6

Sasuke growled as he attacked Madara again and again. The man had yet to give Naruto an opening to attack and he was beginning to tire. He'd coated his left arm in lightning chakra and slashed viciously at the man, faster than even he'd thought he could manage, but still Sasuke could not even touch the older Uchiha.

Madara just danced between his swings, returning them at odd intervals, not even seeming to care if his blows made contact or not. But when they did… hurt was not a good enough word to describe the power Madara put behind his blows. Not to mention that the older Uchiha's eyes seemed to know his every move. Sasuke had almost expected that, what with how many years the Uchiha founder had over him, but he knew that if he didn't at least try to put up a fight, he would die.

Sasuke pulled back to get his breath for a moment. He glanced to the far side of the room and saw Naruto and Konan. Konan stood there with a nearly blank expression, but Sasuke could see a little anxiety behind her mask. The Naruto he could see was apparently the one that was projected upon Konan's wall, because he held no Rasengan, nor did he have the expression Sasuke was used to seeing on his face. There was a somewhat angry expression that didn't look completely right on the blond's face. No one who knew the blond's personality would have been fooled, and Sasuke could also see small imperfections: the misplaced whisker marking on the left cheek, the wrong shade of blue for the eyes. But for all intents and purposes, Konan had done a wonderful job on the Naruto double.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Madara turn his head, trying to see what had attracted his attention… and Sasuke pounced.

But, if the younger Uchiha had been expecting Madara to let his guard down, he had been sorely mistaken. As he lunged forward with his Kusanagi raised in the air behind him, Madara pulled his leg up and landed a kick into his stomach. A very hard kick. Sasuke went flying back almost thirty feet. But, surprisingly, even to himself, he landed on his feet.

And the moment his feet touched the ground, he felt Naruto's chakra dart forward from his place behind Konan's wall towards Madara. He saw the blond's new attack sear through the paper in a quick flare of light. Knowing that Naruto had found his opening, and remembering Naruto's warning about staying back when the attack was unleashed, Sasuke stayed put.

xXx

Even as he ran forward towards Madara he prepared himself to jump back.

From watching Madara react to Sasuke's fighting style, he decided that, since the man always stayed still until the last moment, Naruto would act as if he were going to go for a body shot again and, then, at the last moment, he would do what the man least expected him to do.

As he predicted, the Uchiha was still as he switched his attentions from Sasuke to Naruto's approach, the blond's new attack out to the side behind him. When he came about ten feet away, Naruto raised the fireball. He released the wind chakra a little and allowed it to spread further around the Rasengan, forming blades of fire and wind that spun with a mind of their own. He jumped at the man, preparing to lunge…

And suddenly thrust it downward at Madara's feet.

"Fuuton-katon Rasen Shuriken!" He knew there was no need to say even a word, but he enjoyed being able to name his own personal attacks at the spur of the moment. Naruto grinned ferociously.

The shockwave extending outward from the attack was massive. It was larger than his usual Rasen Shuriken and even Naruto himself was amazed as he surveyed the huge cloud of dust and debris as well as the crater below it as the rebounding wind from the attack pushed him back and into the air. His hand tingled unpleasantly, but he ignored it.

"Naruto!" he heard from somewhere off to his left. Sasuke.

"I'm fine!" he called back, turning in midair towards Sasuke so that his voice would not be dampened by the dense cloud around him.

"Not for long." Naruto froze as the source of the voice suddenly appeared not behind him. "Heh…" Air blew against his ear as Madara laughed at Naruto's obvious alarm. A second later, he brought his foot to the blond's back, sending him flying to the ground with a crash. A feminine sound of surprise came from somewhere off to his right at the sound of earthen destruction.

"Ugh…"

"Do you really think that I would underestimate you like my henchmen have?" Madara stood over Naruto. "I know you're not nearly as stupid as you pretend to be. That was an impressive little attack." He delivered another powerful kick to Naruto's side and the blond went flying out of the smoke and clear across the room.

"Naruto!" Sasuke yelled. He ran forward to catch the man flying towards him from out of the smoke. "Hn!" he grunted from the effort of stopping his full weight from crashing into the floor.

"Naruto! Are you alright? Naruto!" he shook the blond's shoulders.

"I'm…fine…teme. Don't…worry about…me." Naruto panted some blood dribbling from his mouth down his chin. "H-he just surprised me… is all" he struggled to get to his feet, but, the moment he stood, he fell forward. Sasuke steadied him. Naruto smiled.

"Did I ever tell you… that I'm glad you're back?"

"Now you have. And I'm glad to be back. Now all we have to do is survive this and we can go back to Konoha together."

"Heh. I promised I'd take you back, and I never go back on my word."

At that their new friend decided to make his entrance, walking out of the now quickly dissipating smoke leisurely. "How touching. The two finally make up and yet the both of you will die shortly." Madara laughed coldly.

