Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. (Otherwise I'd be hella rich x3)
Sasuke stares back at the phantom before him. His chalky lips are set in a composed line, but his eyes quiver with palpable terror. His sword arm hangs stiff at his side, his legs close to slumping.
Orochimaru leers at this, his manic grin spreading like flames. "Then I suppose you'll be--so to say--'coming quietly'."
"Not if I have something to say about it!" Ino yells from behind them. She flicks a long kunai between her finger and charges.
It's then, finally, that Sasuke reacts. He twists from his opponent's spidery hands and, bending back, manages to kick forward.
With a bored look, Orochimaru evades the feeble attempt and reaches a skeletal hand as Sasuke takes a moment to recover. However, forgetting Ino behind him, he's met by a sharp blow in the shoulder. Manifesting the look of a disrupted child, Orochimaru sneers back at Ino and jumps incredibly high in the air. Swiftly, he chops the aged chain of one of the lit chandelier. The cut light crashes to the ground, threatening to hit the four beneath him. Beside the antique, Orochimaru floats to the ground.
As the chandelier falls, the four clansmen haste backwards as the room's only light dies violently. They each shut their eyes to avoid being blinded by the glass, and the shards that do reach their skin bounce off with no trace.
Giving to the madness of the 'kill', Orochimaru twists around and around to face his opponents.
Neji and Kabuto, on either side of their enemy, charge at the same time. Kabuto spins his lance so the pointed end faces Orochimaru. The rhyzite tip glints maliciously.
Neji reaches Orochimaru first, his duel swords whistling rapidly. Orochimaru feints backward, overturning a table, and, when Neji continues to approach, attacks with such barbaric forwardness that he--Neji--hesitates. But being acquainted with fighting this foe, he attacks unswervingly, his swords singing a battle cry.
Orochimaru grits his teeth, forced to retreat from the matched ferocity, but not before receiving a long cut across his already mutilated shirt. His recoil is so quick, though, that he draws only a little blood.
When Orochimaru falls backward again, Kabuto attacks. His lance lands square in his foe's back. But Kabuto pauses, hearing in wonder Orochimaru's maniac laughter. It starts from a discordant note and crescendoes upon a perverse arpeggio.
Sasuke clenches his teeth, but the harsh sound seems to rattle sharp vibrations through his mouth.
Orochimaru grabs Kabuto's lance but instead of removing it, he sinks it deeper into his flesh. Blood trickling from his back, he pulls. Kabuto, too astounded to let go, finds himself being drawn forward. His heels dig earnestly into the frayed carpet, but he slips, falling forward. He lets go of the lance only to find hot arms completely surrounding him. His eyes widen but before he can move, razor teeth sink into his neck.
Kabuto screams as venom seeps into his bloodflow at an alarming rate. He feels numb and warm but the sensation soon passes. After all, he's already a vampire. However, a new feeling starts all together. Usually, if one of his kind bit him, he'd feel a shock but then the venom would quickly absorb into his bloodflow. Now, it's as his blood's turning to oil, fire licking readily at every conversion. Quicker than soon, Kabuto's entire body tingles in stifling pain, and he screams again.
Sasuke steps in then. Dragging forth his sword, he plunges it into Orochimaru's back, retracting it as soon as Orochimaru releases his clansman. He sees Kabuto collapse, moaning. His fingers twitch on the carpet floor.
Orochimaru twists to face Sasuke, his grin returning. "Well, Sasuke. Have you come back for more?"
"Fuck, you wish," Sasuke spits, raising his sword again.
Orochimaru leans back, chortling with his shrieking laughter. Lifting his hands, he sees Sasuke begin to parry. Orochimaru shakes his head, as if chiding a child. Instead of attacking, Orochimaru grabs the bloody lance, still stuck firm in his back.
Stuck in the gory sight, all the others can do is watch.
With a twistedly calm demeanor, Orochimaru pulls the weapon's long shaft from his back. It gives, producing a wet sucking sound as the weapon comes out. Blood rains from the lance's pointed shaft, and Orochimaru continues to laughs, specks of blood flying from his throat even as he grins.
Sasuke recoils unwillingly, sickened. The figure before is barely shaken, impervious to the vicious wounds streaking its blood-matted chest. He hears Ino behind him collapse and hurl. Indeed, Sasuke's stomach is flipping butterflies as well.
But with a nod to Neji at his rough left, Sasuke takes a cool breath and rushes forward once more.
"So this is what it's like to fight a prince," an eager voice howls, panting. The speaker dashes forward raising a wood-hilted sword. "And soon I'll know what it means to kill one!"
Itachi evades the heated attack with a mere shrug of his shoulder. Sweat sheens from his forehead, but his only cut is a slight slash over his black shirt.
