Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait. School and marching band made me much busier than I expected. I know that I'm not updating on my regular day, but I didn't want you to wait any longer. I only got a couple reviews for last chapter, so PLEASE review this time! Don't leave me hanging!

PLEASE ANSWER THE QUESTION AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER!

"Kenshi," Kurushimi called, motioning for the male to come toward him. The swordsman stopped in front of the man, arms crossed. He was silent, apparently waiting for the command. "Get the next group ready."

The scarred male furrowed his brow. "Why did you wait this long?"

"It's all part of the plan," he replied. "They've regrouped and are about to exit our hideout."

"How-?"

The man was interrupted by a long and loud rumbling noise. The ground shook violently for another minute.

"They're out," Kurushimi declared, unfazed by the sudden event.

"Why would you let them escape?!" Kenshi angrily shouted.

"Like I said, it's all part of the plan."

"How the heck would I know?! You sit in that room all day and keep every part of our 'plan' to yourself! What was the point of making them fight the clones?!"

"Shut up and do as I said," the male with strange eyes sneered.

They stared each other down before Kenshi abruptly turned around and walked away at a fast pace. "This is completely ridiculous," he thought. "All of this is." His movements slowed until they came to a stop. "Why did I agree to any of this again?" He frowned and stared at the ground. "I keep having second thoughts about the... mission. It's because of them that I keep doing it. What is my problem?! Those two make me so worked up just because they're sort of like me and..." Kenshi blinked multiple times. "... her... used to be." He sighed and started to walk once more. "I can't stop thinking like this, no matter what I do. Maybe I should... No! I can't." He bit his lip and breathed deeply, glancing around as he did so. "I better go and get them ready before Kurushimi finds out I'm hesitating..." With this, the male hurriedly walked toward his destination.

"Sakura, you need to stop and rest!" Sasuke shouted while grabbing her arm.

She quickly jerked it out of his grasp. "No, I can't!"

"It's okay Sakura," Kankuro said while shuffling away. "Sasuke is right, you've been doing this all day. I can last the way I am now. The worst wounds are gone."

She continued to pant and reluctantly put her hands down by her sides. The medic shifted her gaze to the very worst of the wounded, who was still unconscious. Naruto Uzumaki lay on the other side of the clearing with bandages covering his entire naked chest, Hinata frowning and holding his limp hand. The attack that his group had faced resulted in near fatal injuries for the war hero. His clone almost matched him in power and kept up with him the entire time. Out of no where, all the clones had attacked him at once, making him collapse. The other three managed to beat their copies, leaving only Naruto's. As the fight progressed, the clone took down Kiba and Shino, leaving Hinata to stand alone. She had eventually been brought to her knees by him. The fake Naruto attempted to deliver the killing blow when the cave started to shake. The real Naruto Uzumaki had watched the entire fight his copy had with Hinata and his rage finally exploded. The whole thing ended with him defeating his counterpart and hardly being able to stand. The team then questioned their opposites, receiving answers similar to the ones Sasuke and Sakura had. Before the clones had disappeared, Naruto's did something peculiar. Kurushimi asked if they liked his "gift" and his eyes lit up through the clone's body. The team was confused, but turned when they heard Naruto scream in pain and fall to the ground unconscious.

"How could this have happened?" Sakura whispered as she continued to stare at her friend, tears threatening to spill from her emerald orbs.

Sasuke remembered what his comrades had said the cause of his pain had been. The words "Hope you like my gift!" had somehow been stabbed into his best friend's chest in that moment. He had not woken up since.

It had taken all of the shinobi sent on the mission a few days to reunite and find an exit. Actually, it was Sasuke who had ended up busting through a large section of the cave's roof to make an exit out of frustration. After that, Sakura had been up from dawn the current day until now, very late at night, healing all of her comrades.

