wD/C: I don't own Naruto or anything related to it other than this little story that was based off of something that is again..not mine
The Sakura Flower's Full Bloom
Kill Naoko. For what she's done, to Tsunade-san, Kirari-san, Yuzuru-kun. For what she's done to me. For what she's done to Sasuke. Sakura's eyes narrowed and her long ponytail began to lift itself in an eerie pink glow. Wind whipped the earth around her, and Naoko's doppelgangers looked about uncertainly. Her right palm glowed. Whsh. Two petals shot out so fast the eye could barely follow. The replica holding her wrists vanished. She twisted and two petals came out of her left palm. She slammed both hands into the one holding her legs. Gone with the wind.
Naoko was watching. "Angered now? Took you long enough." She called. "Now get down here and fight me for Sasuke before I turn old and gray." Sakura didn't say anything. She was above Naoko's stupid little teases now. With a feral roar she threw herself at Naoko, her two arms flying out behind her, dragging their pink bolts of lightning along. She was too fast for Naoko, much too fast. Or so she believed.
As she met Naoko and brought her hands up to stab at that disgusting face, that beautiful and horrifying face, and to cut her heart open in Sakura's violent vehement flood of fury, a flash of yellow met her pink. As her eyes adjusted to the blinding light, she found herself staring into Naoko's cold eyes. The enemy kunoichi's arm was brought up and blocked her X-shaped cross of Full Bloom Petals. The reason why her arm was not lacerated with sizzling cuts was apparent. A violently shimmering yellow network of thick twisting wraithlike strands of chakra formed a mesh that closely followed her entire arm's outline. It fought back at Sakura's Full Bloom.
They struggled back and forth for a few moments until Sakura screamed with rage again and leapt back to slash forth again. It was futile. Naoko's surprise technique was effective as Sasuke's Chidori, Naruto's Rasengan, and Sakura's Full Bloom.
Leaping back again, Sakura skidded to a halt, panting for breath from her single minded wrath. The left hand pair of petals collapsed into her palm as she strengthened her right hand. A third petal slowly but steadily extended. From their previously flat and spread out position, she raised them so it looked like a half complete flower, its narrow neck letting out into the broad petals at the end.
Then she spoke her first truly understandable words for the first time since her energy and ferocity had surfaced. "You evil, traitorous, foul beast. You're going to die for this. I won't prolong it, for your own good, I'm not that sadistic. I'll kill you quick and fast, to get you out of my sight as soon as possible."
"Look at you, you're out of breath already. I'm feeling just dandy. I'd like to see you try." Naoko responded.
"I'm just out of breath because my heart and mind want to kill you soooo bad." Sakura hissed, as she raced at Naoko, low to the ground. She saw her tense, readying herself to dodge. Sakura changed course, quickly, to try and throw Naoko off. She reached her. Naoko jumped away.
"You left Sasuke." Sakura said, coldly, skidding to a halt again. "How do you know I won't grab Sasuke and run?"
"Because, stupid, I still have your Hokage and the two ninja over there. Plus I'd send ninja after you faster than you can say 'run'." Was the reply. Sakura cursed at herself inside for being so stupid. She didn't talk anymore as she looked down at Sasuke's limp body and saw the dripping cuts on him. Her anger flared again. She jumped at Naoko, her chakra Flower blazing. But this time, as she came even with Naoko, her left hand brought out a knuckle (my little term for when they have four shurikens between their fingers) of shuriken and four kunais. She threw them as hard as she could, then slashed out with her right. A sizzling sound burned in her ears as she again, looked Naoko full in the face. Her eight knives lay at Naoko's feet where she had blocked it with a second arm. She now had both arms fully blazing and she had crossed them against Sakura's three-petal flower.
Naoko saw Sakura grin for a split second, then saw her left arm move. Naoko's brow creased sharply as she realized what Sakura was going to do. Naoko could either block the upcoming attack from Sakura's left arm with her arm, but then risk Sakura using her right arm to get past Naoko's guard and attack her.
She would take the risk. She pulled her right arm out of the X to block Sakura's right. Then she realized Sakura's intention. The left arm feinted then seized her right forearm to steady it. Crap! Naoko thought, as Sakura's hair bristled with energy. A fourth petal shot out, extending longer than the rest at Naoko's unprotected face. Naoko brought her right arm back just in time to fight back the petal as it only sheared off a lock of hair.
"My my, a Flower with fangs." Naoko sneered again, but Sakura could hear her quick breath. She was bluffing to make herself feel better, Sakura could see that easily. But Naoko was not to be so easily defeated. A blinding flash of light erupted in front of Sakura as Naoko used some kind of explosive. Through the blazing bright yellow light and smoke, kunais came whistling through the air. Sakura screamed with pain as they cut and stabbed into her unprotected body, her arms covering her ducked head. She tried to jump away but only succeeded in exposing herself, unable to protect herself as Naoko darted underneath her and planted a foot in her back, throwing her even higher. Sakura's back arched backwards painfully under the kick and she cried out, as she tasted the metallic flavor of blood that she coughed up.
