Sasuke woke.

He screamed in pain, clutching at his shoulder where the curse seal was.

A similar scream echoed from the room next to him.

Curse seals began to crawl up his neck.

Through the agony, Sasuke realized that Sakura had never used the curse seal, and she probably had no idea how to control it. He ran out of his room, kicked down Sakura's door, and found her curled up in a fetal position, clutching at her neck on the opposite side his curse seal was on. She was biting her fist, blood openly flowing from it, as curse seals glowed orange around her neck and chest. "Sakura," Sasuke growled. "Drive it back. We have to help Orochimaru. He's in danger."

Sakura glared up at him through red, bleary eyes. Shakily, she uncurled her legs and attempted to stand, but she dropped. Groaning in frustration, Sasuke caught her. What now—Orochimaru or Sakura? Sakura made a second attempt and this time managed to support herself. "Go," she hissed out around her fist. Obviously, she was attempting not to bite her own tongue off. "I'll be right—agh—behind you!"

Sasuke complied, sprinting down the hall in the direction of Orochimaru's room. He eventually joined up with Kabuto, not a word exchanged as they hurried toward Orochimaru's office. Sasuke knew on the inside that Orochimaru's body might be dying—in which case he would need his new vessel, which would have to be Sasuke. He might have to give up his body that night. He didn't know if he was ready to do it.

The moment they turned into Orochimaru's hall, they knew their suspicions had been correct: it was a complete wreck, like a bomb had been dropped on it or something. The ceiling was out—the stars shone brightly in the night sky. A few meters away stood Orochimaru, breathing heavily, staring upwards. Kabuto and Sasuke followed his gaze and saw a sort of… bird in the sky. It circled once, then flew away.

Then Orochimaru fell to the ground, and Sasuke saw the real threat—there was a cloaked figure, very short, lying there, with something like a tail dripping venom.

"Kabuto, huh?" the figure rasped in a voice so rough it could sand metal. "You traitor."

"Master Sasori," Kabuto responded, showing no hint of emotion. "You made it anyway."

Sasuke's eye twitched. Something here was extremely screwy.

--

There were heavy footfalls and steps behind them, and Sasuke knew it to be Sakura. She analyzed the situation quickly. One hostile, one injured Orochimaru, and two ready fighters, and one possible traitor. She gritted her teeth against the pain as the curse seals crept higher and higher up her, until they were caressing her cheek, growing eerily in the dark. "Guh—"

"So, Sasori, what bring you h—"

And the next thing anybody knew, that frightful tail was driving straight through Kabuto's chest, blood was splattering Sasuke's clothes, and Kabuto was impaled on it against what was left of the wall. There was complete silence as Kabuto let out a silent gag and spat blood, and then the tail withdrew and he slowly slid to the ground. Sakura's eyes widened a split second too late. "K—Kabuto-san—" She rushed over to him.

"The blade—is poisoned—" coughed Kabuto. "Antidote—I have one—in my room…"

"You'll bleed to death, and it went right through your—gah—your sternum!" Sakura placed her hands on his chest, kicking into medical-nin mode, and tried to flood chakra into her arms—but there was nothing. It was like something was blocking it…

"Curse—seal," Kabuto rasped. Sakura understood: while she had this activated, she couldn't access her healing chakra. She glanced around desperately, then got up and sprinted back into the base for the antidote. Kabuto's room was close to Orochimaru's, so she wouldn't have to go very far…

Sasori's tail made another lunge for her, but Sasuke was there, blocking the tail with his Chidori-enforced sword. And he was only blocking it—though Chidori usually went through weapons, this tail seemed to be fashioned out of something very strong. Sasuke finally activated his sharingan, so that he could see in the darkness of the bleak night. As of now, all he could see was an Akatsuki cloak and the tail, dripping venom, poised above it. He saw only a very concentrated blob of chakra in the middle, nothing more. How interesting. Obviously this guy had previous experience with the sharingan, to know how to block it so thoroughly; Sasuke had never heard of any material that could stop Sharingan, so the enemy must have carefully infused his cloak or whatever with special chakra.

"Sasuke Uchiha, is it?" the enemy—Sasori appeared to be his name—grated. "You're going to challenge me?"

Sasuke wordlessly kept the tail at bay as he paced forward to Orochimaru's limp form. He was alive; his chakras were traveling slowly but they were moving. He was breathing, too. He grabbed Orochimaru and threw him behind him, to where Kabuto was keeping a hand on his chest, applying pressure and attempting weakly to heal his sternum. Kabuto, as expected, hurriedly moved his hand to a gash on Orochimaru's shoulder, healing him instead.