The Uchiha frowned. He had thought things over while he watched Sakura healing their friends. The last of his clan repeated Kurushimi's words over and over in his head. "This will end with you giving yourself up to me." He knew that the "gift" had purposely been left for him. Sasuke still wasn't able to believe that Naruto had been injured to this degree. On the bright side, Sakura healed their injured team member's serious wounds, including the words carved into his chest. In fact, Naruto was almost completely free of all injuries thanks to the medic and his own ability to recover quickly. The bad part was that Sakura was clearly left exhausted after mending everyone's battle wounds.

Sakura was momentarily surveying the clearing. Her friends were scattered all around, covered in bandages and frowning or rubbing their heads in frustration. The Uchiha glanced at the medic to see that she was silently crying. He hated it when she cried, but he was just glad that for once he wasn't the cause of it. "Go lie down. Hinata or Ino will take over if needed," he told her quietly. She peered at him shakily before crawling over to her nearby sleeping bag and turning on her side. He knew that she didn't close her eyes, but decided that as long as she was lying down it was fine.

Shikamaru groaned loudly from across the clearing. The Nara had been thinking about everyone's battle descriptions, trying to make sense of something. He heard footsteps and twisted his head to see Sasuke standing beside him. "This is all so complicated," he said while staring at a bandage on his arm.

"Hn, tell me about it," was the reply given by the Uchiha. He wondered if he should tell Shikamaru why the "gift" was sent. Finally, Sasuke reached the decision that it was okay. "Kurushimi meant for me to see the words on Naruto's chest."

"I know," Shikamaru responded.

Sasuke's eyes widened slightly. Had Kurushimi also told the others that their comrade would supposedly give himself up?

"After all, the whole purpose of this is for him to get you," the Nara declared. "That's not going to happen if I can just figure things out."

He breathed a mental sigh of relief. Shikamaru seemed not to know anything about Kurushimi's claim. The last of his clan didn't want anyone else besides him and Sakura to possess that information. If the others knew, they'd probably never let him out of their sight.

"Now, how can he see and hear what we're doing while we're in the caves?" Shikamaru unknowingly said aloud. "Obviously, his eyes are part of it, but how exactly does it work? They said that everything was visible to them, but each team had at least one moment where the copies couldn't find them..."

Sasuke had been pondering about this as well. "Mine and Sakura's clones were searching areas they had already demolished. Before that, they looked where we were hiding and didn't notice us."

"Areas they had already demolished..." the Nara muttered under his breath. "Hm... It was the same for everyone else. That doesn't make sense though."

Sasuke sat down and grunted in pain. He reached behind him and pulled a crystal shard out of his lower back. "Sakura must've missed this one. I landed on a crystal right before we hid."

"Can I see that?" Shikamaru asked.

Sasuke slowly handed the shard to him, a curious look on his face.

He studied it, turning the item over in his hands and staring intently at the broken crystal. "The light is gone..."

"It faded after I landed on it. Now that I think about it, my copy smashed another one and its light went out too. Sakura said that her counterpart broke one and the same thing happened."

Shikamaru jumped up. "Were they searching in the areas where the broken crystals had been?"

"Yeah..." Sasuke said, the realization slowly coming to him.

"You said they came and searched the place you both hid in right after you'd broken it?" he asked quickly.

Sasuke nodded. "When the shards went into my back just before their light went out, I felt something that was strangely familiar."

Shikamaru facepalmed. "Why didn't I think of this sooner? It's so obvious. Kurushimi has been using the crystals to spy on us. He must have infused his chakra in them or something like that."

The Uchiha stood up. "That's what it was. I felt his chakra leaving the crystal."

"There's one thing that bothers me about that. Think of how many crystals were in there. How much chakra does it take to control all of that? And he made copies of us, too."

Sasuke furrowed his brow. "It's those eyes. I've never seen anything like them before. The last time I fought him, it seemed like he could make any object by using them." He clenched his fists tightly. "That might be why he hasn't come and fought us himself yet. It's using up so much of his chakra." Sasuke ground his teeth together. "He just wants to toy with us right now!"

