Hey chapter 6! Cool, we are now officially (most likely) over halfway there.
As always, I appreciate the reviews/favorites/follows and thanks to everyone who has reviewed thus far. They really help to keep me motivated!
I was pleasantly surprised with all the reviews I got for that last chapter. A shot out to those who reviewed since last time: cmcwiki, GraysonPaladin, Echo Uchiha, Toasty Warrior, Goddess of Night Earth Eternal Faith, Bikiluf, DanddoSeri, Mitzzi, Serenity Namikaze, darkjedi35, Kyuubi loves narSaku
cmcwiki: /e whistles and looks away innocently
GraysonPaladin: I'm glad you enjoyed Sakura pounding on Sasuke. I think you'll enjoy this and the next chapter =P
Echo Uchiha: thanks!
Toasty Warrior: Sakura doesn't know that Naruto's dead yet. But she DOES know she's pissed at him for that whole potion thing… :D
Goddess of Night Earth Eternal Faith: Thanks!
Bikiluf: a good observation on the Kushina thing. Unfortunately you won't get your answer until NEXT chapter… =P As for the extraction, I needed it to happen quickly, so my lame reasoning (which ever so slightly COULD be reasonable…ish) is that before Madara had to hold back so none of the other members would suspect Tobi of being some superpowerful badass who's been alive for centuries plotting to take over the world…
DanddoSeri: thanks! There will be some happiness in this chapter, and more happiness to come!
Mitzzi: man I hope not! Naruto would be a sad sad future Hokage if his Sakura-chan were dead! But she is fighting Sasuke one on one… Hmmmmm =/
Serenity Namikaze: hahaha, Sasuke really is fun to hate =P Glad you enjoy the badass Sakura!
darkjedi35: /e salutes
Kyuubi loves NaruSaku: I'm glad you liked the ShikaTem moment =) Aww, I love Sakura. She's got spunk! Who really knows what's going on with that crazy Kyubi!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or else I would be filthy stinking rich and Sarutobi would've wtfpwned Orichimaru while the two were watching the chunin exams… And while we're on the chunin exams, Naruto would've given chunin rank for beating Neji than BEATING GAARA. I mean… come on now…
And after that ever so lengthy intro, let's get onto the main act shall we?
Please do enjoy "A Jinchuriki's Husk" –Chapter 6: Stranded
Shikamaru watched in amazement as the sand siblings quickly cut down the number of Zetsus. Gaara's sand flew from Zetsu to Zetsu, crushing them in his sand coffin. Kankuro stood near Shikamaru as his puppets dropped Zetsu after Zetsu. And lastly Temari was shooting wind out of her fan that ripped through the Zetsu army.
The sand siblings furious counter attack obviously caught the Zetsus off guard, and in a mere five minutes after joining the battle, the Konoha shinobi and sand siblings stared down the two remaining Zetsus.
Just as the Zetsus began to form handseals, Guy and Lee released their weights. In perfect unison, both master and student disappeared from sight, only to reappear in front of their respective Zetsu where they delivered a quick jab to the two Zetsus' windpipes.
Shikamaru couldn't shake an uneasy feeling as the two Zetsus fell backwards, a startled look on their face as their throat made gurgling noises.
The sand siblings are powerful, especially Gaara, but that was too easy. I know our team was being worn down, but we weren't able to drop Zetsus that quickly even when we were fresh. What am I missing…
As Shikamaru tried finding something wrong, he examined his friends. While the Zetsu army seemed to be taken care of, there was still much fighting to be done. First they had to get to Sakura, then they would have to deal with whatever Akatsuki were inside the base.
Kakashi was still unconscious from using his mangekyo sharingan to teleport the massive root wall that was going to impale the Konoha shinobi away. Shino was panting heavily, his bugs ate away a lot of his chakra since he used them so much in the fight.
Hinata had recovered some from earlier, but from the way her legs trembled, she could probably only go a good five minutes in a fight before being completely exhausted again. Neji had exhausted most of his chakra with all of the hakkesho kaiten's he had used.
Chouji was laying on his back exhausted, from the looks of him though, it looked like he hadn't used any of his clans three colored pills, so if worst came to worst, he could be counted on in a fight. Kiba and Akamaru looked as if they had been training with Guy and Lee for a week straight without a break, both boy and dog's chakra levels were dangerously low.