Naruto and Sasuke both stopped breathing momentarily. The man standing before them barely had a scratch on him. The right arm of Madara's jacket was entirely burned off, but it seemed that the man had coated his arm with chakra just in time and the skin there was only slightly pink. The rest of him had escaped any sort of harm. Sasuke blew out a hissing breath and Naruto jerked his chin up angrily.

"The only one who will be dying is you!" Naruto said sharply.

Madara only laughed as his Sharingan spun, creating a blur of black on red. Naruto narrowed his eyes at the sight.

"Ne, Sasuke. That's the Mangekyou Sharingan, right? Why's it different from Itachi's and Kakashi-Sensei's?" Naruto asked softly. And yours? He wanted to add, but he knew there was a story behind it. One that he would find out later.

"Almost all the Mangekyou's in existence have been different. Besides, Madara's is something called Eternal Mangekyou. He stole his brother's eyes when he went blind from use of his. He won't go blind from using it now."

Nor will I. Sasuke remembered that Itachi had prevented that by giving Sasuke his own Sharingan's abilities and characteristics.

"That's correct Sasuke. My brother kindly gave his eyes to his older brother and he now lives on in me."

"You're sick."

"You're one to talk. Your brother's eyes live now in you, also. You have the Eternal Mangekyou too."

"My brother gave me his eyes' abilities without my asking or even wanting him to. I did not steal his eyes from his dead body." Sasuke snapped, raising his blade. Naruto put a restraining hand on his shoulder, warning him to be careful.

"Touchy, touchy." Madara rolled his red eyes. Sasuke growled then grabbed Naruto's shoulder and pulled the blond back behind him as Madara pulled his hands up in front of his chest. For a moment, Sasuke had thought the older Uchiha was planning on casting some sort of jutsu, but the man only popped the knuckles of each hand and an almost feral grin formed at his lips.

"Perhaps it is better that your brother is dead. I wouldn't want to be bothered with killing him as well; he knew far too much." Sasuke growled in warning, and Naruto once again put a restraining hand on the raven's shoulder, sensing that Madara was baiting his friend, but Sasuke shrugged it off. "I must thank you though, Sasuke. You saved me the trouble."

Itachi was a sore subject for Sasuke, and, by the way Sasuke charged at Madara, one could easily tell. Even Madara seemed momentarily surprised at Sasuke's momentary burst of speed. To Naruto, who was still trying to find the ground beneath his feet, Sasuke seemed to disappear for a second and then reappear next to Madara. Sasuke managed to surprise Madara and nailed him with a kick to his gut, which obviously knocked the breath out of the man. But Madara wasn't off guard for long and caught the next kick in his hand.

What followed seemed to be a repeat of the first time Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto had fought Kakashi to get the bells from him. Sasuke, his leg caught in Madara's hand, shifted his weight and twisted around, throwing his other leg at Madara's head. When Madara caught that appendage with his other hand, Sasuke threw his right fist at him. Throwing away the leg in his right hand, Madara parried the fist, but was assailed yet again as Sasuke aimed his left fist at him. Madara couldn't win for losing and finally threw Sasuke bodily away from him with a disgusted look.

Not a second after Sasuke darted at Madara, Konan appeared at Naruto's side and laid a hand on his shoulder to steady him; he had fallen to one knee without Sasuke's support. She cast a quick first aid jutsu over his chest when she lifted his shirt and saw the beginnings of heavy bruising over his ribs and Naruto pulled in a grateful breath as a broken rib was pulled back into place. Kyuubi finished healing the rib and then focused on the other four that were cracked.

"Naruto, are you all right?" She'd dropped the polite address of "Uzumaki-kun" with the heat of the battle, and Naruto found himself thankful for it. The woman was quickly becoming a close comrade with the help she had given so far.

"I'm better now, thanks. We have to get Sasuke and get out of here, though. There is no way we can last much longer."

"I've still got some chakra left but it's not much compared to you and Sasuke. And you two barely have any left at all." Konan added softly.

"Well, you can hardly compare your reserves against ours. We're just weird." Naruto said, finding at least some humor in the situation. "But you're right."

Not seconds after Naruto finished his sentence there was an explosion that almost burst his eardrums. It was followed almost immediately by a huge aftershock and a strangled yell. Naruto jerked his head back to the fight and saw Sasuke flying backwards with his hand pressed to his side. He landed hard on the ground, rolling and gauging his way along the hard earth, leaving a long, deep impression.

He didn't move to get up once he'd stopped sliding.

"Sasuke!" Naruto began to run towards the raven but he was stopped a few steps later as Madara suddenly stepped in front of him. But, wait, Madara was over there. Meaning that this was a clone. Kami, he hated clones!

"Get out of my way!" The blond growled menacingly. The clone wasn't affected in the least, speaking with the same annoyingly calm attitude its creator had used at the beginning of the fight.

"No. You will not interfere." For some reason, the clone seemed to lack any sort of the personality that the real Madara had exhibited, which was strange when comparing it to Naruto's clones, who were the same all the way down to his personality. But then, Naruto's clones always had been different.

"I said get out of my way." Naruto's hands curled into fists.