Greetings! I'm very relieved that there's still an audience for this story, so I'm going to do my best to get updates out a little more regularly. As always, reviews are welcome and appreciated.

Warnings: language and a bit of violence

Date: 9/12/09

Edit: There seems to have been a problem with the original posting. Let's hope this time it works.

Chapter 17: My Enemy, My Friend

Orochimaru was not letting Sasuke see through his eyes this time. The young man had screamed himself hoarse in an attempt to get the snake's attention, but the sannin was being uncharacteristically quiet. Sasuke didn't know where they were or what Orochimaru had done with Naruto. He also didn't know how to get himself out of the predicament he was in. Now that he had known freedom, even if it'd only been for a little while, Sasuke wanted it back, and had resolved to fight the snake to get it. The fight may end up in the destruction of Sasuke's mind, but at least he'd go down fighting.

A blood-curdling scream invaded the quiet of Sasuke's mind. The sound left goose bumps on his skin, and when Sasuke realized who it belonged to, he felt himself go numb.

"You wanted to watch, Sasuke-kun, so have your fill."

Sasuke's view shifted from the training ground in his mind to the inside of a tent. The lighting was low, so it took him a while for his eyes to adjust. At first, he thought that he'd somehow gotten control of his body again, but Orochimaru put Sasuke in his place as soon as he tried to move.

"Watch, Sasuke-kun, and know that you're helpless to do anything about it."

Kabuto stood in front of Naruto with a hand held to the blonde's forehead. The red glow from Kabuto's hand formed a halo around Naruto's head, turning his blue eyes a disturbing shade of purple. Naruto looked to be standing as well, but as Sasuke's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that the only thing holding Naruto against the wooden post at his back was Kabuto's hand. Naruto's hands came up and pushed against Kabuto. The elder ninja stumbled, but his grip on Naruto's forehead did not break. A spark of blue drew Sasuke's attention to Naruto's wrists, and he noticed that Naruto's hands were cuffed with Kabuto's special, chakra-draining cuffs. The more chakra Naruto tried to use, the quicker it would be drained out of him.

Naruto screamed again. When the sound faded, Kabuto spoke.

"Tell me how to get rid of it."

"I won't tell you anything," Naruto said, as if ever word was being forced from his throat.

"Then you're not as intelligent as I thought," Kabuto replied. The red glow from his hand intensified, and Naruto took a breath to scream again. Nothing but a strangled choke emerged, though.

"Why are you doing this?" Sasuke asked Orochimaru, fighting the helplessness, rage, and worry that were building up in his gut. He wouldn't put it past the snake to simply torture Naruto because he wanted to, but Orochimaru was usually more methodical and didn't expand resources unless he had to, and Kabuto was Orochimaru's most valuable resource.

The view changed again, and Sasuke found himself once again in the training area in his mind. He was facing a smug Orochimaru who had his arms crossed over his chest.

"I need to know how to get rid of the seal," Orochimaru told him.

Sasuke didn't immediately know what Orochimaru was talking about. A memory of him starting at himself in the mirror in his family home flashed through his mind, however, which provided a clear image of the seal.

"Why do you need to remove it?" Sasuke asked.

Orochimaru's smugness turned to suspicion and he examined Sasuke as one would a bug about to be dissected. He must have come to a conclusion, because the suspicion left his face.

"You don't know what they did to your body, do you?" Orochimaru asked, leaving no doubt as to who 'they' were. "You never asked?"

It dawned on Sasuke that he had never asked Sakura and Naruto for specific details about how they'd created and activated the seal that had supposedly killed Orochimaru. Now, he was glad that he hadn't. He couldn't give Orochimaru information he didn't have.

"And people said that you couldn't trust anyone. How wrong they were," Orochimaru said. "You don't need to be privy to the details of why I need the seal removed, but I will give you control of your body if you agree to persuade Naruto to tell me what I want to know."

Sasuke shook his head. "No. If Naruto won't tell you, then it's something you don't need to know."

Orochimaru's face contorted in anger, before he caught himself and schooled his features into a mask of indifference.

"You'll save his life," the snake said.

"No, I won't. You'll kill him anyway once you have the information you want," Sasuke replied.

"Suit yourself," Orochimaru said and left Sasuke alone, deaf and blind to the outside once again.

It was dark by the time Sakura, Kakashi, and Shikamaru made it to the enemy camp. They picked a spot just outside the perimeter of it, far enough away not to alert the enemy ninja to their presence, but close enough to see what they were dealing with.

"There's not many of them," Sakura commented as they settled into their chosen spot.

Kakashi nodded agreement as he swung the binoculars from one end of the camp to another. There were half a dozen tents, but the tents didn't look like they could hold more than a dozen people at a time.