Guy and Lee were definitely worse for wear. But both looked like they could still fight, although Shikamaru figured both would need to start opening gates early in any potential fight. Sai was sitting cross-legged on the ground panting heavily. To be honest, Shikamaru was surprised Sai was even conscious, he had sent a constant barrage of ink tigers into the battle, there's no way he had any chakra left.
Tenten was bent over, as she tried to regain her breath. Judging by the amount of weapons that littered the battlefield, she had almost exhausted her near limitless supply of weapons. She wouldn't be of much use in a fight until she had time to reseal all of them.
Both Iruka and Ino were fine, they didn't have to use much chakra since they were focused on throwing kunai and shuriken to watch the close combat team's back. Tsunade had definitely used up a lot of chakra, but still seemed to have enough left to fight. But ideally she should save her chakra so she could heal Naruto if he is hurt when they find him. Seeing as how Sakura has been fighting Sasuke for so long, she probably wouldn't have much chakra left, if any at all.
Yamato was sitting down panting heavily, he had been using his mokuton jutsus to try to counteract the Zetsu's roots, and due to the sheer number he tried to counter, he ended up exhausting most of his chakra.
From what Shikamaru knew of Gaara's chakra capacity, Shikamaru calculated that he used up about half of his chakra slaughtering Zetsus. His chakra pool wasn't as large as it used to be without the Shukaku in him anymore, but it was still abnormally large thanks to housing a demon for 15 years. Gaara would still be able to hold his own against most shinobi, but if they came up against a powerhouse like Madara, then he would not be able to do much.
Temari and Kankuro looked fairly good. The two wisely conserved their chakra as the Kazakage took out a good portion of the Zetsus. Finally Shikamaru himself only had about 25% of his chakra left, he had been using his kage mane no jutsu for the majority of the battle.
Great, we have two full strength jounins in Temari and Kankuro, two full strength chunins in Ino and Iruka, one exhausted chounin that could fight on jounin level at the likely cost of his life in Chouji, two jounins at about half strength in Guy and Lee, two kages at half strength, then a bunch of exhausted shinobi ranging from chunin to jounin.
Shikamaru was brought out of his thinking as Tsunade rushed towards the wall Sakura had created. Just as her fist reared back, a root shot out of the wall and impaled her through her left shoulder blade. Guy quickly punched through the root as Lee grabbed the Hokage and leapt a safe distance away.
"What the hell was that?" the startled sannin gasped, as she put a glowing green hand over her wound.
A black Zetsu slowly began to come out of the wall. "Madara-sama has requested that no one interferes in Sasuke's fight. Anyone who tries to break through this wall will be killed." It called as it slinked back into the wall.
"Damnit…" The lazy Nara muttered.
"I WILL NOT STAND BY AS SAKURA-SAN FIGHTS SASUKE ALONE." Lee yelled, charging towards the wall. Free of his weights, he was able to dodge the first 15 roots the wall sent at him, but even with his speed, he was overwhelmed and paid for his "youthful" actions by being impaled by several roots. Just before a deadly blow could be struck Lee disappeared only to reappear in his sensei's arms right in front of Ino.
No words needed to be said as Ino got to work on healing the bleeding Guy clone.
"So… got any plans for getting around this thing Shikamaru?" Temari asked as she walked to his side.
"Time is of the essence here, Sakura is fighting Sasuke one on one right now. If we can't take the fastest route and go through the wall, we'll have to take the next fastest and go above it."
"Yo, Gaara!" Shikamaru called. The Kazekage fixed him with a stare. "How many people can you take into the air with your sand?"
The young kage pondered for a minute, "probably no more than four if I still wanted to have enough chakra left to fight."
"Ok, see if you can fly above the wall. I want to be sure the Zetsu in it doesn't have some sort of defense set up for the air before you take more people."
Gaara merely nodded as his sand carried him into the sky. As Gaara looked to clear the wall, a wall of vines erupted from the top that continued to grow as he flew higher, effectively making it impossible for the former jinchuriki to fly over the wall.
"Damn…" Shikamaru muttered as he turned to Guy. "Guy-sensei, see if you can't run around the wall. It's the only option we have left at this point."
In what seemed to be a matter of seconds, Guy was near the end of Sakura's wall about to run around it as a wall of roots blocked his path as it did Gaara.
