Edge of the Kunai

by Hecate's Slumber

The life of a ninja is one seeped in death. They are merciless shadows, and survival is everything. Enter a reimagining where bonds become stronger, Naruto becomes smarter, Sasuke experiences human companionship amidst death, and Sakura becomes strong enough to stand on equal footing with the boys, physically and emotionally, and Team 7 becomes a real team.

7. Part I: The Forge, Chapter VI

Disclaimer: I still do not own Naruto or Naruto Shippuden. I am not profiting off of this piece.

A/N: Hi! Finals are done and I'm not sick anymore so hopefully that means more frequent updates! In this chapter, the plot thickens a little. I hoped to create a bit of an ambiguous sense of right and wrong in this piece. Next chapter will include more interaction between all three of them. Thank you so much for your support! I really do enjoy every single comment, follow, and favorite that this story gets! Please continue to be amazing, and Let me know what you think about this chapter!

~Rox

After the leers died down, the silence was deafening. Eyes stared at her. Waiting. The ground beneath her bare feet was earthen. A slow melody sliced through the still air and echoed hauntingly against the metal grates. Sakura arched a small, dainty foot and applied enough pressure to rise onto the ball of her foot. Her other leg nestled tightly against her chest, and her body curled around the limb, as if protecting it. She rotated slowly to the somber sound of a single xun.

-0—

He laid back against the table as cold fingers ran across the newly repaired flesh across his stomach. She poked at the raw, red skin, and the boy flinched. She asked no questions. Instead, she called over her shoulder. "Kenta-san?"

Kenta entered the room. "Yes?"

The woman gestured to Naruto. "The vessel is prepared. We can ship it out now. It will reach the capital by midnight if sent now."

It. The term caused bile to rise in the back of his throat. Always an it. His eyes harshened as memories of Konoha flooded through his brain. Memories of being pushed to the ground. He could almost hear the disdain dripping from the mask salesman's voice when the kitsune mask was thrown at his face. IT. Subhuman. The anger welled up in Naruto. He clenched his fists as the dark chakra within him swirled in excitement.

-0—

With a crescendo in the xun's melody, Sakura gradually straightened her back and pulled her raised leg downwards so that the arch of her foot rested against her other leg's upper thigh as she spun. With a tentative raise of the arm, she wove the red silk ribbon presented to her by Kakashi in an intricate circle above her head. Her back arched into the spin.

-0—

Red. Everything red. Dark, bright liquid scorching pathways down, down pale, putrefying flesh before seeping into the wooden floorboards beneath him. Sasuke stared at the bodies that were so familiar and yet utterly foreign. The embrace seemed fragile. Pointless. Tiny crying noises sounded not to far off. His eyes darted around the room, and supplied his brain with images far clearer and detailed than anything he had ever seen before. He located her in seconds. Standing above her, the Uchiha stared with vibrant red eyes down at the body of a small toddler with little buns of black hair tied in place by lilac ribbons. She glanced up at him, and tears streaked down her tanned face.

"Who are you!? Why did you kill okaa-san and otou-san!? Leave me alone! I'll kill you!" It sounded as if her vocal cords were ripping themselves apart as she screamed. The sound was bestial, loud, and powerless all at once. Anger and weakness intermixed into a desperate, pathetic growl.

Sasuke stared down at her silently. His mouth felt dry. He extended a hand to the girl.

She squirmed away from him. "I said go away! I'll kill you! I'm a Kurosawa! Don't think I can't do it! I can! I will kill you!" She held up a drenched katana that barely fit into her tiny hands. Red saturated the blade and dripped off the weapon and onto her face and body. The weight of the weapon caused her arm muscles to tremble. Her eyes narrowed into slits.

