A/N: IT IS SEVEN AM AND NARUTO CHAPTER 685 FUCKED ME UP IT FUCKED ME UP. SO HERE YOU GO SS-NESS THAT IS NOTHING COMPARED TO CANON BECAUSE. CHAPTER 685.
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"Sakura-chan!"
She pressed her lips into a hard line.
Naruto stood next to a tall brunette she did not recognize, which made her intensely anxious, and Hyuuga Hinata with her Byakugan-active stare of weariness. They all wore white cloaks and had one of Kakashi's summons growled alongside them.
Her mind was racing with connecting the dots; they sought after her deliberately, so this wasn't just some shit luck. They were actively searching for her and Sasuke. With Kakashi's summon with them - and without the actual Copy Ninja - it was probably acting as a communication system between them. The brown haired man looked old enough to be a squad leader in his absence.
Sakura felt her jaw locking with irritation. She could not take them all.
The snake on her left shoulder flickered and twitched in irritation. "You seem to have terrible luck, Sssssakura-chan. What do you plan to do?"
"Not sure yet," she muttered.
But there were a few ideas. She reached minutely to the senbon pouch at the left thigh to slip three poison-coated needles between her knuckles.
Two squad leaders. Two squads. Summons used as a communication system. A communication system meant another team all together would probably end up storming through at any point as backup to overwhelm her if she ended up staying here too long to fight.
Or if they found Sasuke first.
Her knuckles tightened around the needles furiously.
"Sakura-chan, where's the bastard?" Naruto asked, still grinning triumphantly at her as she processed the scene. Her focus broke, brought back to him. "Is he close by? Did you leave him?"
Sakura was shaking her head before he even finished talking. "Don't get your hopes up, Naruto. We're still together," she said - whether she meant it as a lover or as a teammate or as an accomplice to the blood he wanted to shed, she wasn't sure. Regardless, watching Naruto's face crumple in on itself in confusion made the guilt sieze up her throat for a long time. "Sasuke and I still have a lot of work to be done away from Konoha."
She didn't expect the kunai sailing over her left shoulder, nearly impaling her summons. But Sakura had raised a brow at the off-trajectory of the weapon and let it sail just by her ear.
Ansei hissed in fury, slithering around her back to rest by her ear. "The impudent little brat!"
"You're always hanging around slimy snake bastards!" Naruto shouted furiously, pointing an indignant finger at her with bugged out eyes and a snarling face. "We know Orochimaru and Kabuto are dead! Why the hell do you guys think you have to run around chasing after Itachi when you should just come home so we can just help you!?"
"It doesn't work like that, Naruto!" she shot back. Her patience was suddenly strung taut, the urge to scream and shake this boy until he understood running hot through her veins. "Sasuke doesn't want anyone's involvement in trying to kill Itachi - especially not Konoha! He's needs to do this on his own!"
"So then why the hell are you with him!? If he wants to do it all on his own, then why did you even go with him in the first place!?" Naruto screamed, clenched fists shaking with poorly concealed rage. Hinata and the brunette watched him carefully, the rage in his eyes flickering violently. "You-you left, Sakura! Both of you! And you didn't care enough about who you were leaving behind to even say goodbye!"
"We made a choice!" Sakura hissed, sharp control and icy anger a vice around her throat. He was not going to just blame them like that - she refused. This was so much more than just his hurt feelings. This was nearly three years of her blood splattered against cold, concrete walls to protect a boy serving himself to the hellfire that brewed inside of him. "Accept that! Sasuke needs me more than ever now, and I am going to be there! This isn't just about you bringing home your friends, Naruto! It's bigger than that!"
"Yeah it is! It's me bringing home my brother and sister!"
She locked her jaw, fists biting down on the inside of her cheek for a moment to ebb away the sharp stinging of her eyes. The clock was ticking. "Talking is useless. I'm not going to stand here and waste my time," Sakura spat, glaring them all down. "Are you all going to let me pass peacefully, or are you looking for a fight?"
"I am looking for a damn fight!" Naruto shrieked, slipping kunai from underneath his cloak and brandishing them in rage. "Don't pull any genjutsu bullshit like a coward! You come at me with everything you've got right here!"
Sakura barked out a mean laugh, sneering. "As if you could handle me by yourself, Naruto."
He smirked back - bitter, angry, too young to looked that jaded. "As if you could handle me without Sasuke!"
The blood in her body boiled in fury as she swallowed back he lividity. "You wanna know what I spent my time doing in Sound? Training. Harder than you and Sasuke ever had to. And I learned a lot. I can test out everything I know on you any time you want," she hissed, blades at her lips, aiming for whatever she could get his hands on.
Sakura was not prideful, but at this moment, with the kindest boy in the world hurling insults at her like she couldn't rip the ground into two right under his feet, she found pride held in the palm of her hands that had bleed hard enough to fill an ocean. She found pride to brandish and protect, a sword sharp enough to give wound no jutsu of her's could heal.