Suddenly, Sasuke foresaw dozens of kunai flying at him. No sooner had he seen it than it actually happened—he raised his chidori sword quickly, blocking them or dodging them. When they were gone, he lowered his guard—only to get stabbed in the back. Falling to his knees, Sasuke saw an ever-so-thin chakra thread attached to said kunai. Gritting his teeth, he pulled out the kunai and forced the curse seals to recede. He formed hand seals and spat a fireball at Sasori, who apparently survived unscathed—however, the Akatsuki cloak burned away…

What was this?! He was… a puppet? But then where was the owner?

Sakura stumbled back into the hall, clutching several syringes. She immediately jabbed one into Kabuto's chest, and the other into Orochimaru. "How do I make these curse seals withdraw?!" she queried gruffly, replacing Kabuto's hand with hers and keeping pressure on the worst wounds of Orochimaru's.

Sasuke knew for a fact that the best way was to scare somebody out of his or her wits. He also knew that he couldn't waste his chakra too much, though. He had the sinking feeling that this was going to be a difficult battle, even for him. He swept his head around and stared right into Sakura's eyes, sharingan blazing.

In that moment, Sakura felt pure, unadulterated horror. She knew that that face, those eyes, could kill her in a second. Every hair on her body rose, and her eyes widened as her skin crawled. And slowly but surely, the curse seal decided it would be a good idea to go back into hiding and the marks receded. She dropped to her knees, breathing raggedly, but also relieved: the pain was gone. The moment she caught her breath, she pounced on Kabuto. It was logical—with him, who knew Orochimaru's medical conditions and body, the two of them could heal the master. Either way, Orochimaru wasn't the one with a hole in his chest. Chakra flooded her arms as she forced the sternum back into place. Kabuto grunted, obviously in pain. Sakura grabbed a bottle of water to wash away the blood—she couldn't see. It was a marvel Kabuto was alive. Judging by the damage, whatever hit him must have gone straight through. Then Sakura sensed the residue of medical chakra. Obviously, Kabuto had previously reinforced the spot with medical chakra, knowing where the enemy was going to strike. Sakura had to hand it to him. Kabuto had been tutoring her lately, but she'd never known it was possible to… she realized she was getting distracted, and refocused on the wound, moving several ribs back into place.

The genjutsu to terrify Sakura had taken too much out of Sasuke. He barely was able to avoid another attack by that infernal tail—it grazed his arm, creating a gash. Not good. He didn't know how long it took for the poison to take effect, but obviously—

"Three minutes," Sasori supplied. "Then you become immobilized. It'll take three days to actually kill you, but I don't intend to let you live that long." In a split second, thousands of senbon were hurtling Sasuke's way, no doubt also poisoned. Sasuke's eyes widened as he jumped back, wildly deflecting with his sword, but it wasn't enough: at the end of the barrage, three senbon stuck in nerves, damaging his left leg. "Hn. Funny. And I thought strength ran in the family, but apparently not. You are nothing compared to your older brother."

In a flash, Sasuke was next to the puppet, stabbing down with chidori. To his dismay, it only made a tiny crack, and one of the plates sprang off and knocked him away. Sasuke pulled himself up again, and stabbed once more. Sasori was not a close-range fighter, apparently. Most puppeteers weren't. "Tell me what you know about Itachi!" Sasuke demanded, sharingan whirling dangerously. There was definitely a chakra inside the puppet. Could the member be… inside the puppet?! Impossible! Sasuke stabbed down again, until suddenly his chidori stopped. "Wh—wha—" his muscles seized up, and he fell. His brain fogged. He couldn't send the signals to his body… his sharingan flickered and died, and the night mattered again; he couldn't make out anything. All he could see was the silhouette of the tail looming over him, then striking downwards—only to be slapped away by the bare arm of Sakura, gleaming with chakra. Sakura grabbed the tail and swung the entire puppet around, throwing it off into the distance. Immediately, Sakura pulled another antidote out of her cloak and jabbed a rather Sasuke with it.

"Come on," she urged, and Sasuke realized he could move again. "I've got three more antidotes left. The slightest graze can poison you. We have to take this guy down quickly."

Shaking his muscles loose, and choosing not to comment on Sakura's last feat of strength, Sasuke supplied, "I think he's inside the puppet. His chakra is all centered in there."