His attacker swings, turning on its heel to charge at Itachi's back. Itachi starts to dodge again, but instead the attacker hops over him with such speed that the prince can barely catch the afterimage. His foe slashes at his chest with his blade.
However the last possible moment, Itachi raises his own sword, holding the hilt in one end and flat of the red blade's zenith in the other. He keeps a firm hold as the attacker continues to slash; sparks flash as the two blades at each other, dissipating in the dirt. With each of his foe's unslowing strikes, Itachi's heels dig farther into the ground, and he's forced an inch back.
With a quick breath, Itachi's grasp on the head of his blade tightens. Ignoring the new small cuts at his palm and fingers, Itachi spins the entire blade so swiftly that the only trace of the weapon is an arcing circle of red.
The impact sends the foe's sword meters backwards with an unsettling shriek. However the attacker himself doesn't stop his pursuit. With an animalistic yelp, they leap into the wide whir of Itachi's sword. They emerge directly before their target, but not unscathed.
Wearing the same expressionless face, Itachi ducks backward, setting the enemy off-balance. He takes that moment of opportunity to knock the wind from his opponent and throws them to the dirt.
Dropping his glimmering sword, Itachi twists backwards the foe's wrists with God-worthy strength. With his other arm, he elbows their back into the ground. He shakes his head back to knock his black bangs from his face, where pale moonlight illuminates. His sword, as well, seems to glow in the night. A lovely weapon, the hilt carves thorns and arcs of pure silver. It's the sort of beauty a father would hand to a son. The blade is long, honing the metallic crimson of rhyzite. The color reflects in his eyes.
"Sakari," he calls softly to the side, "this is one of them?"
From the back wall of the mansion, the girl watches the steady fight. "Yes," she says, "he called himself Kakuzu."
"As I s-said when I first attacked," Kakuzu seethes, wriggling like a worm in sheer panic. His tone quivers with an eager spasm.
The frame of Kakuzu's gray eyes is colored a haunted red, and he seizes jerkily. His mouth, now stuck in the ground, foams with the built up tension.
"Her word above yours," Itachi replies simply, though he shoves Kakuzu deeper into the dirt.
"When we fought, though," Sakari continues, still not standing, "he wasn't yet a rogue."
Kakuzu physically trembles now, instinct aroused by her last word.
Staring down at his opponent with his lightless eyes, Itachi tightens his grip. "Did Kimimaro send you?" he asks icily.
Kakuzu, now too far gone, simply struggles harder, howling incoherently.
With a dismissive shake of his head, Itachi asks again, his soft voice mingling with the windless air, "For what purpose were you sent?"
Then, with an eerie screech, Kakuzu springs upward, forcing Itachi to remove his grasp.
Kakuzu charges Itachi, swordless, with a demonic speed. He reaches out with his very nails, the red marks of Itachi's fingers still evident on his wrists.
Expecting this, and regarding his foe with acute disgust, Itachi grasps his sword and, in a swift arc, slashes off the head of his attacker. Wasting no time, he thrusts the beautiful weapon again into the corpse's falling chest and then retracts. He turns away. But behind him, Sakari stiffens, watching intently.
The headless corpse drops to the dirt but, almost on impact, begins to fade. The body seems to dematerialize into wind and, taking both the head and spilt blood, disappears.
"He isn't dead," Sakari murmurs, both astoundedly and defeatedly. She thinks faintly of Kimimaro's words and then of her own meek reply to them.
Itachi gazes upon her, his expression darkening with unhidden suspicion and concern. "Of course," he says carefully, studying her. "We can't."
She doesn't look at him but soon feels the cool touch of his hand on her shoulder. His other hand grazes her cheek, gently turning it to face him. The suspicion has eroded from his eyes, but he stares back with sudden compassion.
They both open their lips to speak but are interrupted by a sudden, horrifying shriek. Without so much as a regard to each other, the two dash towards the back entrance, racing to the source of the sound.
"Sasuke!" Ino screams. She watches Orochimaru approach the now lone Sasuke at the center of the torn room. Ino gropes at the rough walls of the room, struggling to stand. She has only two more useable knives, the rest lay scattered in the dim, undaunted corners of the room. Neji had inadvertently slugged two more chandeliers from the ceiling, so the room's only light source is now a small lamp, overturned at the diagonal wall.
Ino sinks to her knees as her legs disobey her desperate plea to stand. She clenches her weapons her cut hands. Bloody nail marks adorn her arms and her cheek, and she can feel bruises forming along the edges of her abdomen.
How does one get so much power? Ino moans softly as she drives her kunai deeply into the wall, making handholds to stand. She staggers to her feet.