-0—

A rhythmic ding of the kagura suzu bells alerted Sakura to the presence of another dancer. She immediately opened her emerald eyes, kicked out her leg, and whipped out her ribbon to follow the arc of her leg in one simultaneous moment. Taiko drums joined the xun and the melody abruptly sped up. Sakura jumped onto both of her feet and swayed her hips outward, mimicking a seductive move she had practiced with Niwa. The ribbon wrapped around her arm, and she would send it out in dramatic spirals to accent the sway of her hips before reigning the ribbon back in and wrapping it around her arm. She sent the ribbon rippling out in front of her as she bent low and exposed black silk panties to the men seated behind the metal grates. That caused an uproar of jeers and catcalls. Emerald eyes met Niwa's, and Niwa tilted her head towards a drunk looking man to her left. Sakura's eyes locked on the man, and she smirked. So this one first.

She wrapped the ribbon around her body as she brought her feet together for a tight two-legged spin that ended with a delicate, balanced kick to the side. She arched her back, her head lolling behind her and facing Niwa again.

Niwa fanned her face with a bright red fan, but Sakura could detect a glint of metal lurking from behind the fan.

Sakura lifted her head and manipulated the ribbon around her body into an elegant, sweeping spiral that extended from the height of her extended arm down to her feet. More dings of kagura suzu bells alerted Sakura to the presence of even more dancers entering. Feet clasped the earth floor before she jumped into the air in a flawless split leap. Her ribbon splayed out in front of her in a dramatic arc. She landed in the center of the dancers and followed their sultry hip sways. She eyed her target. He was very drunk. It seemed that behind each individual metal grate was a private viewing room. So if she got into that room, she would be alone. Green eyes darted around. None of the patrons seemed to be paying attention to her target. Still, she had to make sure that that stayed the case.

Sakura spun her ribbon around her wrist and kept it wrapped around her forearm. Her legs wound together, and she fell to the floor slowly. She crouched to the ground and bent forward so that her face and stomach faced the ground. She undid her obi and unwound her kimono-esque top from her body. She brought the garment up and over her head while her body rested against the ground. Quickly, while her hands were hidden, she performed the genjutsu that she had learned from her scroll. It slowed her apparent movement. From there, she quickly cast a clone jutsu (not a shadow clone, the normal, illusion based type), and in quick succession cast Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu. Sakura disappeared into the earthen floor with her discarded kimono jacket covering the hole. Her clone, clad in only silk underwear and a tight strip of black cloth across small breasts, stood up and started to dance alongside the other women. Catcalls resounded from behind numerous metal grates as perverted eyes stared at the nearly nude body of the young girl. Niwa observed that the dancing Sakura did not cast a shadow upon the ground. She smirked and turned her eyes towards the patron she had indicated for Sakura to take out.

Sakura meanwhile tunneled through the Earth, beneath the metal grates, before arriving at her target. She grabbed his ankle and yanked him down into the Earth while she climbed out. She quickly gagged him with the ribbon that she still had wrapped around her arm.

Sakura raised a fist to the man's head and struck him at the precise point with precise enough pressure to render him unconscious. She glanced through the metal grates and made eye contact with Niwa. Niwa nodded, seemingly pleased. Sakura congratulated herself on having the chakra to pull off that sequence. A week ago, and she could not have done anything she had just done. With the man blocking her entrance to the hole with his head, she quickly draped the curtain to his private viewing room over his head and retreated out of the room. She pressed her back to the wall as she made her way down the dingy corridor. Long shadows and infrequent torches concealed her passage most of the way.

At a cross between corridors, she knelt low to the ground and peered out at the main viewing lounge. Niwa's poisonous laughter met her ears.

Sakura crouched against the wall as she listened to Niwa's conversation.

"Yes, I have heard. Kurosawa Yuuma is a foolish man. Too many hands would pay too much gold for his head here in Fuhai. Staying outside of the capital is suicide. He's probably already dead. Poor Tsubame-chan too. Pity, that woman would have made an enchanting addition to my collection with those rare purple eyes of hers" Niwa said.

A man snorted in response. "Tsubame? Eh? Maybe before she had that child and wrecked her pretty little body. Like any Kurosawa tyrant, the brat kicked and clawed it's way out, nearly murdering it's own mother and imitating the way it would later heartlessly drain us of all our goddamn harvest and money. Goddamn fuckers deserve to be burned and flayed alive. You heard about Emi, right? Couldn't feed her fucking babies and she had to choose which one she wanted to save and which one had to die."

