Okay, I'm a little late. Medical issues came up, I'm sorry. This is chapter for now my everything hurts I'm sorry again but medical problems suck.
Plus I have class now.
Read review comment, complain. It's all okay, I deserve it. I just hope this makes your day a little better maybe.
"No," Sasuke stated simply, sitting down cross-legged outside the gates that led to the Forest of Death. The forest, aptly named, was really a Training Ground that the ninja of Konoha used occasionally. Except not really. It was exceedingly dangerous, bordering on suicidal to enter with its deadly creatures and somehow even deadlier plant life. It's trees, while normally a staple of the Fire Nation, were unusually high. If you slipped while traversing them you were basically dead to fall damage.
None of these reasons were why Sasuke refused to enter the forest though.
"Stop being a coward," Naruto yelled. He pulled on the Uchiha's wrist as he tried to force him into the forest. "Get your evil hickey and be done with it."
"No," Sasuke restated. He said it as if it was an answer as obvious as the weather. "I'm not going through that again. If the trend thus far holds, nothing can be changed about this world. I'm not getting the cursed seal again. Do you know what that's like?" At Naruto's dumbfounded expression Sasuke continued. "Imagine a pedophile who just loves to stretch his 's' continually whispering into your ear. THAT'S what it's like. I'm not doing it."
Naruto pouted. "But it's only gonna be for a little bit!"
Sasuke's face paled. "You call three years 'a little bit'?"
"Compared to the rest of our lives? Yes!"
Sasuke's eye twitched. "That's easy for you to say, you spent those three years running around with a good sensei perving on girls! I had to protect my chastity every night!"
Kyuubi opened an eyelid. He was dozing off while leaning against the gate surrounding the Forest of Death. "I thought you said that Orochimaru didn't try to mess with you?"
"You stay out of this!" Sasuke snapped.
"Good?" Naruto asked. "Jiraiya, I loved him, but he was a terrible sensei! Half the time he was off peeping on women!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Oh, how terrible."
"I don't need your sarcasm right now."
"And I don't need your bullshit. Neither of us are happy."
"I'm kind of happy," Kurama said from the sidelines. The glare he earned was legendary.
"You stay out of this," Naruto growled. Kurama threw his hands up in resignation.
"Whatever. You guys can go make out in peace. I'm going to go burn the forest down." A burst of crimson chakra later, and the fox was gone. Not five seconds later did the forest start to go up in smoke.
Of course neither boy cared much, still enthralled in their argument.
"You can't honestly be telling me that Jiraiya peeping on girls was any worse than Orochimaru trying to see how much of his snake he could, 'make you handle'."
Naruto paled. "He was talking about his summons right?"
Sasuke shuddered. "I sure hope he was."
"Well, regardless, at least he was actually training you through all of that! I came back from my three year training with a bigger Rasengan!"
Sasuke quirked his eyebrow. "He did all of that for you? I'm surprised you had enough control to get out of bed in the morning. Truly, Jiraiya was a genius among men."
"And apparently Orochimaru was too. He was able to see something attractive about a sculpture like you."
Sasuke smirked. "You're just jealous of my Uchiha genes."
Naruto smirked himself. "The same genes that gave you those girly eyelashes?"
"They're not girly!" Sasuke screamed immediately. Apparently a nerve had been struck.
"Oh, no. Of course not," Naruto said soothingly, his wicked smirk still in place. "But quick question, which tools do you use to get them so curly?"
Naruto then had to dodge a kunai wreathed in black flames.
"Yeah, this is going about as well as I thought having you in the past would be."
"They're not girly!" Sasuke screamed once more, another pure black kunai in hand.
"You know, with all of your training with Orochimaru, I'm not surprised most of your attacks are either flaming or positively electric." Once again Naruto had to dodge more attacks, with Chidori powered senbon joining the artillery list. Not minding the deadly onslaught in the slightest, the future Hokage simply laughed as he fled his way into the Forest of Death, his male teammate in hot pursuit.
