coldness.
Naruto glared passionately at Sasuke. Sasuke's own eyes were over Itachi and he was ignoring Naruto's loud warning about keeping eyes on Itachi's feet.
His brother ignored the third party and regarded Naruto, "You came to me, Nine-Tails."
Fuming, Sasuke reached for something on his back and retrieved his water bottle. He opened its cap.
"Sasuke, you idiot!" said Naruto instantly. "This is no time for a picnic!"
Suddenly, Sasuke lunged forwards. He and the yellow water from his bottle performed an attack simultaneously. A blade seemed to poke and slash from within. When Itachi repelled them, Sasuke and the water retrieved. The water was starting to take a human shape...
A familiar-looking sword over his shoulder and with a smiling face of pointed teeth, the man before them introduced himself, "Suigetsu: The Missing Nin Water Demon of the Hidden Village of Mist."
"Ah, I get it, water demon nin," considered Naruto, repeating the man's words, "but why yellow?"
"YOU SHOULD KNOW, YOU BASTARD!"
--flashback--
Naruto zipped his pants.
"This is revenge for insulting my ramen, Sasuke. Let's see how you like the taste of this."
He was holding Sasuke's water bottle.
--end of flashback--
Kakashi and the other two left in pursuit of Kisame. The teams were now even.
"I see I'm the first again, now," the Water Demon Nin announced, "I'll help Sasuke-kun in getting rid of the bad guys."
He rose his sword for an unpremeditated attack. Only a quarter of second with his defense low was enough of an opening for someone like their opponent. Itachi moved in a speed his own eyes wouldn't be able to keep up with and charged at them with a ball of electric energy –
Sasuke could only watch as his brother took his men, his only man actually, with his own Chidori. The water nin dissolved instantly; he looked severely injured and was absorbed by the soil.
'Heh heh heh… What did you expect?' taunted Orochimaru. 'That man knows no loyalty… frail and inept inside that tube for so long… But, well, he never had any reasons to risk his life for Sasuke's cause… Heh heh heh…'
The storm in Itachi's hand faded, his eyes turned to Sasuke with his expression as impassive as ever, "And wait to see what I learned from the Nine-Tails, little brother."
Naruto's eyes widened. The motion was interrupted by a thumping sound, made when Sasuke threw two kunais to the floor which instantly turned into the bodies of a young male and a female with a puff .
"Where's that bum Suigetsu?" asked the smart-looking kunoichi who was in a fighting stance. The grim-looking Sasuke gave her no answer.
"There's no reason for you to stay," Sasuke called back, without any falter in his voice or stare, "you can go, Naruto."
Go? "What are you talking about, Sasuke-teme?!" But just how many people was Sasuke carrying in his pockets?!
"Our opponent is a guy," said the man. He turned to the side and noted, "Our ally is a guy, too."
"Juugo, remember what we said: keep your eyes on the goal," said Karin sternly.
They were fools to be taking Itachi this lightly, but Sasuke had planned an end for him which consisted of power, intelligence, and pain. Now he just needed to execute it.
"Commence," ordered Sasuke.
With that one word, the new group of three began a simultaneous attack. The speed, the killing intent, and the precision of their moves… they were an effective battling team. They seemed hindered by a space that Suigetsu should have taken, but they were coordinated enough to fill up for the missing member. They were a team. The Snake seemed to cascade over Itachi in waves.
Naruto's expression went stony with outrage. 'He replaced me?!' (and the Kyuubi said, 'KILL THE COMPETITION!')
They were true shinobis, tools of battle… but something went wrong.
The two teammates suddenly froze mid seal-making. The next image of Itachi was of him coming out from the ground like a perfect worm – a copy of Sharingan Kakashi's attack.
Naruto was boiling in red-chakra as he furiously yelled, "Look at his feet, you fools!"
A blue ball of energy started to concentrate in Itachi's fist. In a second, Itachi had blown those two away with Rasengan.
It had been a precision mistake. The one late in their attack was…
Sasuke.
By the time he called the attack out to retreat, it was late. Sasuke was on his own kind of shock-still state. His thinking was suppressed by emotional chaos.
His sight had gone blurry, his balance was failing. What was this? Was he going blind? Was this some trick of Itachi? How?
The hiss signaled him to reach for Orochimaru in his mind. There was a complaint: 'no fair, no peeking!' but he was far from outraged; Orochimaru was downright amused.
'Effects of Sharingan usage?' When his sight could make an image at last, he had gotten the glimpse of his brother's immaculate vacant stare.
But that might have been an illusion when he found himself staring back at a couple of different red eyes.
"Bastard," Naruto said. "You're lucky I don't step out from a battle because it doesn't agree with me."
Naruto was holding both of Itachi's wrists with his back at Itachi; his teeth were bared and his face had an intense, teeth-baring glare, directed at Sasuke. He was facing Sasuke between the two Uchihas.
"I know you don't want to be saved… but," he spoke though a smile and gritted teeth, "we are a nin village, Konoha. It's not like you had to go elsewhere to find good shinobi, you dumbass. I'm a shinobi, too."
Naruto struggled hard to keep Itachi still. Sasuke lost only a second of consideration while it looked as if Naruto's words had opened his eyes. He then brought out a sword-shaped electric energy and aimed it at Naruto's side.
And he might have succeeded to hurl that thing though the both of them had Naruto not jumped out of the way, releasing his brother while doing so. Naruto fell on his butt, panting, while Sasuke regarded him with an indifferent stare.
"You moved," remarked Sasuke with dead ease.