Niwa laughed. "The Kurosawa take and take and take. But one day, if that day is not today, Fuhai will take back. The issue here is that it will open up a power vacuum and the gangs will fight to seize formal control of the city. We'll see which gangs win and if they become greedy and our new Kurosawas or if they protect us. That, however, will only be determined after, what I daresay will be a bloodbath for the city. If the capital intervenes, every last one of us should run."

-0—

"I didn't kill them." Sasuke spoke as he knelt down, eye-level to the girl.

"I don't believe you! Your eyes! They're red! You're a demon! You had to kill them!" Her screams came forth as whispered stabs. The girl had lost the remnants of her voice from screaming. The moon shone down on them from an open window. Dark, red chiffon curtains swayed in the wind.

Sasuke, for the longest time, had nothing to say. He watched her stance and her fierce determined eyes. Had he looked that fierce? He knew he had not. He cowered, and cried, and ran. This girl…she threatened him. For a moment, he was envious of her strength. But then he remembered that she was a civilian, Kurosawa whatever that meant, but civilian. He had the power to avenge and to strike down any enemy that threatened those he loved. This girl, feisty as she was, would not last a second against any ninja her enemies could employ.

"If you don't come with me, worse men will come and they will hurt you." Sasuke's eyes picked up details impeccably distinctly. He noticed the way her grip on the katana first tightened and then loosened. He could pick out individual specks of blood on the floor one hundred feet away, down in the hallway. He could see the shadows of approaching footsteps. The Sharingan. It had awakened. Two tomoes swirled in his eyes. Maybe that was the purpose behind his sensei sending him on this sick mission. He sighed and held out his hand to the girl. "My name is Sasuke. At the end of this all, I'll help you get your revenge against the men who killed your parents. Don't' tell these men about my eyes."

"R-revenge!? What?" She squeaked as several men entered the room.

Sasuke deactivated his Sharingan and turned to face the men pouring into the room.

"Aye, looks like Yori's rat found the bitch" one of the large men spoke. He sauntered into the room swinging a bloody sword. "Your auntie sure can scream, sweetheart. Had to slit her throat to rid myself of the hideous noise."

The girl seethed and gripped the katana tighter. "You! Stay back! I'll cut you open like pigs!" Her scratchy, barely audible voice mustered all the rage it could.

The men laughed. "Fiery little cunt. Too bad it's going to be me cutting you open again and again while I bend you over a table with your pretty little noble ass in the air."

The men throughout the room howled. Though several of the men were visibly disgusted.

Sasuke shuddered at the man's statement. "Stop. Yori wanted her alive and well."

"Oh the fucking rat speaks, aye?" A man with a shaved head and only a slim ponytail marched over to Sasuke and stuck his face in the Uchiha's. "What you gonna fucking do to me, goddamn slave? Gonna cry to your master? Think pretty Niwa's gonna come smack me?" He spat in Sasuke's face.

Sasuke's jaw clenched and the muscles in his biceps twitched. Still, he did not move a muscle. "I will take her back to Yori. Anyone who tries to stop me will answer to him. If you injure me, my master will exact a price and Yori won't be too happy to pay that, now will he?" Sasuke wanted to fight these men. He wanted to bash their faces in and avenge the little girl's family. Yet, Sasuke had to complete his mission. He could not let his emotions cloud his actions as a ninja. Such foolery would cost him his life one day, and if that happened, he could never exact his own revenge. He walked over to the girl and grasped her hand in an impossibly cold grip. "Come on." He lightly tugged her towards the exit of the room.

The girl glanced up at him with wide purple eyes. "T-thank you. I-I'm Aiko. Kurosawa Aiko." She seemed proud of her family name, even in the aftermath of her parents' slaughter. Her pride made Sasuke grimace. The girl was too similar. This whole situation was too similar. It made his skin crawl and his blood boil.