Shikamaru put a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down. You're probably right, but we can't get worked up about it." He glanced at the others scattered around the clearing. "Besides, we need to worry about healing at the moment."

Sasuke sighed and nodded in agreement.

"WHERE IS HE?! I AM GONNA KILL THAT KURUSHIMI GUY!"

The Uchiha and the Nara fully turned around to see Naruto attempting to stand with a bewildered Hinata trying to keep him where he was. "Naruto, please rest!" she pleaded.

"NO WAY! HE IS GONNA PAY TENFOLD FOR WHAT HE'S DONE TO US!" he shouted while making another effort to stand. It was Sasuke who helped Hinata restrain him, shoving him down and towering over his best friend.

"Knock it off," Sasuke seethed. "Sakura needs to rest because she's been healing everyone today. In fact, she spent the longest time on your sorry butt."

The Uzumaki immediately closed his mouth and tilted his head to the side, staring at the medic's still form. "Me? Was I really hurt that bad?"

"Naruto," Hinata began, "you almost..." She trailed off, unable to finish.

"No, he was left barely alive on purpose," Sasuke stated, staring at Sakura's back. He could tell that she had fallen asleep. Naruto and Hinata looked up at him expectantly. "Anyway, Shikamaru may have just discovered something major. We might know how Kurushimi's been spying on us."

Naruto slapped his hands together while coming to a sitting position. "The sooner we find out, the more time I'll have to pound the jerk."

Hinata put a hand on his chest. "Please rest right now Naruto. You'll need your strength."

He smiled warmly at her and gave his wife a gentle kiss on the lips before lying down and closing his eyes. The former Hyuga had a furious blush as a result. She grinned at the male as she took his hand in hers and stroked it.

Sasuke frowned at the scene and stole another glance at Sakura. "Soon..." He thought back to his failed confessions and cursed himself for freezing up. The Uchiha knew that his confidence had grown, but contemplated on just how soon he should tell her.

Kenshi had rounded up the next group and was leading them to Kurushimi's control room. All the while they had been eagerly shouting confident threats behind him. The swordsman rolled his eyes. "I wonder if he wants to send them out now. Ha, they're so foolish. Even though Sasuke's group is injured, I bet they can still get rid of these guys with ease. They're not even close to the best shinobi in our army." The male had been confused as to why Kurushimi had decided to bring the lower level, or as Kenshi liked to call them, the crappier ninja first. "Must be part of his PLAN," he thought to himself, putting great emphasis on the last word.

Kurushimi leaned against the doorway and watched the large group approach him. He had his dark robe on, covering his short sleeve black shirt and long black slacks, both as dark as his hair. The male came to a conclusion that now was the right time to put one of the main parts of his strategy into action. "I wonder if they've figured out my little trick yet. Hm... I think it's still too early for them to discover, but it doesn't matter. I had fun messing with all of them. Of course, it wasn't an empty gesture though." He smirked. "I needed to send Sasuke another message." The excited yells and shouts of the shinobi coming toward him brought the man with strange eyes out of his thoughts.

Kenshi received a nod of approval from Kurushimi and fell to the very back of the crowd, leaning against a wall opposite of where they were facing. He listened as the leader gave a short and vague description of what they were about to do. As the speech went on, it turned into words of encouragement, basically a pep talk. The swordsman snorted and scowled in disgust at his friend's words. He was only giving them false hope. The scarred male knew for a fact that Kurushimi had no intentions whatsoever of any of them returning alive. He rolled his eyes and made many other disapproving gestures throughout the whole meeting, barely keeping his resistance in laughing at the ninjas' stupidity. The swordsman breathed a sigh of relief when it was over and the group dispersed. When the last of them was out of sight, Kenshi shook his head and chuckled. "You're horrible you know."

Kurushimi had his back turned. "It's necessary for the plan."

He groaned in annoyance. "Plan this, plan that. If you're not gonna tell me any of it, then I don't wanna hear about it." He began to take a step in the opposite direction, but his friend quickly spoke up.