"It doesn't look like they plan on being here long," Kakashi said and handed the binoculars to Shikamaru. "They're probably not even the main attack force, not if Orochimaru really is here. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on an attack coming from the opposite direction, with these ninja as a second wave."

The thought of yet another attack on Konoha by Orochimaru's minions brought images of the last time his village had been attacked and the many lives that had been lost. Kakashi had to force himself to think of something else before his mind went down that depressing path. He couldn't afford the sentimentality at the moment. It was a shame that Orochimaru no longer had a body of his own, because Kakashi would sure love to put his hands around that slender neck and break it.

"We can't do anything here on our own," Shikamaru commented. "It would be suicide to engage any of these men."

"That's why we're not going to engage them," Kakashi said, "not if we can help it. We're here to get Naruto… and Sasuke if we can get him," he added when he saw the pleading look Sakura gave him.

He understood his former student's sentiments. He even shared them to some extent. Kakashi didn't want to kill Sasuke. He wanted to give the young man every opportunity to fight off the snake in his head that he could. Unfortunately, Kakashi couldn't jeopardize the lives of his teammates, or the villagers, for his personal feelings, especially since the person he wanted so badly to save happened to be host to their greatest enemy.

"We need to find out where Naruto is first," Shikamaru, always the voice of reason, said.

" It shouldn't be too hard," Kakashi commented, motioning to take in the camp as a whole. "There aren't a lot of places where they could hide him."

"If he's here at all," Sakura said. "Orochimaru could have stopped here to check the troops and then left with Naruto."

Sakura's face twisted into a grimace when she said Orochimaru's name, but was otherwise keeping herself together and acting as professional as always. Not that Kakashi thought she'd do otherwise. One of the things he'd always admired about Sakura, even back when she was first assigned to him as a genin, was how well she conducted herself. At times, she even put her male teammates to shame. As she grew as a ninja, Sakura's confidence had only soared, making her one of the village's best ninja. Kakashi had never had reservations about having her on a team with him, and he had no doubt that even now, with this mission as personal as it was for her, she'd have his back if it came down to it.

"That is a possibility," Kakashi acknowledged, "but unlikely. Orochimaru has nowhere else to go now that Oto has been destroyed. This camp, as small as it is, provides him with a base from which to not only carry out the attack he's obviously been planning for a while now, but allow him to deal with Naruto."

"Why take Naruto, though?" Shikamaru wondered. "Yes, Naruto is very powerful, but Orochimaru has dealt with Naruto in the past with little difficulty."

"Maybe he just wanted to prove to us that he could," Sakura said.

Shikamaru shook his head. "I doubt it. We all know what a handful Naruto can be when he wants to. If Orochimaru wanted to prove to us that he could get to anyone, killing Naruto would have been a much less troublesome option. Orochimaru wants something from Naruto we just need to figure out what it is."

"That's good then," Kakashi said.

"Orochimaru will keep Naruto alive," Sakura said, quickly picking up on Kakashi's train of thought.

"Until he gets what he wants, at least," Shikamaru said. "Naruto can be stubborn, so we can safely assume that he'll give the snake a lot of trouble."

"We'll just have to find him before then," Sakura said.

"I suggest splitting up," Shikamaru said. "We can cover much more ground that way. We can meet up back here in an hour to check in and compare notes. It's dark, so it'll be easier for us to move around the camp."

"Good idea," Kakashi said. He directed his team in which direction he wanted them to search, and they split up, hoping that when they next checked in, they'd have Naruto with them.

Naruto didn't know where he was when he woke up, but the fact that one of his eyes was swollen shut and hurt along with his entire body gave him a clue that he was not somewhere he wanted to be. He was not only in pain, but he felt 'off' somehow. He couldn't name the feeling, but his body felt unbalanced. Naruto closed his eyes and focused his chakra so that he could get a better idea of where his injuries were, but instead found the chakra being violently pulled from him. He gasped and opened his eyes to find that his hands were being held together by pair of silver handcuffs. The cuffs were glowing blue with the chakra that had just been pulled out of his body, and a chain carried it away into a silver container.

He pulled at the cuffs, but there was no give to them. A second chain linked the cuffs to a nearby pole, giving Naruto very little room to move around. He tried to force more chakra into the cuffs in hopes that the overload might help him break them, but all it did was drain that much more chakra out of him. The demon's chakra might work better, but Naruto wasn't desperate enough to try that just yet.

Naruto shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position, and ended up sitting cross-legged facing the post he was cuffed to. The entrance to the tent was at his back, which Naruto didn't like, but the length of the chain wouldn't allow him to turn around. All part of Kabuto's plan, Naruto was sure.

"Son of a bitch," Naruto said, thinking of the traitor. "I should have made sure that he was dead when I had the chance."