Sasuke turned his cold black eyes towards her. "Don't thank me." As he returned to Yori, he wondered if he was submitting her to a far worse fate than the end of a sword.

-0—

Naruto experimented with chakra control techniques involving using this dark, mysterious chakra as he sat in the back of a wagon heading full speed towards the capital. He was alone in the back of the wagon. At the front of the wagon, two strange muscled men armed with spears talked in subdued voices against the constant thump of the horses. Controlling this dark chakra was proving difficult for Naruto. He stared impatiently at the tiny tears in the fabric of the wagon that his chakra had thus far been able to create. Using the chakra was difficult, and it seemed to almost have a mind of its own. Naruto clenched his fists and strained to control the chakra better and produce a gash in the fabric of the wagon at the precise spot that he had intended for the gash to be. The dark chakra instead made a huge gash above him. Naruto frowned. He doubted that he could use this chakra to escape anything at the moment. It was powerful, but it was very wild, even more unpredictable than Naruto's own normal chakra. He laid on his back and stared up at the ceiling of the wagon, still fighting to harness the power of the weird, immensely strong chakra within him.

The wagon screeched to a halt and Naruto sat up. He pressed his ear to the side of the wagon and listened.

"Yes, we are entering to see a doctor. My son is in the back. He's rather unwell. You can look at him if you would like?"

Another man sighed. The tent flap to the wagon was pulled back and a fully armored guard wearing a black facemask entered the wagon. The man walked up to Naruto and stared down at him. "This one is sick?" He prodded Naruto with his foot, and Naruto glared back at the man but said nothing. There was something terribly familiar about this man.

The guard closed the tent flap behind him and bent down low over Naruto. He whispered in the blond boy's ear "Naruto…don't escape tonight. Return to Sasuke and Sakura. You three have a mission to benefit the Leaf. Figure it out." The guard stood.

Naruto's eyes widened and darted to the man. "Kakashi-sensei?"

The man raised a finger to his masked lips and stepped out of the wagon.

Naruto stared at the space that his sensei had just vacated. He…had a mission? All of this torture and understanding this weird chakra, it was art of a mission now? When had the Fuhai ordeal been elevated from a training exercise to a mission and why? Why did Kakashi trust them to figure out a mission when they had just become genin a couple of days ago. Naruto's head hurt from trying to figure out what was going on and why. He pressed his ear back to the side of the wagon in time to hear his sensei's voice.

"Your son does not have proper identification. Legally, I cannot let him inside city walls. But, you are right. He is weak. Possibly dying. I will let you in, but if anyone else asks for identification and you cannot provide identification for your son, you will be thrown in prison and you are not to mention that I let you into the city."

Another male voice sounded. "Thank you so much, sir. I will honor my oath to you and not tell anyone that I may be compromised by that you were the one that so greatly aided my son and our family. Bless you, sir." A jingle of a coin purse sounded as if money was being exchanged.

The sound of metal creaking overwhelmed Naruto's ears for a moment. When the creaking ceased, the wagon started to move again. Naruto sat up and contemplated what he should do. He wanted to run, but Kakashi had told him to return to Sasuke and Sakura for a mission. Would these people return him to Niwa, or did they have something else planned for him? Would he have to return to Sasuke and Sakura via escape?

-0—

Sakura's heart thundered as she knelt in the shadows. Fuhai was about to be the site of a revolution? Her sensei had sent the three of them unknowingly into a revolution? They had to escape early. Within a week, Fuhai could be reduced to dust. She edged back into the shadows away from the main viewing room as she collected her thoughts. A loud ring of applause alerted her that the dance was over. Fuck. She had to get back in their with her real body and take her kimono. The clone could not pick up real objects. She also had to seal up the hole she had created. She glanced out at the main viewing room in time to see Niwa entering the dancing ring. Niwa soon exited the dancing ring holding a kimono jacket while smiling and talking to the Sakura clone. Niwa laughed as she led the clone towards the hallway in which Sakura hid. Niwa slightly entered the shadows. Sakura hurriedly released the clone and stood to stand at Niwa's side.