"You're right. I think it's about time I told you of my-"

"Don't say it. I'm starting to hate that word."

Kurushimi smirked. "Do you want to know or not?"

Kenshi nodded and walked into his friend's control room, closing the door behind them.

Shikamaru had gone over his discovery many times, making sure there were absolutely no flaws to contradict it. After concluding that it was the only possible answer, he had gathered everyone in the group to explain it. They were clearly shocked, their facial expressions giving it away. After that, many of them became extremely frustrated that they had failed to realize it was right under their noses the entire time.

Currently, Gaara, who was one of the shinobi in better health, was on watch duty as the others slept. Sasuke glanced at the Kazekage's back for a moment and closed his eyes shortly afterward. He had tossed and turned for an unknown amount of time while trying to let sleep come to him. However, his efforts constantly failed, leaving him the only person awake besides Gaara. Finally, the Uchiha sighed quietly and gave up on his attempts. Instead, his tired gaze shifted to the woman only a few feet away from him. Sasuke frowned at Sakura's sleeping form. She was facing him and the last of his clan watched the kunoichi's body rise and fall from her rhythmic breathing. He remembered how Naruto and Hinata had been earlier and wished that they could have that. Sasuke tried to put this thought out of his mind and rolled over, staring into the trees. "Just a little longer. When this is dealt with I can tell you. I won't be afraid anymore." A sudden realization occurred to him. His nightmares had gone away. If his memory was correct, it was around the time he had accepted his feelings for Sakura. Sasuke sighed, knowing that he was going to be unbearably exhausted if he didn't get any sleep. How could he not think about this though? Growling, he sprawled out on the ground and frowned while staring into space. "This is going to be a long night..."

Sakura woke up to find a very grouchy and tired Sasuke lying next to her on his stomach, head resting on his folded arms. "Feel better?" he asked drowsily.

"A little," she responded while slowly sitting up. "You look like you didn't get much sleep."

"Hn," he grunted, "that's because I didn't."

"Something bothering you?"

"You have no idea," he said coolly. He sat up and stretched, glancing at the back of Shino, who had taken up the watch post.

Sakura yawned and attempted to get up, failing almost immediately. She groaned in irritation and tried again, this time getting further up but ultimately losing the effort once more. Sasuke gently grabbed her forearm and pulled her to a standing position. "Thanks."

He didn't reply while he slung one of Sakura's arms around his shoulders, letting her steady herself. They looked around to see that everyone else was up, appearing to be even more frustrated than the previous day. The most noticeable one was Naruto, who was pacing back and forth across the clearing with Hinata watching him, rubbing her hands together in deep thought. Sakura stared at the ground with a frown. "Did I miss anything important while I was asleep?" she asked Sasuke.

Sasuke filled her in on the dicovery of how Kurushimi had been watching them. As expected, she had become extremely angry that something so simple had slipped her mind. "We all feel the same way," Sasuke said in an attempt to calm her.

Sakura shook her head in response. After another minute, she sighed loudly. "We can't keep letting him play with us."

"I know," he replied quietly. "I don't plan on it. We have to strike back soon."

"Right now we should recover."

"Hn. We can't drop our guard though."

"Right," she muttered.

Sasuke could immediately tell that something was bothering her after stealing only a single glance. He grabbed her hand that was hanging on his shoulder to give it a light squeeze. Both stared at each other silently for what seemed like forever.

"Sasuke, can we go somewhere a little more private?"

He eyed her curiously for a moment before nodding. The Uchiha slowly led her away from the small clearing until he finally found a suitable place a nice distance away from the campsite. Sasuke and Sakura walked to the edge of a rocky overhang that was not too far away from the ground below. She untangled her arm from around his shoulders and took a small step back. "What's wrong?" her teammate questioned.

Sakura tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and looked away. "Are you considering it, even just a little bit?"

Sasuke narrowed his mismatched eyes in confusion.