"Enough. We have on-sight capture orders on you and Sasuke Uchiha," the brunette spat, stepping before Naruto in a defensive position. There was sharp, clean precision, already deciphering where he wanted to cut her open. "Are you going to surrender peacefully, or are you looking to instigate a fight?"
Sakura lifted the arm unoccupied with the hidden senbon from her cloak, offering her hand for Ansei to slither onto. Her head lifted to her gaze, eyes bright and black and filled with intellect. "Go and tell Sasuke that we have two Leaf teams in the surrounding area tracking us, and that I'll be held up for a little bit," she spoke in a bored tone, not bothering to lower her voice. The snake flickered it's tongue in assent and disappeared in a thin puff of smoke.
"How did you know?" Hinata asked mutedly while the other two mutedly blanched.
"Not really that hard to figure out, Hinata," Sakura drawled. She pointed to the large, spiked-collar bulldog with her free hand. "I also know Kakashi-sensei's summons are keeping you connected to the other team, right? Really innovative, if not a little obvious."
Before they could answer she let the needles fly, watching them embed themselves into the ninken's throat.
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Strength was not something she prided herself on. She had no exceptionally large chakra supplies, no matter how many soldier pills she could shove down her throat.
She couldn't throw a worthwhile punch to save her life.
Chakra scalpels did always did the dirty work instead. Sakura could speed through her enemies faster than the air could slip past their lips in a gasp, but the soft green knives that flickered and glowed split flesh more neatly with surgical precision she'd practiced. Her left hand found the muscles of Hinata's right arm, severing them from her use. Her right hand found a Naruto shadow clone's gut, bursting it into smoke and a choked shout. Every single hit was a calculated move, ten steps ahead of where they would plant their foot for a second strike. Even if it was so much harder to incapacitate than kill, she would do whatever it took.
This was how she had learned, and this was how she had bled. This is how she will fight - with more brain than the brawn she could not compensate for.
So when wood rose from the ground and encased her body restrictively, she writhed angrily against her restraints and pretended she wasn't fast enough to avoid it.
"Naruto, Hinata, fall back," the wood-user snapped, his hands clasped in the snake seal. Hinata leaped back obediently, clutching onto her arm with bitter pain and a glowing palm.
But Naruto stood in place, grinning at Sakura and wiping blood from his mouth. She watched the knuckles in his right hand clench. "You've gotten real strong, Sakura-chan," he declared, smiling harsh and feral. Almost gloating, but kinder. Proud.
"I got real smart too," Sakura allowed, blood on her teeth through the split lip of her smile.
He watched the clone's skin crack and crumble into dirt in horror.
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"A clone!?" Naruto shrieked, whirling his head around in search. "Hinata!"
But waiting above in the treeline, Sakura didn't give her a chance. In one hand, she threw down another volley of senbon, and the other, several smoke bombs she hoped were enough to clear the area. She formed another shadow clone, that poofed into existence beside her on the tree.
For a half second - one she could not surely afford - Sakura was struck by how pale and feral she looked. Crouched down with black smoke enveloping the background, her pink hair that was pulled back from her face against whitewashed skin made the rest of her look sharp. Dangerous. The baby that still lingered on her face seemed so nonexistent with the anxious clench to it's jaw.
But then she snapped out of it.
"Lead them as far away from here as possible," she whispered, watching the clone, spring across the field and into the opposite set of trees, sprinting over the branches and beyond.
The real Sakura masked her chakra completely, hearing Naruto shout and sprint after the clone, with Hinata and the wood-ninjutsu user following after him as fast as they could. Her heartbeat pulsed painfully in her throat, hoping and praying she couldn't be seen.
Anxious seconds ticked by until she was sure they'd disappeared. Sakura scuttled over on the branch, pressing her body to the tree trunk and breathing deep and hard. She clenched down on the bark beneath her thighs and shook until she'd calmed herself down.
Ansei poofed to life in front of her.
She almost peed herself.
"I've relayed the information. Sssssasuke-kun is quite busy right now. He'ssss currently battling against two memberssss of Akatssssuki...though it doesn't look like you need asssssisssstance anymore, hm?" Ansei snake wondered, looking toward the clearing filled with fading smoke, completely ignoring her sudden shock.
"What!? His brother?"
"No. Neither fit the description of Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame."
The sudden spark of tension left Sakura's stomach at once. "How's he doing?" she asked. The snake nodded it little scale head.
"Quite well, considering the circumstances."
Not quite well? What the hell was that supposed to mean? She knew for a fact that no snake summons would dare speak ill of Sasuke - moreso out of fear than respect - was that supposed to translate into sort of struggling or royally screwed?
Sakura sighed, standing from the tree branching and reaching an arm down for the snake to slithering onto her arm back onto her shoulder. "I don't have enough chakra to use a Doton to travel all the way back to where he is, and there's no time for me to go running back. I can't even sense him from here," she muttered, crossing her arms. An idea formed in her mind, hazy and slightly disgusting. Her right arm shifted over to the inside of her left wrist, pressing down hard on her summoning tattoo. "Go back, Ansei. I need a larger summon."
