Author's notes: Heyo, we are getting closer and closer to the end, and I feel bad because after completing this story, what will I do :S? Leaving you readers out there isn't an option. I really enjoy writing stories and letting other people read them; that way I get to know what their opinion is on each chapter as they read. But I'm not disappearing any time soon, not without completing my story and saying goodbye, and that's a promise . So yeah, beside all that, here is the next chapter from your beloved Narutard, racing out and about to get a move on in the story. Again I would like to thank everyone for keeping me posted about what you think about each chapter, I appreciate it a lot and will keep in mind how eager you are to read on :P. So here you have it, Chapter Twenty Four: Final Decision. Enjoy XD.
CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR: FINAL DECISION
This was new. Kakashi had never seen Sakura so angry before; not in a physical way, but inside he could see it. Sakura didn't care in the world what her emotions did to her and that it didn't get her anywhere, "you were responsible for Naruto's death…you will pay for that," she demanded with tears cascading down the sides of her face.
Meanwhile...
"Foolish little fox…there's no way you can possibly beat me against my speed," said the dark blood-red fox as he looked down upon the injured Kitsune.
Kitsune, who was basically pinned down by Aku, whined in pain as she lay there, trying to make sure she wouldn't get her head bitten off while she thought up a way to get out.
Aku grinned before having the right mind to attempt to kill her before he was knocked over by surprise. Aku rose, wondering what could've hit him like that, but when he checked what did that, he couldn't find anything but the field from where he stood seconds ago.
The black fox set Kitsune down behind the bushes, nudging her to get up. The two exchanged soft growls and meows until Kuro finally managed to speak, "we need to stop Aku before things get out of hand," Kitsune nodded without a word and the two sprung out of the bushes.
Kuro and Kitsune oozed chakra from their tiny bodies, "Kuro, why do I feel this way?" Kitsune asked, worrying over the power she had.
"It's the Kyuubi's chakra; we need to use it now," replied the black fox in confidence.
Aku laughed, "why do you persist on fighting when there is no hope left for you little kittens," he bowed his head to keenly observe the foxes before him, 'their chakra is different than before,' he thought, keeping his guard up no matter what the circumstances were.
Suddenly there was a strange and heavy feeling in the atmosphere, and both Kuro and Kitsune were feeling it. They felt their body change drastically when the red chakra surrounded them: their claws became sharper and they grew slightly larger. Once their eyes were open, they were no longer green and blue, but in fact red like the Kyuubi itself and Aku's.
Kuro's red eyes were different however.
Aku shook his head, "die!" he roared, speeding toward them as fast as he could and was ready to use his Chidori, when suddenly…whack! Aku was sent flying back the way he came and plummeted to the ground with a dull thud. The two smaller foxes exchanged glances before diving at the red fox and attacked with everything they had.
Kitsune was miraculously stronger than before and every hit she made with her tail and limbs injured Aku considerably. Kuro was much faster now and he could see things before they even happened.
Aku couldn't understand what was going on at this point. He was suddenly weaker than Kuro and Kitsune. He was smashed into a thick tree by the brown fox and lay there motionless for a moment or two.
"How…?" Aku winced as he tried to get up, but realised his leg was broken.
Kuro glowered at the blood-red fox and jumped at him with claws raised. His Kyuubi-chakra enhanced body made his slash feel like someone tore a limb off cleanly yet slowly to let the pain linger.
Soon enough, Kuro and Kitsune felt the red chakra fade away and they were themselves again. They stared at the motionless body of Aku as he lay slain under a tree; it was finally over. Kuro sensed a large amount of chakra being released and an explosion was heard, "Sakura and Kakashi need us, lets go," he yelled in a slight whine.
Kuro began running off toward the sounds before he heard a cry in pain, "Kuro!" shouted the panicking brown fox as she was being dragged away from Kuro.
The black fox turned around to find Aku lashing out his razor-sharp claws at Kitsune and dragged her closer to her demise. Kuro quickly dashed to Kitsune and hauled her away from the demonic fox, "don't you dare get near her!" he shouted, trying to intimidate Aku, but alas Aku was more frightening.
Aku got up with all his strength could muster and roared at the black fox, grabbing him with his strong claws. Kuro felt his breath shorten every second Aku tightened his grip around his neck and felt the red chakra come back.