She can't smell the scent of a rogue on this demon, and yet he fights like an animal, shameless and unwavering. She half expects Orochimaru to drop dead any moment, judging simply by the harsh scars running up the phantom's lithe chest.
Ino limps across the wall, clutching the wall with her two kunai. She's torn between going to Neji--who'd doubled over moments ago from an attack at his ribcage, Kabuto--dazed and only half conscious from Orochimaru's monstrous bite, or Sasuke--the only one left standing.
True, Orochimaru had advertently refrained from wounding the young Uchiha, and the thought both relieved and unsettled the young girl. Ino stumbles, reaching almost mindlessly Neji on the floor. She collapses beside him.
"Neji, can you move?" Ino murmurs, her voice hoarse.
"Nng--" he coughs blood, burying his face in the damp carpet. "Wh-Where--" he can barely choke a whisper.
"Never mind," Ino says, touching his fevered forehead. "Don't talk." Her eyes stray to Kabuto, who'd been kicked to the far side of the room, and she knows that his condition could be even worse.
"Sasuke," she says under breath, watching the one-sided battle in the middle. "Sasuke."
Sasuke shrugs his numb shoulder, twirling his left wrist spasmically.
He had just been close to nailing another stab at Orochimaru's chest, when the beast's teeth had sunk into his right swordarm. Ever since, a cold feeling had begun to spread across his body, aching like fire.
Sasuke rushedly moves his left arm and legs, hoping to momentarily prevent the venom from reaching them. He'd let go of his longsword at Orochimaru's last attack. He can't fight with an immobile arm, and he knows fighting with his left would be like suicide.
Sasuke backs another step as Orochimaru approaches. Blood pulses at his temples, reverberating in his head so he can barely hear. But he can make out the soft hisses as words leave his opponent's thin mouth. He feels a little queasy again from staring at the figure for so long.
"...with me so long as you behave..." Sasuke caught. Involuntarily putting a hand to his head, Sasuke steadies himself, noticing suddenly that he'd been nodding off even as he stood.
Orochimaru grasps his shoulders in a death-like grip, and Sasuke can't even protest. Groaning at being bothered, the young Uchiha staggers backward but finds himself caught up in those cold hands.
Sasuke's eyes flutter open and closed. He'd barely been injured besides for the sudden bite. Why was he so tired...
He can hear a little better from this angle, he notices vaguely. "Finally cooperating, I see," Orochimaru says, but Sasuke barely pays attention.
Lights block his vision though, and he gives an irresistable laugh when they hazily begin to spin. He leans back further, intending suddenly to just sleep.
Why not? The battle was lost. Sasuke shuts his eyes, letting out a sigh when the simple action brings him such relaxation and pleasure--
"Sasuke!"
Naruto! Sasuke flicks his head backward, rudely awakened. Had that just been Naruto? Just like back in the woods, the other week. He'd really come out of no where, so was he doing it again? Funny how the blonde could do that--
"Sasuke!" Sasuke starts, opening his eyes this time. The voice was not Naruto, and he blinks finding himself staring at two squinted, snake-like eyes.
Orochimaru! And the voice is...
"Ino!" Sasuke exclaims, standing up right, finally. Orochimaru snarls at the sudden physical protest, but he continues to smile. After all, how could Sasuke escape?
Sasuke stumbles slightly, wondering the question himself, only less rhetorically. But when he sees the blooded hands of his enemy he knows what to do. It was his last resort, more of an instinctive impulse than a technique.
Using the final ounce of his strength, Sasuke jolts forward with such force that even Orochimaru is stunned. Blood still pounding in his ears, the raven-haired Uchiha pounces on his taller foe and blindly thrusts forward his fingers.
But the messy aim hits home, and Orochimaru screams--an echoing shriek--as his right eye is gauged, diminished into a blooded heap.
In an outrage, Orochimaru grasps a gleaming needle from his pants pocket, his last resort. The needle's tip glows manevolently, liquid poison slipping from the point, and he unceremoniously shoves it into Sasuke's neck.
The poison reacts immediately, and Sasuke's eyes widen right before his site is snuffed into darkness.
Ino opens her eyes, realizing then that she'd had them closed. She sees their phantom attacker screaming, stumbling blindly in the dim room, but that soon becomes a blur.
She wonders wearily, if not earnestly, what had happened.
But she sucks in a breath of sheer relief when she sees their foe leap from the far window, hastily escaping into the night.
How cliché, Ino notes, but her comic thought soon fades when she looks back to the center of the room. Her throat constricts, and she lets out a choked yell.
On the blood-matted carpet, Sasuke lies still, stiff as a corpse.