"Well, you've convinced me Sasuke! I don't think Jiraiya is so bad anymore!" Naruto called over his shoulder.
"I will murder you one day, Naruto!"
Naruto just laughed even harder.
Meanwhile, back at the entrance, Sakura could only gape at the wonton destruction and hostility. She hadn't paid the two boys' interaction any heed before because, come on, they were always arguing. And then the weapons started flying, and were they on fire? Black fire?
Again, Sakura could only gape as the two raced off into the forest, effectively leaving her behind.
"Why am I surrounded by maniacs?" She asked herself before running off after them.
XxX
Naruto dumped the body of a Chuunin hopeful at his feet. Sasuke and Sakura looked at the boy with alarm.
"What's that?" Sakura asked. Naruto shrugged.
"Some guy trying to impersonate me, I guess. He tried to blindside me while I was peeing. How's the search for the other scroll?"
"Not well," Sasuke answered. His eyes, Sharingan active, were scanning the forest. Nothing came up. "All I see are the teammates of the guy you just beat up, and I'm pretty sure they don't have the scroll we need."
"They don't." Naruto then dropped the scroll he found on the body of the ninja who ambushed him. "Though this may be a fake. My clones are going to search the other two."
Sasuke winced when he saw how exactly the other two were being handled with his Sharingan. Apparently the fox had joined the clones in torturing the poor ninja. "Did you have to send Kurama?"
"I didn't send Kurama."
"Oh," Sasuke said. "Then that's just his own personal touch."
"Wait, who's Kurama?" Sakura asked. She noticed she was starting to be left out of the conversation a lot recently.
"You don't wanna know," the two boys answered simultaneously.
"And why not?" Sakura couldn't fathom why she wouldn't want to know about this mysterious fourth member of their team. Besides Kakashi. He wasn't really actually on the team anyway.
Not like he helped them unless he had to.
"I don't think you could handle him just yet." Naruto was the one to reply. He did so around poking at the unconscious body before him. Somewhere out in the forest Sakura could hear faint screams, or rather, lots of faint screams. She dismissed them rather easily as there had been quite a few screams.
XxX
Elsewhere Gaara had the sense to be slightly guilty. Only slightly though. This guilt had him hesitate, and the person he was currently suspending in the air in a coffin of sand became hopeful.
"Are… are you not going to kill me after all?" the poor Genin asked. Turning his attention back to the ninja, a child no older than he was, Gaara casually closed his extended hand, in turn making the sand contract as well. The poor boy died instantly.
"No," Gaara responded, before turning away to leave.
Neither of his siblings had the courage to tell him that it was probably more productive to answer before killing his prey.
XxX
"No," Sasuke said, arms folded and indignant. The Snake Sannin, Orochimaru, stood before him with a bemused smile on his face.
"Whatever are you talking about, Sssssassssuke?"
Said Genin shuddered upon hearing the older man's speech tick. In later years Orochimaru would drop the "S" thing, but by then Sasuke had adopted a healthy policy of never being within speaking distance of the man.
"I'm talking about you," Sasuke said. If possible his scowl deepened. "Just no. To you, your plans, and just… just in general. No to you."
"No to me?" The way the Snake Sannin said it was mocking and somehow sultry. Memories of unpleasant conversations were suddenly flowing back to the boy.
"And everything you stand for, yes."
"Ssso, yess to everything I sstand for?"
Sasuke sputtered. "What? No! No to you!"
"No two me's?"
"You're intentionally fucking with me!" Sasuke pointed at the man conspiratorially.
"No, not yet, but I plan to," Orochimaru hissed. Again, his words were both sultry and threatening. Sasuke paled. Somehow he felt that the Sannin took his words differently from the way he meant them.
"I'm not going anywhere near you."
"Sssomehow I don't think you have the choissse."
"That doesn't even have an 'S'!" Sasuke screamed, before dodging a barrage of weaponry. Jumping backward, Sasuke activated his base level Sharingan before engaging the older man in a fight. Sakura, of course, could only stand and stare.