Niwa handed the kimono jacket to Sakura who hastily donned it. "Excellent show, my blossom. Next time, however, make sure that you do not require my aid." She turned her dark eyes veiled by heavy lashes towards Sakura. "For the rest of the night, could you go to the town's temple and meditate. You seem distressed. Perhaps some guidance from the spirits would invigorate you."

Sakura nodded. "Hai, Niwa-sama. One question, though."

Niwa turned to Sakura with a frown stretched across her red lips. "What?"

"The um…the um…impact my dancing had on the floor…I believe that I stepped too heavily. Can it be fixed?" Sakura thought of the hole her jutsu had made in the floor.

Niwa smirked. "Oh, do not worry. The floor is not injured at all. I have already checked. Though next time, if you could dance lighter, that would be much appreciated. Off to the temple, though girl. I have patrons to attend to."

Sakura bowed to Niwa and retreated from the room. She hastily made her way through the hallways, attempting to find an exit to Niwa's brothel. She found the exit and entered into the cold, night air of Fuhai. Sakura shakily stepped out onto the dirt, caught the eye of a sleazy man sharpening an axe, and wished she had brought a weapon with her. Nevertheless, she followed Niwa's orders and headed towards the temple.

The building was as decrepit and filthy as the rest of the town. Instead of a temple, the size of the building was more akin to a small family shrine. Sakura had been able to locate the building by following the directions of a tavern wench she had hastily befriended. Sakura knelt in front of the ancient tablets and statues within the shrine. She was unsure why Niwa had sent her to the temple, and at the moment she could only ascertain that it had something to do with meditating to enhance the spiritual component of her chakra. She lit a stick of incense and bowed before the statues and effigies. Silence overwhelmed her as the night continued. Upon the caw of a crow, she opened her eyes and glanced at the tablets that glittered in the dark. She frowned as she noticed a strange marking on one of the stones in the back of the temple. She rose and walked over to the tablet. In the corner, a strange symbol that Sakura had never seen before was etched into the tablet. She ran her hand across the symbol and memorized its edges with the pad of her fingers. Was this what Niwa had sent her to the temple for? Sakura glanced around cautiously. Everything else seemed perfectly in place. Dirty, old, and typical. But the symbol? Sakura frowned. She reached into a hidden pocket of her kimono jacket and extracted the purple mascara that Kakashi had given her. She bent in front of the tablet as she opened the mascara. Meticulously struggling to keep lines perfectly accurate and proportional to the ones on the tablet, Sakura drew the symbol upon her arm using the mascara. When she would mess up, she would scratch out the symbol and work on replicating it again at another location on her arm. Finally, after eight attempts, she had a perfect replica. Maybe she was paranoid, and maybe she was a perfectionist, but both of those qualities made her a ninja.

-0—

When Sakura returned to Niwa's brothel, Niwa met her in the hallway near the side entrance. "Niwa!" Sakura started. "I believe I found—"

Niwa placed a manicured hand over Sakura's lips. "Not now. Tomorrow. Now, your boys are back." She extended her hand down towards the room that she had kept them in the previous night. "I believe…they wish to speak to you…"

Sakura's eyes widened. Sasuke and Naruto were back? Were they okay? She sprinted towards the room that she had spent the night in and wrenched the door open.

Emerald eyes darted first to Naruto who lay naked in a bloody heap next to a pile of hay. Sakura ran over to him. "Naruto!"

An azure eye opened. "Hey, Sakura-chan." He cast her a weary smile.

"What happened?" She glanced to the blood on his stomach.

Naruto coughed. He did not exactly want to tell her that they cut him open like a pig and stuffed him full of drugs, took him to the capital, ripped him back open and took their drugs out. He did not want to tell her about the dark energy within him either. He glanced towards Sasuke, praying that the other boy did not tell Sakura about his humiliation in the wagon earlier that night.