The Kyuubi's chakra escaped from the point at where Aku held Kuro around the neck and trailed up the fox's arm. Aku's eyes widened as he felt his frontal leg burn from the chakra. Kuro then got angry, "get…away!" he roared loudly until the chakra exploded and lashed out at Aku's face.
Aku immediately let go of Kuro's neck and felt the chakra burn his face and the rest of his body, "AAARGH!" he wailed agonizingly as he flew back and landed on his side, unable to rid himself of the blazing chakra.
The Kyuubi's chakra surrounded Kuro's entire body as he stared at the tortured fox. He roared again and the chakra lead from his own head and morphed into an arm and latched itself around Aku's neck and lifted him off the ground. Saying nothing at all, Kuro watched as Aku shivered in pain and torment until the chakra had destroyed him inside and disintegrated into nothing, leaving only a small pile of ashes on the ground from Aku's blood.
Kuro's rage died down and was himself again. He risked his own life to save Kitsune's, forcing himself to resort to a regretful move that left him confused. He checked up on Kitsune, who was only stunned by the sudden grip Aku gave her, but other than that, she was okay.
"Lets go," Kuro said, helping her out and the two dashed off to the rescue.
Sakura was knocked back for the third time already; she didn't know how long Sasuke would play around before getting annoyed and killing her and Kakashi.
"Enough of this…time to end it," Sasuke grunted as he raised his katana and leapt in the air.
Kakashi joined him in an aerial hand-to-hand fight before Kakashi was smashed back down quickly, "he's too fast for my body to keep up," he cursed for not being fast enough, but he couldn't do anything about that.
Sakura stood there, ready to pound the living hell out of Sasuke the second he came close to her. More handsigns from where he was, Sasuke took a deep breath and unleashed his fire technique down at Sakura, who only jumped at it with a kunai in her hand.
The fire was a direct hit and sent Sakura back down and landed flat on her back and hacked out blood at an instant. Sasuke, who was still airborne, received an unexpected blow to the back of the head and dropped his katana and crash-landed into a tree.
Sakura lay there, unable to move her muscles at the time, and saw the katana come flying down right at her. Kakashi unfortunately was making many handsigns and followed Sasuke into the tree with his Chidori.
Sakura felt her life pass by as soon as she saw the sword come down. Still staring, she felt the katana hit the ground, but right by her face. It was less than an inch from her cheek, and if she had moved earlier, she could've gotten that sword driven straight into her forehead - given that it's wide and not hard to miss.
The medic was snapped out of her trance and sat up, staring at the sword that stuck out of the ground. She heard a loud grunt from within the trees and saw Sasuke tossed in the air with Kakashi soon following. She saw the dramatic transformation within Sasuke that had caught her off guard.
As Sasuke was up in the air with Kakashi right under him, he allowed the second stage of his cursed seal take affect. His hand-like wings sprouted and his hair grew longer and the colour of his skin changed to a darker shade. He also formed the black cross mark across his nose and his eyes completely transformed. Sasuke noticed the worried glare in Kakashi's mismatched eyes and smirked. With one swift motion, he twisted his body around and swayed his massive wings at Kakashi, who only planted his feet on the rough surface and pushed off from there. Before attempting a good kick in the face, Kakashi's ankle was suddenly tugged at and received a fist in the face.
Kakashi fell down and recovered from the hit, landing quite safely; ignoring the ground shock he got right after. He looked up at Sasuke, who was gliding swiftly in the sky, "guess I have no choice…" Kakashi closed his eyes and focused his last remaining chakra to his left eye.
"Mangekyou Sharingan!" he announced fiercely and the atmosphere began to twist and deform.
Sasuke had to be careful now; he knew Kakashi was skilled with the Sharingan, and no doubt was he skilled with the Mangekyou, but her also knew it had a painful affect once used.
Kakashi stared at Sasuke, who quickly evaded his gaze to avoid getting sucked into another dimension and die. Another hand signal and Sasuke was ready to strike, "it won't work on me Kakashi," he warned as he came flying down with both his hands charged with the Chidori.
'Come on, come on, hurry!' Kakashi said inwardly as he strained to keep the jutsu going.
Sasuke came crashing down until there was a massive explosion that made Sakura worry, "Kakashi!" she shouted as she ran towards the rubble, flicking her pink and wet hair from her face.