"That's Orochimaru?" she asked. Sasuke, even though he was in the middle of a fight, had the Uchiha wherewithal to sneer.
"I think that's been established." Sasuke then dodged an open palm strike. Unfortunately that open palm turned into a snake attack.
"No, I know, but, I mean…"
"Spit it out, Sakura!" Sasuke yelled, before trying to strike out at Orochimaru. The man dodged it by bending in an impossible way, before smiling.
"Only quittersss sspit," he said, earning him a glare from Sasuke.
"Stop that."
"Never."
"I mean," Sakura said, getting annoyed at being ignored in conversations, "that he doesn't really seem like the Orochimaru we've been taught about."
"Oh?" Orochimaru started, looking genuinely amused. "What did they teach you about me?"
"Oh, I dunno. Lots of small things, but mainly they gave me the idea that you were a lot... I dunno. Movie theater evil?"
"Movie… theater evil?" Orochimaru repeated.
"Yeah, kinda like those stereotypical movie villia-"
"Excuse me!" Sasuke screamed around dodging a kunai strike from his snakelike opponent. Unfortunately Orochimaru then threw the kunai. Sasuke dodged that too, but the kunai then turned into more snakes.
Narrowly escaping even those, Sasuke turned to look at his pink haired teammate. She hadn't really moved since the fight started. "Why are you conversing with the enemy instead of, I dunno, helping me."
Sakura tilted her head. "Do you think that I could do much?" Sasuke turned over the thought in his head before concluding that, no, she couldn't. He relayed as much. "Then what do you want me to do?"
"Having a friendly conversation with him wasn't at the top of the things I could think of."
Sakura shrugged. "At this point I can't see any reason not to. First Zabuza now Orochimaru, I think my plan of engagement is just fine."
"Sssshe hasss a point. I haven't attacked her once ssssince we ssstarted fighting."
"No one asked you," Sasuke hissed, before realizing that his hissing attracted more snakes. With a quick fire jutsu he burned those, only for more to replace them. "I know how you're summoning so many, and it still annoys me."
Orochimaru quirked an eyebrow. "And how do you know that?"
"I'm from the future," Sasuke deadpanned. Orochimaru stopped for a second, obviously not expecting that, before continuing his attack.
"I'm okay with the crazy oness," he hissed. Sasuke rolled his eyes.
"Of course you are."
XxX
"You have an entire repertoire of deadly techniques, and you choose to blow up the snake the same way a second time."
Sitting in the remains of a giant summoned snake, Naruto just sighed as he wiped the guts out of his hair.
"You don't fix what isn't broken."
"Well, yes, but I'm pretty sure this was one of the things the gods would have let you get away with changing. Did you have to blow it up by flooding it with clones again? I thought you more creative."
"Oh, I am. I had dozens of ways of getting out."
"Then why didn't you use one of those?" Kyuubi asked.
Naruto looked around at the snake viscera around him. Sighing once more, he got up, before stretching. "Because this way's a lot simpler. I don't remember which way I was thrown, so I would have had to make clones to find Orochimaru anyway. This way, I don't have to make more clones."
Kyuubi nodded, seeing the logic behind his charge's reasoning. Then, he turned to the boy. "I see your point. Very smart reasoning indeed."
Done stretching, he then took off to where a clone had recently popped, courtesy of, believe it or not, Sasuke.
Kyuubi caught up with the boy easily. "Yes, smart reasoning. Unfortunately, it's exactly because it's smart reasoning that I'm reluctant to believe that you thought of it. What was the real reason you used clones?"
Naruto deadpanned. "I told you. Convenience."
"Oh really?"
"Yes, really." Naruto, who could run through trees asleep, refused to make eye contact.
"Boy, I have never known you to do things for convenience's sake. In fact, I'm pretty sure that doing things efficiently is actually harder for you."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I've seen you open cans of soup by coming up with a way to spin a kunai using a Rasengan and applying it to the foodstuffs."