Naruto grimaced at his sore and aching throat, and felt a rush of shame at the screams he could still hear in his head from the interrogation session. While it was disturbing that Kabuto knew about the seal he and Sakura had created to contain Orochimaru, it was somewhat comforting that the man hadn't been able to figure out how to get rid of it. Naruto made a promise to himself that Kabuto would not find out how to do it from him. He'd rather die first.

Thoughts of Orochimaru eventually led to the conversation he'd had with Sasuke in the woods of Konoha. Naruto had said a lot of things that, while he may have meant them at the time, were more the alcohol talking than anything else. Naruto wondered if Sasuke had participated in any of that conversation, or if it had mainly been Orochimaru pulling the strings.

Orochimaru… Naruto's head dropped until his forehead was resting against the post. He and Sakura had screwed something up with the seal, because there was no other way that Orochimaru could still be in Sasuke's body. Naruto's stomach churned with disappointment. They thought they'd been right. What if their arrogance had made things even worse for Sasuke? What if, this time, they couldn't get him back?

The sound of sliding cloth indicated that someone else had entered the tent, and Naruto tensed. His keen ears allowed him to follow the person's movement until the man was standing behind him. Naruto's jaw clenched and a shiver of fear went through him when he recognized the unique chakra and realized that it was Orochimaru.

After a few minutes, Orochimaru walked in front of Naruto. The snake's face was unreadable, but the volatile chakra radiating off of him was an indicator of inner turmoil. He and Orochimaru stared at each other for a while, Naruto hoping to find some sign of his friend in the golden eyes.

"I hear you're being difficult, Naruto," Orochimaru finally said. "You're not telling Kabuto what he needs to know."

"What makes you think that I know anything?" Naruto replied.

"The seal is made with your chakra," the snake replied. "Feigning ignorance is futile."

"Well, you know what they say about me, don't you? They're right, I am dumb."

Naruto didn't register Orochimaru's hand until it had struck the side of his face, sending him sprawling onto the floor. The impact sent a wave of pain through him and his vision went black for a second. When he came back to, Orochimaru was holding him up by the front of his shirt, their faces inches apart.

"Why don't you tell me what I want to know?" he asked.

"Sasuke's body belongs to him, not you," Naruto said. "You have no right to take it."

"Sasuke gave me his body willingly," the snake replied. "I didn't take him from his village, he came to me."

Orochimaru let go of Naruto's shirt, sending him to the floor once again. Naruto picked himself up and faced the snake. The face was still blank, the eyes still golden.

'Come on, Sasuke, take control,' Naruto silently pleaded, 'I know you can do it.'

"You manipulated him, made him believe that he had no other choice but to come to you for power," Naruto countered. "That doesn't count as free will."

Orochimaru laughed, and it made Naruto shiver. He'd rarely heard Sasuke laugh, but Naruto was sure that if he did hear it, it wouldn't sound as evil as it did now.

"Is it so hard to believe that Sasuke was so driven by his hatred and desire for revenge that he'd be willing to do everything to attain the power to kill his brother and avenge his family? Can you not accept the fact that he valued his hatred more than the friendship you thought you had?"

"Sasuke is messed up, has been since his brother killed his entire clan. That doesn't make him a heartless, cold-blooded killer. It doesn't make him a man without a conscience, without regret. I believed in him when he left the village and I believe in him now."

Orochimaru's face twisted in anger. He sped through a series of seals that Naruto couldn't see, grabbed Naruto by the shirt and then placed a hand on Naruto's stomach, much like he'd done in the forest of Konoha. Naruto felt a rush of power, and then he felt as if he were burning from the inside out. He clenched his teeth and tried to ride out the pain, but it wouldn't stop. Finally, he couldn't take any more and he screamed.

"Tell me how to remove the seal and I'll end this," Orochimaru said.

Naruto was tempted, but he wouldn't betray his friend. He wouldn't allow Orochimaru to take over Sasuke's body once again, not when there was still a chance that Sasuke could beat him.

"Your choice," Orochimaru said.

The pain continued, until Naruto could take no more and he blacked out. He didn't know how long he was out for, but he came around to the sound of his name being called. The burning was gone, but he ached everywhere. Every heart beat sent a wave of pain through him.

"Naruto, wake up."

The voice sounded familiar, and friendly, so Naruto decided to do what it said and opened his eyes. He came face to face with golden eyes. He recoiled, but wasn't able to go very far as the cuff pulled him back towards the pole.

"Calm down, you'll only make it worse."

The malice was gone from the voice, which prompted Naruto to examine the face more closely. The eyes were still gold, but the snake-like slit was gone. There was also a touch of red in them, and a pain and loneliness that most people had never bothered to notice, but that Naruto had always connected with.

"Sasuke?"

The other man nodded. "For now," he added. "I don't know how long I can keep control."