The rain was endless as the battle went on. Sakura took a few paces back when she saw Kakashi flat on his back with Sasuke's foot pressing down on his chest, "in ends now," he declared as he finalised his last technique with the tiger sign.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Fire Ju-"
"Sasuke stop!" Sakura interrupted loudly with tears running down her face.
Sasuke paused, slowly turning his gaze to the frightened medic on his left. Sakura took a deep breath when she faced him like that. She gulped deeply, pushing the lump down as she watched the raven haired boy's intent glare.
"You wanted me didn't you? Well here I am," Sakura dared him to try it.
Sasuke stared at her in thought, "well I am after you and Kakashi, but you might be more of a challenge," he lifted his foot off the injured Copy Nin and slowly made his way to the pink haired Kunoichi.
'Good going Sakura, now what?' Inner Sakura said in complete agony and worry.
Sakura stepped back until her hand touched the blade of the katana that had nearly killed her earlier. She gripped her hand round the handle and pulled it from the muddy ground. Bravely, Sakura held the sword at Sasuke, who didn't stop to speculate and just kept walking.
Bit before Sasuke got any closer to the medic, he was knocked over by a strange and powerful blast of chakra. Sakura too was unbalanced but stood her ground. Looking to see where it came from, it was Kuro and Kitsune, both glowing red from the Kyuubi's chakra and glared at Sasuke with red and demonic eyes.
Sasuke knew what happened, "you destroyed Aku…?" he wondered, although not worried at all.
Kuro and Kitsune just glowered at the cursed raven haired boy as they crept closer to him with their red chakra mixing together, and forming the shape of the Kyuubi's head. Sasuke was no more or less intimidated by the chakra's strength and just stared at them uninterested.
The Kyuubi's head roared loudly as it moved about, as if trying to escape from the two foxes and regain its pride. Sakura stood her ground firmly with Sasuke's katana in hand; she was scared, but didn't want to show it. She stared at the raven haired boy as he eyed Kuro and Kitsune, waiting for him to strike.
Sasuke's hand-like wings twitched a bit before returning his attention at Sakura. His expression changed from a lonely grin to a serious glare in the blink of an eye and leapt at the pink haired medic. As a sudden reaction, Sakura put a foot back and prepared for the worst. She lifted the sword up at Sasuke as he came flying in and was smacked over by his arm. Sakura fell over, dropping the katana somewhere behind her as she hit the muddy ground.
Sasuke looked over his shoulder at Kakashi, who was now trying to get up after the beating he had received minutes ago. Before finishing Sakura off, he felt a strong burning sensation crawling up his right leg and arm. When he noticed what it was, he saw Kuro and Kitsune latched onto his two said limbs and channelled their chakra into him and slowly began burning him.
Wincing lightly, Sasuke charged up his right hand with his chakra for the Chidori, electrocuting Kuro, the one who had his arm, and sent him into the trees with a loud thud. Sasuke looked down at Kitsune as she got more enraged with the boy and bit down harder and sending more of the Kyuubi's chakra into him.
"Stupid fox!" he shouted and punched Kitsune out of balance with his Chidori charged fist and smashed her into the ground at his feet.
The brown fox cried out with a painful yelp as she lay there by Sasuke's feet, trying to get back up. Without a word or any form of emotion, Sasuke slid his foot under Kitsune's body and tossed her aside to deal with later.
Sakura sat mouth agape as she watched Kitsune get tossed away like trash before hearing a frightened voice call out to her, "Sakura!" Kakashi sat as he held a hand over his gut and the other keeping him upright.
Sasuke moved at the speed at which Sakura couldn't react fast enough to run from and started crawling away to the katana, in hopes of a way to help herself out of this situation. She felt her heart pounding five times faster than normal when she felt Sasuke's presence get closer and closer until…
"SAKURA GET DOWN!" Kakashi shouted at the top of his lungs.
Immediately Sakura had reach of the katana by the blade and pulled it towards her. It felt deep inside that she was rushing to kill herself, but when she felt the pain in her waist she didn't care…or so she thought.
She sat in the foetal-position while still holding the blade when she felt everything around her come to a stop and knew something had happened, but couldn't quite put her finger on it.
When she had realised what she felt, she didn't want to admit it. She felt her hands sting from the grip she laid on the blade and the throbbing pain in the left side of her waist. Sakura felt the warmth of a near limp body almost resting against her and heard him cringe and wince as the blood ran down from his mouth.