"Truly an engineering masterpiece on my end."
"Quite," Kyuubi responded. "However, when introduced to a can opener by your meatbag of a wife, you almost destroyed the kitchen."
Naruto, who still hadn't turned around, had the decency to at least sound indignant. "Those things are confusing and stupid. It's not my fault."
"Naruto, you put the can under the blade and press a button."
"It's not that easy!"
"Naruto! I can do it! In my fox form. Where I don't have thumbs."
"Why the hell do you know you could do that?"
"Because I tried it!"
"Why?" Naruto wailed.
"For this exact reason! To prove how utterly backwards you are!"
"Well congratulation!" Naruto screamed. The sarcasm was almost literally dripping from his voice. "You're successfully the biggest pain in my butt!"
"Are you sure? The reason you have so much pain down there might be because you're so full of shit. Now what is the real reason you used clones on the snake?"
Naruto sputtered, before doubling his pace. "Is that the Snake's signature? We better hurry on ahead." Kyuubi rolled his eyes.
"I'll have you tell me eventually, you know I will."
"There's nothing to tell."
The two then traveled in silence. Kyuubi hummed the last bit of way. After a minute, Naruto coughed, before speaking his next words in less than a whisper.
"And my decision on clones had nothing to do with the fact that the inside of that snake was incredibly gross, and I just used the first thought that came to my mind."
Kyuubi smiled at the confession, but didn't press the issue further.
XxX
Back in the clearing, Orochimaru was still standing on a tree trunk, stunned. True, he had Sasuke pinned to a tree by a rather vicious chokehold, but that was a lesser point. Staring the boy in his red eyes, Orochimaru asked, "Did you really just throw a knife at your own teammate?"
Sasuke, who didn't seem too uncomfortable in his situation nodded. "Seems about right."
"Why?"
Sasuke shrugged. "I've thrown worse things at him."
"What if it wasn't a clone?" Orochimaru asked.
"Then he would have been hit." Sasuke answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well, yes. And are you not alarmed at all by that?"
"He's survived worse. Can you believe he lost his arm once? Survived all throughout the night until sunrise while bleeding out. Amazing boy, that man."
It was around here that Naruto made his grand re-entrance into the part of forest his teammates were in. Seeing the conversation going on, he picked up from what he heard.
"You survived that arm loss blood loss too, bastard. Don't sell yourself short."
Orochimaru looked between the two boys. They had fully intact arms.
"Took you long enough to get back," Sasuke said around shallow breaths. He could barely breathe for the situation he was in, and yet taunting Naruto still seemed to take priority.
"I'm sorry, a giant snake ate me. You should try it sometime. Really fun."
Sasuke smirked. "I have tried it. It was part of my training. It's not so bad once you get used to it."
"Ugh," Naruto retched. "I'd rather stick with toads."
"Oh? And they're better?"
"Immensely," Naruto said. He had taken to twirling a kunai around his finger. "They don't eat meat, so you usually just hang out in their mouths and chill on their tongues. Once you get over the swampy smell, it's actually pretty comfortable."
Sasuke stared. "I'm sure."
Orochimaru, however, wasn't so enthralled. "Are they… are they ignoring me?" Sakura patted the older man on his shoulder. As she was quite a bit shorter than he was, she had to stretch to do so.
"Welcome to my world," the pink haired Genin said, attempting to console the man. "They'll be done soon."
"But… but I'm currently choking him."
"Don't try to fight it."
"Anyway," Naruto said, finally quitting his twirl. "How about we get this started?"
"Oh, sure." And just like that Sasuke exploded in a miasma of purple chakra. Rubbing his neck, Sasuke looked fully at home with his Susanoo finally covering him. "That's better."
"It sssure isss," Orochimaru hissed, a manic expression on his face. Sasuke paled once more, suddenly uncomfortable again.
"Wait, what? No! You're supposed to be intimidated!"
"For whatever reason would I be intimidated, Sssassuke-kun? Rather, I'm exsssited!"