Damnit, how is one Zetsu doing this? The Zetsus we fought were not able to summon all of these roots like this, hell, these roots have the potential to be larger than the root wall Kakashi teleported away… The Zetsus we fought were pale colored, could this black Zetsu really be that much stronger?
"Shikamaru, tell me how I'm going to reach my apprentice… NOW!" the Hokage growled as she reached him.
"I'm sorry Hokage-sama, but there doesn't seem to be a way around the wall, we're going to have to put our faith in Sakura…"
"KUSO!" Tsunade swore. "You better be ok Sakura…"
A fully revitalized Sakura dodged an arrow launched by Susanoo, and slammed her fist into the ground launching an earth wall as a counter attack. Sasuke brought the bow down to shield himself from the attack, but Sakura disappeared from in front of him, reappearing about five feet to his right. She once again slammed her fist into the ground, except this time she created a rift directly where the avenger had been standing.
As he lost his balance Sakura lunged forward striking with a chakra enhanced fist. Much to the enraged kunoichi's disappointment, the strike was not enough to break through Susanoo's armor. She flipped backwards into the air, forming the handsigns in midair, "Suiton: Mizu no Muchi!"
Sakura lashed at Sasuke with the water whip, but Susanoo's chakra blade blocked it. Sasuke countered by launching another arrow at Sakura who slammed her fist into the ground to block the arrow with an earth wall. The arrow slammed into the wall, the explosion knocking Sakura back.
Quickly returning to her feet, Sakura began punching the ground, causing seismic tremors to rush through the ground. As the Uchiha struggled to maintain his balance through the ensuing mini-earthquake, Sakura was forming more handseals.
"Suiton: Teppodama!" Sakura shot two water bullets from her mouth directly at Sasuke's legs hoping to knock him off balance, while sending the third directly at Susanoo's head. Susanoo's bow shielded Sasuke's legs from the water bullets, as the third bullet hit Susanoo directly in the head.
Pushing chakra into her legs she leapt forward landing another chakra powered fist on Susanoo. Sasuke countered by bringing Susanoo's chakra blade down on her. Without time to dodge, Sakura reacted solely on instinct, and blocked the blade with a chakra covered arm.
Stamping a foot in the ground, Earth flew backwards from her in every direction giving her the distraction she needed to get some space between her and the avenger. Blocking the chakra blade had used up a lot of chakra and Sakura didn't have much left.
Tossing down three smoke bombs, Sakura muttered, "Mizu-bunshin no jutsu" as three water clones appeared. While the clones ran out of the smoke, the kunoichi burrowed herself in the ground. "Sasai chakra no jutsu"
Sakura began to calm down as she felt her chakra rapidly regenerating. So far it seemed that she had managed to keep Sasuke on the defensive. The Susanoo seemed to be absorbing every attack she threw at it. Although when she attacked Sasuke and the Susanoo at the same time, it used the bow to shield Sasuke while taking the attack directly.
Why does Sasuke keep shielding himself with the bow when he could just let my attack be absorbed by his Susanoo's armor and instead launch a quicker counter…
Only two minutes had passed before Sakura felt the last of her mizu-bunshins was destroyed.
Damnit, I was only able to get 20% of my chakra back. That leaves me at 35% of my total chakra left and I still haven't killed this thing. "Ririsu."
Sakura burrowed her way to the right and shot out of the ground 10 feet away from where she was as an arrow crashed into where she had been burrowed moments before. She shot another three water bullets at Sasuke as she started running towards him.
Each bullet was again blocked by the bow. Sasuke leapt backwards as a rift opened in the ground where he had been standing moments earlier courtesy of Sakura's foot. Sakura pushed chakra into her legs and struck Susanoo with a powerful kick before quickly getting out of range of the chakra blade.
Both Sakura and Sasuke were now breathing heavily, but Sasuke seemed to have plenty of chakra left while Sakura had nearly run out. I don't have enough chakra left to keep this up for long, I need to finish this fight now. Sakura's fist looked as if it was surrounded by a large blue ball of fire as she channeled all of her remaining chakra into it.
Sasuke looks pretty tired, so I should be close to completely breaking down his Susanoo. This attack has to work... Sakura launched her chakra powered fist into Susanoo, her fist began to push through the armor before being repelled back.