Indignant, creature slithered out from her shoulder, twisting its body in front of her so it would look her in the face. "I have been more than ssssuficient!" the snake hissed angrily. Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Well, I'm sorry. Can you fit me into your mouth?" she spat.
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For a minute, Sakura thought that her sliding out of a tree-sized snake's mouth was probably the weirdest position Sasuke has seen her in.
And definitely the least attractive.
But when she'd ended her chant of "ew ew ew ew ew fucking disgusting" and the summons disappeared with a disgruntled hiss, she scrambled to her feet and looked around. The sight before her eyes had her blatantly confused and standing mutely for a few seconds. Her eyes were glued to the blonde man, skin made of ink threads. She stared for a moment, enraptured by the oddity of his appearance in the clearing smelling too strongly of smoke.
"Sakura!" Sasuke roared, calling her attention to him.
She rushed over to him, noting his beaten and bloodied state, his shirt completely forgotten. Sakura fell to her knees beside him, putting her arm around his waist and his arm over her shoulder, attempting to stand with him. "I'm here to save your ass," the pink haired girl muttered, all the heroics lost on her as thought about how irritatingly heavy Sasuke was. "Please try and look a little happier."
"Your backup isn't going to do anything for you now!" the ink-thread man shrieked at her, laughing and grinning maliciously at her.
Sakura ignored him.
"What is he supposed to be?" she asked Sasuke wearily.
"He turned himself into a bomb," Sasuke hissed through grit teeth. "Ten kilometer radius. We need to be gone now."
"On it," Sakura muttered, shifting her arms around his waist to bring her hands into seals.
And before the Earth swallowed them whole, and before the hysterical ink-thread man could say any more, he burst into a hot white light that seared the edges of her skin raw and blinded her eyes like a malevolent sun.
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Long minutes passed between them, hidden deep inside the Earth as they waited for the ground to stop shaking.
The space around them was a deep black, no light from the surface permeating through. Sakura could only feel - Sasuke managed to dominate every single sense from where she'd sat on his outstretched legs. His forehead was pressed into the crook of her neck, his hair tickling the edges of her neck and his breath fanning over her collar bones. His arms wound around her held her in a bruising grip he hadn't bothered to let up yet.
She sighed, head leaning back against the rock as she shifted and arced against him. Her hand pulled away from his shoulder to his chest.
"Thank you," Sasuke said suddenly, breaking the silence. She tried to control the smile pulling at her face.
"Any time. I knew today would suck," Sakura murmured, the space around them glowing alight with green healing chakra. She saw the burns and bruises along Sasuke's back from over his shoulder and her jaw locked up in anger. "I felt it."
"I felt it more than you did," Sasuke said through a sigh. Sakura didn't bother hiding her snickers.
"Well, whatever. It's not over yet," Sakura replied, biting down on her lip. The mirth flooded out of her system. "Ansei filled you in, right?"
She felt him shrug against her. "Yeah...it's inconvenient, but not a total set back. We'll just evade them as much as possible and try to find a way to lose them," Sasuke replied, beginning to straighten up. He pushed her hand away from his chest. "Save your chakra. You're going to need it."
The light from Sakura's hand extinguished, throwing them into the blackness once more. "I'm not sure how far off I led Naruto and his platoon. Maybe a couple hours. Hebi is probably going to come here too. How are we supposed to get to Hebi?" she asked him in a meek voice. "How are we supposed to evade an entire team of Leaf and keep searching for Intel? They have all of Kakashi-sensei's summons with them."
"We'll figure it out," Sasuke said. She sighed, reached out in the dark until she found his hand and clasped it hard in her own.
"You're going to get hurt, and I'm not sure how well I can cushion the blow," Sakura whispered, voice swallowed by the dark.
"I'm ready. You knew I was ready when I told you we were going to kill Orochimaru, and you knew I was ready when we put together Hebi." Sasuke squeezed back, long and hard before letting his grip go slack. "Itachi will pay for his crimes. I'm ready for this to end right now."
"Promise you'll come back," Sakura whispered.
They stayed quiet for a long time, and she tried counting her heartbeats, tried bringing down her breaths from their hard and oxygen-less gasps, but all she knew was the brush of his callouses against hers in a bone-cracking grip when there was nothing in the blackness but him. All she knew was the shift of her arm from their legs to his chin. All she knew was his breath against her fingers as he kissed her knuckles.
"I promise," he breathed - promised, vowed, swore - onto her skin, "that I will always come back to you."
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A/N: INSPIRED BY MY UNCONTROLLABLE FEELINGS FOR NARUTO CHAPTER 685. Also no new chapter for a little while bc I have to finish rereading the rest of the Itachi Pursuit arc and someone might find me dead on my laptop next Wednesday morning FROM SASUSAKU HOT FLASHES. PLEASE REVIEW. LOVE U.