"Of course, you were going to Chidori my head off!" retorted an outraged single-tailed boy. "Why did you do that?!"
"What do you mean? After that speech, I thought you planned to sacrifice yourself."
"I was saying 'I'm a shinobi too, you should follow my example'!"
"Sasuke, to your right!"
The sound of Karin's voice seemed to fade mid-sentence.
Sasuke heard the strangled sound of death from within his mind.
--
Sasuke hissed in self reproach as he noticed his surroundings. He had been training especially to recognize it. How foolish of him. He had let himself be trapped by Itachi's Mangekyou Sharingan.
He knew instantly what would happen when the figure of Kakashi appeared. He looked at the scene with disgust but he would keep a cool head. It was only Itachi's illusion.
It became slightly less easy to do that when he watched the doll-like, helpless Sakura, bathed in her own blood, as Itachi continuously beat her with one hand and held her suspended in the air with the other, only to hurl a katana though her chest when she could barely struggle.
Sasuke repeated, almost unconsciously, his mantra, fighting to control his anger and keep his cool head. 'It's only Itachi's illusion. It's only Itachi's illusion.' He had to break though this eventually. 'It's pointless to try to gain on me like this, brother,' he thought.
And then, in the next blink of an eye, it was the figure of Naruto's back as he ran, with a Rasengan under his arm and the distinctive sound of his war-cry.
Sasuke's only thoughts were, "Baka!" and that tinny voice that said "it's only Itachi's illusion" became of second importance, long and slowly fading into a blank mind.
Besides himself, his heart jumped, and he found that he was subconsciously stepping forwards - part of him knowing it was silly to say anything for it was an illusion - knowing that his voice, that which he was hearing himself speak, was part of this induced show. The other part of him was staring, with his heart obstructing his throat, wanting to scream along.
In a couple of painful seconds, Naruto was penetrated and tore apart by the katana, leaving a trail of blood at his wake.
And Sasuke lost the battle.
"No!" he screamed, and cried out again and again as the scene was repeated multiple times from every kind of different angle, concentrating in that one cracking point. Why? He had expected this; Itachi would come at him up front when he grew tired of playing with his emotions. He had broken his ties for this moment…
Sasuke let out a loud, blood-chilling scream of pain that was generous in emotion.
Now the tears blurred his sight. He couldn't cover his ears nor close his eyes to the endless images and silent screams of despair, even his own sobs, while he screamed for the torture to stop. He couldn't lose to Itachi. No. He couldn't…
"Sasuke!" He heard Naruto crying his name without hearing it and his eyes rose.
"Mangekyou Sharingan."
Sasuke looked up and he could see the outsides again. He could see… Suigetsu holding Itachi with his last breath, while Naruto, like in his nightmare illusion, was coming towards Itachi with a mad expression, holding some sort of Rasengan in his arm and… Sakura looking back at him, prey of the Mangekyou.
It only took a second for Sasuke to react and dispel it but a second was a lot of time for the illusionary Sharingan Technique. Sakura, however, was stepping up against all odds, muttering zombie-like, "Naruto…"
And without really seizing her clumsy actions, she turned and moved at the highest speed she could muster to catch up to the raging Naruto who had some sort of odd lost look on his face, to finally catch him by the arm.
'I get it,' thought Sasuke. Genjutsu. Both Naruto and him had fallen for it.
But neither Sasuke nor everyone else could think of anything when Naruto, as a mechanical reaction to the touch in his current state, turned around with his Wind Rasen Shuriken towards Sakura. It took him a moment to wake up and the attack ghosted over Sakura's skin.
Sakura was now on the floor and Naruto… his left hand was useless.
A blood-chilling cry at their right summoned their attention to Suigetsu, whom Itachi had given the final blow to. Naruto seemed in shock and Sasuke was in a similar state. Both Sasuke's new teammates were at lost, Kakashi was engaged in battle with Kisame and unable to move while Sai had moved to take Sakura.
Suddenly, red chakra sprung from Naruto and a similar power started covering Sasuke's face in marks. They lunged forwards with a kamikaze intention, one with a lightening sword and the other with a ball of energy in its purest state. A Naruto Shadow Clone held on Itachi the same way Suigetsu had done. Both blows struck at once. They almost repelled each other at the center…
--
Kakashi opened his lone eye only to see an empty hospital room. Ah, they were back at Konoha then. Sakura — No, if they weren't here by his side, they were by Sakura's. It meant that she had to be alive, maybe in a grave state though…
Kakashi closed his eyes. It was most unfortunate, how things had happened. His performance during this mission had been catastrophic. He lost his cool, made too many mistakes… he shouldn't have left Naruto to use that jutsu.
'His left hand…' he thought as he remembered watching him. It was his left hand that was deemed useless, and his left left hand that which had been wielding the powerful Wind Rasen Shuriken.
'I knew it,' he told himself. 'Naruto had planned it like that. That's why he had been practicing with the Kunai basic throwing techniques, with the left.'
To think that he mastered that move right at that moment.
Kakashi sent a wistful look at the door, dying to walk though it…
Well, he needed sleep now. It was no use worrying like this.
O-MAKE-CHIBIS: Unconscious Sakura...
NARU: Sakuraaaaaa!! (cries over Saku's laying form)
SAKU: (looks peaceful and pretty as people mourn over her)
NARU: (takes one of her hands in his, tear) I promise to you, next time I put you though a jutsu of mine, it will be the Sexy No Jutsu: Male Appeal Version!
SAKU: (is looking slightly less peaceful and pretty...)