Sakura flipped backwards, landing shakily on her legs, now out of chakra. Damnit! I've trained so hard, I am not weak!
Seeing his pink-haired teammate about ready to fall over from chakra exhaustion, Sasuke smirked. "You did much better than I ever would have expected Sakura. But in the end, you weren't strong enough to defeat me. You were foolish to try to take me, an Uchiha, on by yourself."
Sasuke began readying an arrow to finish off the kunoichi.
Damnit! Naruto… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...
Just as Susanoo shot the arrow towards her, a warm, familiar chakra exploded around Sakura's body…
Naruto followed Jiraiya in silence, still reveling in the fact that he was actually seeing his master. He had missed Jiraiya terribly after his death. And with sage training, Pain's attack, then the whole kage summit thing, the now former jinchuriki never really got a chance to sit down and get over his master's death. He just had to push it to the back of his mind to be dealt with later.
Now here he was, following the Toad Sennin to meet some mysterious woman.
"Ah, there she is." Jiraiya pointing at a woman, breaking the silence and bringing Naruto from his thoughts. Naruto followed his finger and gasped at the sight.
A woman who with long, flowing vibrant red hair that went past her midsection, stunning sapphire eyes and a perfect figure stood watching some sort of pedestal with a frown on her face. After Sakura, this woman was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Yet, he wasn't attracted to her beauty, for some reason his body seemed to know this woman.
"Yo, Kushina!"
The woman's head snapped up. Sapphire eyes met sapphire eyes as she stared at Naruto, a small smile replacing the frown that had just been on her face.
"Naruto, it's good to see you again." She said with a voice that gave the Yondaime's legacy a warm feeling inside.
"Nani? Listen lady, I just met you." The blonde gruffly called out in an attempt to hide his confusion. Kushina just continued smiling at him.
"Well I guess you wouldn't remember me. You haven't seen me in 16 years after all." As the words left the red-haired woman's lips, Naruto stared directly into her eyes. They were like looking directly into a mirror.
Suddenly Naruto lunged forward wrapping the woman in a tight embrace. "I've always… always wanted to see you ttebayo… mom" he whispered as tears fell from his eyes. He felt his mother tighten the embrace.
"Ttebayo eh? You really do take after me…"
Naruto pulled back from the hug, with an excited grin on his face. "There are so many things… I wanted to ask if I ever saw you!"
"Yeah… We can take our time and talk… but first I need to know why you're here. It is far too early for you to be dead."
"Well…eh… you see… there was this powerful group after the Kyubi inside of me…"
"The Akatsuki, right."
"Right, they call themselves Akatsuki… wait, how do you know about Akatsuki?"
Kushina directed another gentle smile at her son. "Just because your father and I weren't there with you physically, doesn't mean we didn't watch over you. I've watched you your entire life Naruto, and I'm so proud of the man you've become."
Fresh tears down Naruto's face. My mom… my mom just said she's proud of me!
"Thanks Mom… you don't know how much it means to hear you say that." Naruto said with a warm and happy tone to his voice.
"I mean it. Now keep going. What about the Akatsuki?"
"Well… they captured me and extracted the Kyubi from me."
"How did they capture you? Minato, Jiraiya and I have been busy preparing something these past couple of weeks, but they were down to three members. You are now a powerful sage, and were surrounded by powerful allies…" his mother pressed, still confused.
"Ah here you are Naruto. I would like to hear this myself." Called Minato as he appeared out of nowhere in a yellow flash.
"DAD!" Naruto wrapped his father in a hug, more tears falling from his smiling face.
"Hello Naruto, I'm proud of the way you handled Nagato."
"Is everything ready Minato?" Kushina asked.
"Ya, everything is in place. Now we just need to get all the pieces in the right spot."
Naruto was too lost in his own thoughts to really listen to his parents conversation. Both of my parents just told me they were proud of me… So this is what it feels like to have a family…
"How's she doing down there sensei?" the Yondaime asked.
"She's doing a lot better than I thought she would. Tsunade trained her well, but I still didn't think she would be able to hold her own against Sasuke." Replied Jiraiya as he peered down at the pedestal he had moved in front of while Naruto and Kushina talked.
Hearing Sasuke's name brought Naruto out of his musings. He broke the embrace with his father and turned to stare at Jiraiya, a confused look on his face. Who's fighting Sasuke?