"W-why?" Sasuke asked, his voice nearly a whisper.
"Becaussse, when I'm insssside you, that beautiful technique will be mine!"
Sasuke couldn't hide the utter horror on his face.
"Kami, Sage and all deities above. This is what you dealt with?"
"You build up a tolerance," Sasuke replied after his initial shock wore off.
"Then why are you still whiter than a sheet?"
"Apparently the tolerance wears off."
And wear off it did, because it didn't take Orochimaru a second thought before he lunged forward, his Sword of Kusanagi extending from his open mouth. Diving in head first, Orochimaru attempted to impale the young shinobi on the top of his blade. The Kusanagi managed to pierce the armor, but it didn't get much farther than the tip. Sasuke was still a little too unnerved to do anything about it.
"Interessssting," Orochimaru hissed. "Even my blade, which can cut anything, can't quite make it through your chakra armor."
"You, no touchy!" Naruto yelled while grabbing the Sannin's shoulder. Stunned at how the boy had gotten to him so fast, he wasn't prepared for the surprisingly strong pre-teen to suddenly spin him. After several rotations, the boy finally deemed Orochimaru sufficiently dizzy, before releasing him and letting him indent into a tree. "Only I can touchy!"
Sasuke grimaced. "You no touchy either."
"We'll see about that."
Sasuke scowled. "Only Sarada touchy. And only once a year. During her birthday."
"You mean that stupid forehead poke you do?"
"It's not stupid. It's symbolic."
"Of what?"
"Fondness and a bond that transcends time and space."
Naruto stared at his best friend. "Bullshit." Sasuke stared back, face impassive. Well, more impassive than normal. "Not bullshit?"
"Not bullshit," Sasuke answered.
"Oh. Well, does Sarada know what it's symbolic of?"
"Of course she does." Sasuke answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Did you tell her?"
Sasuke's sputtering was not a good sign.
"Well, not exactly."
"She doesn't know!"
"Yes she does!" Sasuke yelled back, his Susanoo disappearing from around him. Apparently it was hard to hear in the confines of a suit of chakra armor. "She's my daughter! She inherited my genius! She should know what it means!"
Naruto wasn't particularly listening. "Holy Truth Seeking Balls! You've been going around all this time poking your daughter in the forehead and never told her why? The poor girl must've been so confused! I bet she made up her own reason!"
"No she didn't! She knew!"
"Bullshit!"
"Then why does she always look so happy whenever I do it? Huh?" Sasuke asked hysterical.
"Because she's probably just glad that you're talking to her at all!"
Sasuke was silent for a bit. "That's not true."
"Come on, we both know she's starved for attention from her daddy."
"I always figured Sakura gave her enough attention…"
At this Sakura perked up from the side. "What now? What was that?" Both boys turned to look at her in alarm, having completely forgetten she was there.
"I, uh, I mean…" Sasuke stammered, not sure how to deflect the conversation, or even how much he needed to. He wasn't sure how much she'd heard.
"I heard you say my name," Sakura yelled.
"I didn't say your name!" Sasuke yelled back.
"You sure? I heard someone say my name!"
"No one said your name!" Naruto yelled.
"Okay, just asking if you said my name!"
"No one is saying any names!"
"Oh, but you will be ssscreaming MY name!" Orochimaru hissed, before lunging behind Sasuke and putting his evil hickey on the boy's neck. Hissing at the pain, Sasuke could only grunt before the Snake Sannin detached himself and quickly fled. For all of the two boys' ability, they could never quite match Orochimaru's slipperiness.
Hand quickly clasping the now tender spot on his neck, Sasuke could only describe the emotion he felt as pure, unbridled rage. "Damn it Orochimaru!"
This screaming went on for a short while before Sasuke had the sense of mind to finally stop. Waiting a bit for the boy to catch his breath, Naruto then walked over to his best friend, a wicked smile on his face.
"You know, technically, you did just scream his name."
Sasuke immediately started screaming again.