Sakura heard Sasuke's now husky voice as he finally reached a hand to grab her. The second it was on her shoulder, Sakura reacted. She flinched as she ignored the fact that she had driven the katana blade into her waist and out the other side into Sasuke. She ignored that the one she stabbed was her former teammate and crush. She ignored how much he used to mean to her and how painful her wounds were right now. She took a breath and gritted her teeth and grabbed the katana handle and ripped it out of her waist, pulling the flesh apart and causing more of a fuss than she started with.
The medic didn't care anymore. Sasuke had hurt her one too many times and she knew what had to be done. With those thoughts completely ignored, Sakura spun her body so she was now facing the stunned boy and uttered those same words she would always end with.
"Gomennasai…" her voice sounded cracked and husky.
Sasuke's eyes widened when he saw the glint in her eyes turn cold and saw his own death. Sakura pulled the katana out from Sasuke's gut and swiped the sword across his chest and lunged at him with the full intension of regretting it later.
It ended. Sakura felt the tense and potentially deadly boy beneath her cease his endless struggle. When she finally came to realise what she had done, it was already too late. She stared at Sasuke's bare chest with emotionless eyes and sat up, leaving the katana blade stick out from his chest.
She had only noticed mentally that she had ploughed right into the raven haired boy and drove the sword into his chest at the same time, to land right on top of him in the end. She held her breath at the sight and wished she hadn't done that.
She sat there before the motionless body of Sasuke as her tainted hands shook with blood from her once loved teammate. She felt nothing anymore but the agony of killing yet another member of her own team.
"Sakura…" Kakashi motioned, trying to get Sakura back into the real world.
The medic instantly looked over to the injured Jounin, who only stared at her in concern. She got up with the strength she had in her and stumbled her way to Kakashi's side. She held the wound she inflicted on herself and healed most of it until she made it to her former sensei.
Kakashi urged her not to heal him, but Sakura refused to listen. She shoved Kakashi's hands from his injuries and quickly began the process of healing him. Kakashi no longer had the intention of stopping her, knowing she wouldn't comply to his orders anymore, but allowed her to do what she needed to do.
Once Sakura was done healing Kakashi, she hastily worked on the rest of her own injuries and healed the tear wound in her waist. Once that was out of the way, Kuro and Kitsune had managed to crawl their way to the medic and got checked up.
Kuro and Kitsune seemed unharmed, most likely due to the unlimited chakra supply from the Kyuubi. It was strong and it would automatically heal the bearer of its red power. Sakura knew this, considering her best friend who had the Kyuubi sealed within him, it didn't take much effort at all to heal the blonde.
Kakashi saw the disappointed look in Sakura's now tired eyes and grabbed her wrists, ignoring his aches and pains all over in his muscles and made her look at him. Sakura didn't know what he was doing but the look in his mismatched eyes had explained it all. She felt her jaw shake as the tears were uncontrollably flowing from her eyes. She didn't speak, but just rest her head against Kakashi's chest, crying.
Kakashi let go of the medic's wrists and wrapped his arms around her and whispered, "it's alright Sakura…it's over now, he's gone," he rubbed Sakura's back gently to reassure her as she let her tears run down her face.
Sakura just gazed upon her blooded hands and thought about her current actions, 'was this right? Was this - what I had just done - what I was supposed to do?' she mentally asked. She didn't expect an answer from anyone in her conscious, but just let the question sink in.
The weather poured its rain upon the land as the two worn out Jounins pulled themselves together and attempted to get over everything. Sakura helped Kakashi to his feet with the blunt help from Kuro and Kitsune and they all stumbled their way past Sasuke's dead body and out onto the road.
Author's notes: Okay, I personally liked the fight with the foxes, enjoyed it a lot, (note: the foxes speak in their language, I didn't want to write their conversation in their language, such as "growl, reowr arf arf, meow rawr," that would look pretty stupid as part of the chapter, yet interesting to see how you would react, lols). I had to make the foxes use the Kyuubi's chakra, just had to use it . The ending of this chapter was a bit moopy and sad, but leaving Sasuke's dead body behind was basically my only option. What else could I have done? Have Kakashi carry around a dead body for the rest of the story and bury him in the backyard of his house? So yeah, I hope you liked it, and again, if you cried (that's an 'if'), be honest, but I personally didn't cry myself but did have the whole, "oh my god, I feel so sorry for Sakura" thing. But anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did, now reviews please .