I still don't think she'll be able to overcome Susanoo once he summons it though." continued the sannin grimly.
"You should know by now to underestimate an angry woman Jiraiya." Kushina smirked cruelly. Jiraiya fixed her with a look of fear.
"Oi, pervy sage…" Jiraiya sweat-dropped.
"Pervy sage? Oh that's such a perfect name for you!" Kushina cooed.
"Damnit gaki! I told you not to use that name around her, now I'm never going to hear the end of this."
"Relax sensei, we've watched Naruto's entire life. We already knew the name, I managed to convince Kushina to wait until she heard it in person before she starting calling you it."
Kushina grinned, "That's my boy! Coming up with the perfect name for you pervy sage!"
"Jeeze, I give you a name as cool as Naruto and the thanks I get is pervy sage?" the perverted sage grumbled.
"Who's fighting Sasuke?" Naruto asked in a completely serious voice. At this question, the faces of Kushina, Minato and Jiraiya tugged downwards into small frowns.
"Come over here and see gaki."
Naruto walked over to the pedestal, and gasped. The top of the pedestal was dipped into a bowl shape, and was filled with water. But that's not what made Naruto gasp, it was the image in the water itself. He watched as his former best friend charged at the woman he loved with his chidori current running through his kusanagi.
Much to Naruto's relief, Sakura dodged the swipe, but she received a kick to her side which Sasuke followed up by shooting a giant fireball at her. She slammed her fist into the ground and a giant hunk of earth blocked the fireball. Sakura flicked the chunk causing it to crack, then followed it up with a wind jutsu blasting shards of rock at Sasuke.
"What the…" a startled Naruto mumbled.
Sasuke had blocked the attack with a large demonic humanoid creature that was dark purple. Naruto clenched his fist. Sakura-chan… Every fiber of Naruto's being wanted to suddenly teleport down there and join Sakura in her fight. But he couldn't, she didn't want to see him anymore, and… he was dead.
It doesn't matter, I'm happy here. The most recent former jinchuriki thought.
"Naruto, I know this battle between your old teammates is fascinating, but we need to know why you're here." Minato said with a stern voice as he pulled Naruto's shoulders so father and son were facing each other. "How did the Akatsuki capture you?"
Naruto's body expression changed from one of a surprise and curiosity to one of depression as his father asked the question. I was hoping they were so distracted by everything that just happened they would've forgotten about that…
"I don't really want to talk about it father, I'm sorry. I'm not ready now, I'll tell you in a few years when I'm ready."
"No Naruto." This time it was his mother, who had come to stand by her husband's side. "We don't have that kind of time. You will tell us now, now ifs ands or buts young man!"
This got a slight smile out of Naruto, it felt nice to be scolded by his mother.
"Well… I kind of let myself get captured…"
"NANI?" both his parents and master yelled out.
"I let Sasuke take me to the Akatsuki based, and I let them drain the Kyubi out of me…"
"Were you trying to convince Sasuke to come back to Konoha with you?" Jiraiya asked.
"Or were you letting Sasuke lead you to Madara so you could take him out?" his father continued.
"No and no, I just let them alright? Letting them extract the Kyubi from me allowed for me to escape the hell that was my life…"
Jiraiya and Minato's faces visibly softened, both trying to come up with the right words to say to their favorite blonde-haired 16-year old. Kushina's face was pensive however. Jiraiya was the first to speak up.
"Naruto, I know your childhood wasn't easy. But you fought and fought and never gave in. You now have the respect of your village, precious people like Tsunade, Kakashi, Iruka and the rest of your friends. Surely your life can't be that bad now." Jiraiya said, purposefully leaving out Sakura's name remembering what happened the last time he used it.
"You're right pervy sage… but… I don't really deserve any of it. Down there, I'm a demon."
This caused Kushina to snap.
"NANI TTEBAYO?" she screamed as she lunged forward punching her son in the gut. "You are not a demon! You are a jinchuriki, there's a difference!"
"The people of the village don't think so… Sakura doesn't think so… No mom, there isn't a difference, jinchuriki's are demons."
This caused his mother to wrap him in a bone crushing bear hug. "No Naruto, jinchuriki's are heroes, saviors of the world. They keep powerful demons from destroying the world. Don't you EVER call yourself a demon… You hear me?"