Surprisingly, Sasuke stared away from the two at a wall opposite of him. If Naruto focused hard enough, he swore he could make out Sasuke's body rocking back and forth ever so slightly.

Naruto turned his eyes to Sakura. "Drug trafficking. But that's not important. I met with Kakashi-sensei."

Sasuke glanced over his shoulder at Naruto and Sakura.

"What?" Sakura asked.

Naruto grinned slightly. "He told me that to tell you guys that we have a mission now. We just have to figure out what we're supposed to do…"

Sakura bit her lip. "I have an idea of what it is about." The boys focused their eyes on her "…this place…the traditional leaders of this village might have been assassinated tonight. I heard gossip that there could be some sort of revolution but that the revolution just might collapse the town."

"How did you know that?" Sasuke asked. His voice was heavy and hoarse.

Sakura glanced up to him and analyzed the surprised and dark expression in his eyes. "I heard Niwa talking about it with one of her patrons. Why? Did you know?"

Sasuke glanced down at his hands. "Yeah…"

"Sasuke-kun…" She flinched at having reverted back to calling him that. "How did you find out?"

Sasuke rose to his feet and walked over to the group. The starched white garment he wore was covered in blood. "I was there…"

Sakura raised her eyebrows. "Really? What did you see?"

Sasuke's eyes took on a wild, hunted look. "A girl. The only one left." He no longer seemed present in the room. "Parents dead in front of me. The whole clan…"

Naruto's eyes widened and he sat up. He gripped Sasuke's shoulder strongly.

The dark haired boy turned a detached gaze to Naruto.

Naruto squeezed Sasuke's shoulder tightly. "Don't worry. You'll make it right one day. You gotta, and I know that."

Sasuke said nothing snarky to Naruto about moving his hand. Instead, he let Naruto comfort him. His eyes fell to the floor as he mesmerized the floorboards.

Sakura stood shakily. Were they talking about the Kurosawa or the Uchiha? She never really understood. Yes, her parents had told her about the massacre, but she was a child. She barely knew what any of it meant. It horrified her. He horrified her. His eyes were either miserable, insane, or determined. She thought back to the discussion she had heard about the Kurosawa. Sasuke was acting like they were the righteous ones slayed unjustly by cruel villagers. Yet, Sakura had heard about their oppressive regime. She was slowly learning that there was no right or wrong in this situation. Each end felt a pull, a pang, and suffering. Yet, Sakura knew that she could not tell Sasuke that the Kurosawa, through tyranny, may have asked for their slaughter. He would think that she was justifying the Uchiha massacre, which…she wasn't. Yet, he was obsessed with his family's fate. Yet, Naruto was comforting Sasuke, and Sakura knew that Sasuke was broken. She would try her best to make him feel happy. Sad, crazy Sasuke probably needed some kind of affection and not the kind she had once fantasized about giving him. Sakura sat down next to Sasuke on the opposite side from the shoulder that Naruto was holding. She reached out tentatively towards Sasuke and touched his arm. "Naruto is right. You'll get strong enough. Everyone believes in you. Naruto and I won't let you fail."

He turned his dark eyes towards her. He blinked at her as he observed her long pink hair as it fell over her face. Her eyelashes were dark purple from mascara and her lips were painted red.

Her lips pulled into a small close-mouthed smile, but Sasuke could see that the smile was forced. Did she not believe in him? Or was she forcing herself to be positive for him and for Naruto?

He returned his gaze to Naruto. He could tell that Naruto at least whole-heartedly believed in him.

Niwa brought them steamed rice balls, onigiri, and tea for dinner and left. The genin discussed their nights. Naruto and Sasuke both left out the wagon incident, Sasuke provided minimal details about his encounter with the Kurosawa massacre, and Sakura, to the embarrassment of the boys, fully encountered her story of learning how to dance seductively. She did not however tell the boys about what her new ninja training entailed or of the marking she found on the grave. She trusted Naruto…but Sasuke…something about him still seemed like a ticking time bomb.

Around dawn, the three of them lay on the ground drifting off to sleep with Sakura cuddled between the two boys.