She landed hard on the packed dirt ground and felt the wind go out of her and she was frozen on the ground momentarily. Naoko's face appeared over hers and a split second later a searing pain erupted from her side. Sakura screamed and writhed about. Naoko straightened up from her bent position and removed her crackling electricity-covered arm from Sakura's side, where the raw skin and frayed clothes sizzled.
"Did you feel that?" Naoko whispered. It was a rhetorical question, really. "That's what I'll do to Sasuke, now. I'm a little bored. When I get bored I get brutal, eh, Sasuke-chan?" she cooed, as she strode towards him.
"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM!" Sakura shrieked, scrambling and struggling to get up. As she stood to face Naoko, a painful jolt ran through her from her oozing burn. Naoko snorted, she knew the pink-haired girl was in no shape to even try walking. Naoko had no problem admitting she was a sadistic little girl. Turning again, she summoned her Dark Sunlight to cover her slender arm and reached out to touch her forearm to Sasuke's leg.
Sakura watched in horror as Naoko bent over Sasuke. "NO! PLEASE NO!" she shouted, desperately. Then she sank to her knees in helplessness as the unconscious Sasuke yelled in pain, screaming and flailing to get out of his blacked-out state. He couldn't wake up. What on earth had Naoko done to him! When she had finished with her tortue, Sasuke's legs were raw and bloody, crackling and twitching with electricity. Sakura felt a flood of the old anger, that anger that had thrown herself against Naoko. It overwhelmed her. Her teeth on edge, Sakura struggled to her feet, swaying uncertainly, then holding her ground.
Naoko saw her. "Don't hurt yourself." She said, her voice cold. "You can still run, leave the four behind. Save yourself. Why not? I'll let you go." Sakura saw she really meant it. For some warped reason, she really meant it. It only made her angrier.
Between clenched jaws, she barely growled out. "I don't need your pity. I… don't want… your FOUL SUGGESTIONS… FOR DESERTING… MY FRIENDS!" she roared out, her right arm snapping out to a 90 degree angle to her body. A chakra petal flared from out of her palm. Then two. Three. Four… Then… a fifth. The flower was complete. Sakura's first time ever. Before today she had only been able to get two petals out, and the broad tip of at third would peek out, but refuse to extend. She felt a strange shudder of refreshing energy, and realized that it felt like her Chakra was restored, and stronger than ever before. It was a new feeling for her. But this wasn't a training session, to test her Full Bloom. An enemy stood before her. One single pink petal flew out of her left hand, then began to rotate, faster, faster, faster. Sakura then stood with a full Full Bloom and a spinning petal that she hoped would work as a shield. It would, she told herself, it will.
Sakura could tell Naoko was more than a little thrown off. But she wasn't wasting her time on words. She threw herself at Naoko, striking out with her angrily blazing Chakra. A crackling sound became audible as Naoko's arms glowed with electric Chakra and her hand flashed out. Sakura brought up her shield and felt a surge of confidence as it deflected Naoko's attack.
The two kunoichis flew back and forth in the clearing, leaping and slashing, trying to kill the other. It was past the point of capture, of peaceful surrender. This called for killing, bloodshed.
Finally, when Sakura was beginning to feel at her limits, she struck home. Her lethally Chakra-enhanced Full Bloom Flower plunged into Naoko's stomach. Naoko was knocked off her feet, with a cry of pain. Sakura's eyes widened at the blood that gushed out of Naoko's mouth, and her wound, as Sakura pulled back her blazing flower and stumbled back in shock, her spinning left hand shield drifting to a hanging stop and vanishing. But immediately, two shadows materialized next to Naoko as she hit the ground with a hard thump. The two Dark ninja lifted her up, and a third sprang between Sakura and Naoko with her two guards to keep Sakura from attacking.
Naoko wasn't finished. Weakly, and with the last of her energy, she spat out from between bloody lips. "This isn't over. We'll finish it up, when you aren't expecting it. Your damned Hokage, Konoha, and Sasuke. I'll have you all."
Suddenly, the clearing was empty. There were no ninja to speak of, no shinobi. They had gone. Sakura looked about, and blinked. Then, pain shot through her from head to toe. She had used too much of her Chakra with the Full Bloom. Blood again. The pain came in waves, ever and ever more. Her pink flower's vibrant color faded, and it wilted until it seemed to drip and vanish off her hand. Weakly, she remembered her duty to Konoha and therefore the Hokage. But it was to Sasuke that she struggled over to, finally collapsing to her knees next to him. He was stirring now, the effects of Naoko's genjutsu wearing off.
She felt tears come to her eyes at how close the five of them had come to dying. How Sasuke almost died right next to Sakura, how she couldn't defend him. But in the end, she had. The tears flowed from her eyes and sobs ripped themselves from her throat. She caught Sasuke up in her arms as she had so many times before when he had almost killed himself, crying uncontrollably.
"S-sakura… you're heavy." A murmured unclear voice said, close to her ear.
"Sasuke!" she sobbed. "Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke." Then the pain returned. Sakura was going to die…she could feel it, in the pain, in her body. At least she had saved Sasuke. At least she had had the opportunity to love him, kiss him, hold him, to spend time with him. She would die for him, and for Konoha, as a ninja.
"I love you." She whispered into his ear, faintly. There, it was out, the statement neither had been able to make before that moment. Then, the pain overwhelmed her, and she collapsed to the floor beside him.