Sasuke formed a thin blade with his chakra and sliced the cuffs off of him. He then stood to give Naruto room to get up. It took Naruto quite a while to get himself together enough to get up. When he was on his feet, he felt dizzy and would have fallen had Sasuke not grabbed him.

"What did he do to me?" Naruto asked.

"Orochimaru placed the Five Elements Seal over the Fourth's seal," Sasuke explained. "Your chakra and that of the fox aren't mixing like they're supposed to. Orochimaru was simply manipulating that."

"Can you undo it?" Naruto asked.

"No," Sasuke said. "Orochimaru has the knowledge, but I don't want to risk probing for it right now."

Naruto looked down at the seal again and closed his eyes. His chakra felt out of control. It felt especially worse around the seal, and it scared him to realize that he couldn't feel the fox's chakra at all. He opened his eyes and turned to Sasuke, but found a kunai pointed at his face. Before Naruto could react, Sasuke flipped it and offered Naruto the dull end.

"What is that for?" Naruto asked.

"Get rid of Orochimaru once and for all," Sasuke said. "Here's your chance."

Naruto shook his head. "Are you kidding? After all the trouble Sakura and I went through for the seals to get rid of Orochimaru? I'm not going to kill you, Sasuke. We'll just have to find out what went wrong with the seal and fix it."

"You're a fool," Sasuke said. "Your sentimentality is going to get a lot of your friends, and maybe even yourself, killed. If I were you, I'd eliminate the threat while I had the chance."

"Lucky that you're not me then," Naruto said. He took the kunai from Sasuke and imbedded it into the pole he'd been bound to. "We need to get out of here."

When Sasuke didn't say anything, Naruto walked into Sasuke's personal space and stared his friend down. "You don't expect me to let you stay here and become Orochimaru's host again, do you? I won't kill you, but I'm also not going to let you give Orochimaru a way with which to kill more people. You are coming with me."

"Going with you where, the village? If they weren't openly hostile to me before, they certainly will be once they find out Orochimaru isn't completely dead."

Naruto started pacing, his mind churning through what could have gone wrong with the seal. "Kabuto knew about the seal, and he was desperate to find out how to remove it. Why?"

"I don't know. I don't even know what you did to me." Sasuke replied. "Orochimaru told me that he hid a piece of his consciousness in my mind…" he trailed off and Naruto could see that his friend was deep in thought. "It was probably the poison," Sasuke continued, "that's when I started having the blackouts. That poison in Kabuto's snakes might have been the trigger to awaken that piece of Orochimaru's conscience."

Naruto grinned. "The seal must be keeping Orochimaru from completely taking over, that's why he wants it removed. Sasuke, if you destroy that remaining piece of Orochimaru, you'll be free of him once and for all."

Sasuke smirked. "You make it sound so easy."

"You're the pride of the Uchiha clan, you can do anything."

Sasuke ignored the comment. "Is there anything you can do with the seal to give me time to fight him. I can't try and destroy him if he takes over the body. He's unreachable then."

Naruto thought about it for a while. "The seal is tied to my chakra. It fed the seal when I formed it, and it's specifically made to keep Orochimaru out. It's possible that if I feed it more chakra it may suppress Orochimaru for a while. Do you think you can take the snake on, Sasuke-bastard?"

Naruto expected a cocky response from Sasuke, but the fear that crossed his face scared Naruto.

"Sasuke?"

"I guess we'll find out. We need to get started now, before Orochimaru takes over again and lets Kabuto do a little more interrogation.

Naruto shuddered. "Yes, we don't want that. Tell me how to get out of here and we can get started."

Sasuke told him the route he'd taken to get there and how far away from Konoha they were. Sasuke also told him where the guards were posted outside and how to get out of the camp and into the surrounding forest. When Naruto thought he had a plan in mind, he approached Sasuke again.

"I need to see the seal."

Sasuke raised his shirt and exposed his chest. Naruto held his hand inches over the seal, but didn't touch it. It glowed blue just from the presence of the chakra that had created it. Sasuke stiffened.

"Do it now, Naruto, Orochimaru is stirring."

Naruto gathered chakra, gritting his teeth at the pain it caused him, and guided it to his hand. When he had enough, he placed the hand over the seal and shoved the chakra into Sasuke's chest. Sasuke's eyes widened and a strangled gasp escaped his throat. The eyes went from yellow to black, before closing. Sasuke slumped and Naruto caught him before he could fall and then lowered both of them to the ground. Naruto was shaking from sudden exhaustion and pain. How the hell was he supposed to carry Sasuke and get them both out of here?

"I guess we'll find out," Naruto said, quoting Sasuke.

He picked up his friend and slowly made his way out of the tent, hoping to make it to the forest before they were both killed.

Cliffhangers are evil, I know, but we're at a point in the story where things are coming together so we've got a lot of action going on. The end is near, I promise!