Chapter Thirteen: Darkness Falls--Twilight on the Horizon

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!!

Sakura spun away from Kabuto's hand with several inches to spare...but the thin slip still tore and a small line of blood appeared on her hip.

Sasuke lay against the wall, shaking his head in an attempt to recover from a well-placed blow to the base of his skull.

Watching through his sharigan, he realized they were almost equal: Sakura's superior control allowed her to form and maintain a longer blade while Kabuto's experience resulted in closer misses.

Turning away from Kabuto's next thrust, Sakura glanced at Sasuke. He probably had a concussion and she needed to get to him.

Clenching her teeth, she blocked Kabuto's blade with her own: It had been an even battle; neither had landed a decisive hit--partially because neither of them was foolish enough to block with their wrists as they might in a goken battle because it would expose an artery--and both were effective at evasion. Still, all of them were holding back: Kabuto couldn't kill them because he would be destroying years of research, Sakura couldn't use her strength because of their subterranian position, and the narrow chamber simply didn't allot enough room for Sasuke to implement his Chidori.

As Sakura spun away from another blow, Sasuke charged between them...oblivious to the fact that Kabuto's blade was now aligned with his aorta.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried as she tackled him, pushing him aside as the chakra blade slid deeply into her hip.

They landed hard, rolling with the force of the impact in opposite directions.

"Sasuke!" Sakura called, trying to stanch the flow of blood with her hand.

"Sakura! Look out!"

Her head snapped back and she realized Kabuto was bearing down on her...his hand tightened around a curved kunai.

Sakura slid away to slowly and a piece of her arm give underneath the blade.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself up. Medically, the curved blade was useful for lifting barbed weapons from a patient without the risk of overlooking one that might later become infected. But in battle, they turned simple lacerations into gaping wounds because they tore away entire chunks of flesh.

To stretch her rapidly falling chakra levels, Sakura skimmed over the wound in her hip and left the hole in her arm relatively untouched. Instead, she forced more chakra into her palms and feet.

'Think, Sakura, think!' The kunoichi yelled at herself while parrying Kabuto's senbon with her bare hands.

"Sasuke! Fire Ball Jutsu!" She yelled as she slid back from the force of Kabuto's blow.

"What?"

"Now!" She snapped.

Praying that she knew what she was doing, Sasuke sent the fire art directly at her. But rather than incinerating her...or anything else for the matter, it shifted, slipping into an orb around her form.

Sakura compressed her chakra into the smallest, densest point she could and then she released it, scattering the energy into the air in a ratio proportional to the air molecules.

"What the...!" Kabuto gasped as the flames fell into a slipstream that tore directly at him.

"Now!" Sakura cried, dragging Sasuke into the next air vent...to freedom.

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They ran.

They ran, ignoring their surroundings until the compound disappeared not only from sight, but from all of their senses. Reluctantly, they slowed to a walk.

Sasuke walked ahead absent-mindedly until he saw Sakura veered aside and fall at a tree, using its trunk for support.

"Are you alright?" He asked as he knelt beside her.

She nodded, her breath coming in heavy gasp and sheen of sweat running down her chest.

And then he realized how dangerously low her chakra levels were.

"What did you do back there?" He demanded.

"I concentrated my chakra into the smallest possible point, then, using my masking chakra, I calculated the proportions of nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen particles. Then I threaded my chakra thorugh these particles to direct the slip stream." She replied.

"You need to be more careful." Sasuke smirked, ruffling her hair before lifting her onto his back.

At first she protested, weakly, but valiantly, and then she fell into an uneasy slumber.

The kind of sleep that was regularly punctuated by the knowledge that she hadn't finished anything...

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Sakura slept in Sasuke arms and in the middle of the night, her eyes fluttered open. And, perhaps it was her imagination, but the moon seemed more damning that guiding.

TBC