Sakura's eyes widened. "Inside the puppet? But that requires—WATCH OUT!" she dove to the ground, Sasuke following suit, just in time to dodge the tail. Both jumped up out of the trench (through where the ceiling had once been) and found themselves on a wide, open plane with several rocks and boulders strewn around. Nothing other than that to use to their advantage—no real cover, no nothing.

Neither Sakura nor Sasuke had been trained in working with somebody. The teamwork thing wasn't valued extremely highly here at Orochimaru's, and neither of them had done very well on the teamwork portion of Kakashi's bell test. In addition, they weren't exactly on the best terms. Therefore, they had to come up with a plan that involved them attacking in succession.

"His shell is very strong. My chidori can't pierce it. But, ah, judging by what you just did…" Sasuke looked away, not wanting to admit that Sakura might have an advantage over him in this one matter.

"Got it," Sakura smirked, pulling on her gloves. She started to charge, but Sasuke grabbed her wrist.

"Wait. He has a bunch of attacks up his sleeve"—they both dodged another onslaught of senbon—"Like that. You have to foresee his attacks somehow, or be extremely good at dodging."

"Fine then," Sakura snarled, pissed at being stopped. "We charge at once. You cover me." She reared up again, only to be halted once more.

"Sakura! Think. I can't deflect all of those senbon at once. We have to find another way to get in close."

"Hn," Sakura grunted. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. "Shadow clones. Make them."

"Ah, technically you should make it, as you'll have a better chance then of—"

"I…I haven't learned that technique yet," Sakura muttered, and this time she was the one to look away. Sasuke barely managed to stop his eyes from rolling as he formed the correct seal and created two clones, not wanting to waste his chakra. After all, he had never been known for his endurance. If he used up energy too quickly, he'd have to release the curse seal, and then things would get nasty.

"Distraction, now," Sasuke said curtly. "Put up some dust to hide while I switch with my clones."

"With pleasure," Sakura grinned, and drove her fist into the ground, leaping back.

The dirt cracked, dust flying up, while Sasuke and his clones hurriedly switched so that the real one was now on the right. "Go!" he hissed, and started running, Sakura behind him.

They sprinted toward Sasori. Senbon and kunai flew—Sasuke twirled and dodged enough to throw off the path of kunai so they wouldn't hit Sakura. Then his sharingan foresaw something that would definitely be troublesome. "Hold your breath!" he called, and sucked in air before the poison gas came. Then he ran straight into a solid wall, and the wind was promptly knocked out of him. His eyes widened, and he grabbed Sakura by the neck of her uniform and literally threw her out of the cage as he did what he always did in cases of panic: full body chidori. Some of the poison gas cleared away just in time for him to see that there were strange wooden threads encasing him. However, in all probability, Sakura was going with one of his clones and getting ready to smash the shell, not knowing that he was the real one. The poison came back, filled his nose, and it was all Sasuke could do not to inhale, and he was just about to, when—

BANG. The cage splintered around him like so many matchsticks, and something grabbed him by the outfit and was yelling, "Come on, Uchiha, get up, we're almost there!"

Sasuke stumbled to his feet and started in front of Sakura again, eyes focusing on the target, who was caught off guard by his escape. His clone was now right next to him—the second clone had probably gotten killed—and they covered Sakura as there was an endless barrage of weapons. Then Sakura was leaping into the air, bringing her fist down into the shell, and—

There was silence but for a high pitched screaming noise in Sasuke's ear. The world was collapsing around him, but he couldn't hear a thing. Someone grabbed him—a flash of pink hair, some sort of hazel eyes—and she was saying something, but he couldn't hear, just see her lips move. Then, with a pop, the world came back and Sakura was saying, "managed to smash it, but it looks like something hit you in the head—you're bleeding—here, gimme a moment"—and the ache in his head subsided. He realized there was a piece of shell embedded in Sakura's shoulder and nodded at it. She looked at it in surprise, then shrugged (wincing) and pulled it out, healing the wound as she did so. She grinned at him. Grinned.

And then a huge poison spike flew right into her gut.

Blood and all sorts of innards he didn't want to know about splattered Sasuke. Sakura's eyes were wide, her grin slowly fading, as she looked down at her stomach. She pulled out the spike.

And then her eyes rolled back and she collapsed, dropping on the ground with a thump.

"That was for destroying my puppet," Sasori was saying. His voice seemed slightly higher. He was cloaked, though, just a dark figure on the horizon. "I'll deal with you pathetic idiots some other time. I took too long. Someone's waiting for me." And then a huge white bird flew out of the sky, picked him up, and carried him away in a flash.

AN: Yay. Action chapter. Sorry for being so slow with updates. D8