Sakura saw that he clearly didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "Giving yourself up."

His lips seperated slightly at the realization before shifting into a wide frown. A short silence followed. The kunoichi gasped quietly when he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers, the headband keeping most of the dark hair out of his eyes. "Sakura," he breathed, their eyes meeting. He gently took eack of her hands in his. "I'm not going to leave you again."

No words would come out of her mouth.

"I promise..."

The longest silence followed. The only movements they made were to blink. Sasuke squeezed Sakura's hands tighter to reassure her that he was completely serious.

Suddenly, he gasped and his eyes widened. Before she could ask any questions, he pushed her off the ledge and jumped on top of her in a protective manner. Sakura struggled to catch her breath while an explosion went off where they had just been standing. After the smoke and dust had settled down, Sasuke rolled to the side and hurriedly pulled them both into a crouching position. They were both dazed by the blast, vision blurry. Sasuke's vision quickly cleared and he glanced at his partner. She was holding her head and breathing heavily, her senses not returning to their original state. He put an arm around her waist and tugged her closer while drawing his sword with a free hand. With both the Sharingan and Rinnegan active, he was able to see many approaching shinobi in the trees. "My eyes are back to normal," he thought with confusion. "I can't stay and fight with Sakura like this. It wasn't just the explosion going off, but she spent too much chakra healing all of us." Before the first few enemies could reach them, Sasuke threw down a smoke bomb and was gone with Sakura the next instant.

"Which way did they go?!" someone shouted.

Another pointed. "There!"

"After them!"

"Sasuke."

"It's okay Sakura. Just hang on to me and I'll take care of them," he said while tightening his grip around her waist. Sasuke had quickly escaped with Sakura the moment the smoke bomb had gone off and provided good cover. They were currently hopping from tree branch to tree branch, Sasuke helping Sakura with each one. She was holding her head with one hand while trying to recover from the blast, the other around her teammate's shoulder.

"We have to warn the others," the Uchiha thought. The enemy was right on their heels. "For now, I'll delay them." Tilting his head to the side, he noticed that Sakura was looking in front of them, seemingly somewhat back to normal. "Sakura, can you guide us for a minute?"

She nodded and Sasuke twisted his head around to survey the current situation. "There's a whole line advancing on us. There are more behind them, but they're staying back. I'll take care of the ones in the front line. If I can't eliminate them, then I can at least slow them down. I don't have much of a choice except to kill them. It might be like last time when they were killed by something Kurushimi did after they were defeated." A couple of their pursuers charged and Sasuke acted without hesitating. A large wall of black fire appeared directly behind him and the Haruno. The two attacking shinobi failed to stop in time and were engulfed in flames a second later. The enemy lingered behind the wall of fire, allowing the Konohagakure shinobi to put more distance in between them. Sasuke finally extinguished the flames and took over, leading Sakura on.

"Leave them! They're as good as dead anyway!" one of the enemy ninja yelled.

Sasuke scowled in disgust. "That's sick! How can they just leave their comrades behind like that?!"

"We're almost there," Sakura declared.

He was brought back to the present by her claim. As they neared the clearing, they gasped in shock. Their comrades were already involved in battles of their own, scattered all across the open land. Sasuke and Sakura stopped on the ground beside the clearing and watched for a moment. A whizzing sound came from behind the last of his clan and the medical kunoichi. They leapt out of harms way from the mass of shuriken and kunai. Together, the two walked backwards as the enemy continued to approach. Not long after, the entire group of shinobi sent on the mission to stop Kurushimi were in a tight circle, back to back, surrounded by the henchman of their enemy.

Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed! I know that the ending was kind of abrupt but I'm saving the fight and some more things for next chapter. Also, the next few chapters will be VERY important. PLEASE review!

QUESTION: Remember that other sasusaku story I was talking about writing WAY back at the end of chapter ten or something like that? Well, I'd like to know if you want me to start writing that soon. Please answer this in a review or private message.