"Yes mom…" he mumbled.
"Kushina…" Minato said softly looking down at the pedestal. "She doesn't have much time. You need to go before it's too late."
Glancing at Minato, she tightened the embrace with her son. "Naruto, I have to go now."
"Nani? Mom…" Kushina put a finger to his lips to shush him. "I'm needed elsewhere. Listen to me, you shouldn't be here yet. You still have a lot to do in the world of the living. You are not a demon, never have been, and never will be. You are my son. A strong man, a caring man, a brave man, a man who never gives up. I love you Naruto."
Tears were streaming down Naruto's eyes, "I love you too mom."
Kushina released Naruto from her embrace and began walking towards the fog. Before disappearing she turned around and winked at Naruto, "I'll see you soon sweetie!" and with that, Kushina Namikaze disappeared.
Sasuke was breathing heavily. He couldn't believe Sakura had become this powerful. His body still throbbed from the hits he took from her in the beginning of the fight.
I knew you didn't need me Sakura. The Uchiha thought with the smallest amount of pride for his former teammate. You've become very powerful on your own.
She dropped a bunch of smoke bombs, and three Sakura's jumped out of the smoke.
All three of these Sakuras are mizu bunshins meaning the real Sakura is hiding somewhere. From the way she's been fighting, I doubt she's simply hiding. She's probably trying to buy time for something, I need to be quick about this.
In a matter of minutes Sasuke destroyed the three water clones using Susanoo's chakra blade. Scanning the area for any sign of her, he noticed a small hole and fired one of Susanoo's arrows into it. As the arrow hit the ground Sakura popped out 10 feet to the left and began gathering chakra into her fist. Her fist looked like a giant blue fireball.
Looks like she's going to come at me with one last desperation attack. Ok Sakura let's see what you can do.
Before he could react, Sakura had already launched her chakra covered fist into Susanoo. Sasuke felt the strain on his ultimate technique, and struggled to keep it from breaking. He nearly breathed a sigh of relief as Sakura's fist bounced back, and his former fangirl leapt back. She was panting for air, and barely seemed to be able to stand on her shaky legs.
He smirked. "You did much better than I ever would have expected Sakura. But in the end, you weren't strong enough to defeat me. You were foolish to try to take me, an Uchiha, on by yourself."
He prepared an arrow to deliver the final blow. A small part of him didn't want to kill her; he hesitated for a split second.
No! She's of Konoha. Like the dobe, she is now one of my more powerful enemies. I have to kill her for the sake of the Uchiha clan!
Sasuke released the arrow. Time seemed to slow down as the arrow hurtled toward the pink-haired kunoichi, certain to send her to her death. Just before the arrow reached her, a new chakra seemed to explode around her.
The newly revitalized Sakura dodged the arrow with a surprised look on her face.
Minato watched the tears fall from his son's eyes as his wife disappeared. "Don't worry Naruto, you'll see her again."
The boy merely nodded at him before turning his attention back to the pedestal. Minato blocked his way. "Our discussion isn't over son. What's the true reason you gave up? The Naruto I watched grow up, the Naruto I stopped from unsealing the Kyubi, he would never give up."
"You said you've been watching me my entire life, so shouldn't you know already?" Naruto softly spat.
"We have been. But the past couple of weeks your mom, Jiraiya-sensi and I have been a little busy. We had something we needed to set up, and it took all of our time. We weren't able to check in on you since then."
"I've told you enough already of why I'm here. I don't want to talk about this anymore." The younger blonde said bitterly turning to walk away.
"You're not going to get away that easily gaki." Jiraiya responded blocking his path. "We need to know what happened so we can help you."
"WHO SAID I WANT ANY HELP?" Naruto bellowed. "MY LIFE HAS BEEN A LITERAL HELL. BUT HERE..." both his face and voice softend. "Here I am finally happy. I have a family..." the younger blonde's face hardened again. "WHY WOULD I POSSIBLY WANT ANY HELP TO GO BACK DOWN THERE?"
"The one you love isn't up here, she's down there." His father softly replied, motioning towards the pedestal.
"I will never have the one I love father. I've accepted that, and it's fine."
"What are you talking about gaki? The week before we started preparing things Sakura was…"
"Jiraiya-sensei." Minato interrupted. "It's not nice to spill someone's secrets. But really Naruto, what makes you think you will never be with Sakura? Before we started preparing things, Sakura really did seem to be warming up to you."
"I… thought so too." Minato's son replied with his shoulders slumped and eyes downcast. For the past month I've been having these dreams of Sakura loving me, and then lately there was one where she told me she was going to be able to tell me the truth soon."
Minato simply nodded, motioning for his son to continue.
"Then we finally went out on a date. Me. On a date. With Sakura-chan. Everything was just so perfect, she was holding my arm, kissing me on the cheek…"
A lecherous grin spread across Jiraiya's face as he took out a little noteback. Seeing this, Minato sweat-dropped and batted the book away.
"Then she told me… she told me that there's something she had been wanting to tell me for a while now. That it was finally time to tell me the truth. It seemed so perfect, it seemed too pefect… and it was."
Both Jiraiya and Minato fixed the boy with a confused look.
"She said I annoyed her, she would always love Sasuke and never love me. She explained to me that she put up with me because I was her pet demon who was going to bring Sasuke back. But now that I was preparing to kill Sasuke, she couldn't let that happen. She didn't care if I died, but she couldn't let me kill Sasuke." Naruto said as tears he had been fighting back fell from his eyes.
Minato's fist clenched, he hated to see his son in pain. It was one thing to watch from heaven and not be able to do anything about it, but seeing his son directly in front of him, crying, and not being able to come up with anything to help him, that killed him.
Jiraiya's pensive gaze fell upon the pedestal. Where Sakura had been and still was fighting Sasuke like she was possessed by a demon. This doesn't add up…
"Then she told me that she didn't want to see me ever again, to leave Konoha and never return. She told me that I am the Kyubi, and that I don't deserve happiness, only misery…"
Minato's fist unclenched. He had been becoming increasingly suspicious as Naruto recalled the tale. From what he had seen of Sakura from watching Naruto's life, the girl truly cared about his son. Truth be told, she actually reminded him a little of Kushina. She had a caring heart and a fiery temper. Although from what he had seen, she could punch a little harder than Kushina.
"And after that, I left Konoha. Sasuke found me and told me he was taking me to the Akatsuki. I no longer cared, I just wanted everything to end, so I followed him to my death."
"Naruto… that story seems off." Jiraiya said.
"That's what happened pervy sage! I'm not lying!"
"I never said you were lying Naruto. Just something seems off with that story. I can't believe Sakura would do that of her own free will."
"You didn't see the look on her face pervy sage, I could tell that she meant every word she said…" the sad blonde softly whispered.
"I'm sure there's some sort of explanation Naruto. Besides, you don't give up, isn't that your ninja way? It's time you get back to the world of the living son." Came Minato's strong voice.
"I placed a terrible burden on you Naruto, but you can handle it, you are your mother's son afterall." The former hokage said with a wink. "Now come, let's get you back down there where you belong."
"I'm not going back dad…"
Wow, those 5,282 words came much quicker than I thought… I had originally intended to end the Sasuke/Sakura fight this chapter, but by the time I got to a point where I could, it was either cut the fight short, or put the full length conclusion in the next chapter. So stay tuned for the next one for the conclusion of Sasuke vs. Sakura
Anywho, some random notes. I gave Sakura an affinity with the water element, as it seems to fit with a healer, and it's not unreasonable to think she could utilize her water nature chakra with the training of Yamoto. I wanted her to have a way to attack from a distance that wasn't her punching into the ground so you didn't have to keep reading, "then sakura slammed her fist into the ground and Sasuke was like, "ohhhh damn, here comes another slab of Earth at me."
The whole.. "Ttebayo" thing... In all honesty, I don't get it. A google search claimed it translated to something like, "eh" in English, but I liked how Naruto and Kushina had the same speech idioms in common when they met in the manga. It was kind of cute, so I kept it. Since I don't really understand it, I didn't really use it much out of the stuff I took from the manga.
Jutsu list:
Hakkesho Kaiten- Heavenly spin.
Suiton: Mizu no Muchi- Water release: water whip
Suiton: Teppodama- Water release: gunshot
Mizu-bunshin no jutsu- Water clone technique
Sasai chakra no jutsu- Chakra regeneration technique
Rirusu- Release