Disclaimer: Most dialogues pertaining to the fights (with the exception of those spoken to Karin and/or mentioning her, plus about three others) were taken word-for-word from Chapters 124 onward. The same applies to the fight choreographies, which also remain the same as their manga counterparts. Lastly, the character Kanden Tekuno does exist—albeit only in anime filler.
Note: Thank you so much to all those who reviewed the previous chapter, I truly enjoyed reading your feedback, and your comments always inspire me!
About this chapter: This chapter was actually originally part of the previous one; but since it resulted in an extremely long chapter, I decided to divide them in two. So, whereas last chapter was the set-up, things will come to a head here and as such are going to be moving pretty fast—especially as far as Karin's sensor ability goes.
…also its worth repeating that action is nowhere near my forte (orz).
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Chapter 16:
Awakening
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"You can't escape!"
His triumphant statement resounds through the forest, causing some birds nearby to take flight, alarmed. The two from the Sand however remain motionless, their bodies tensed as they look at Sasuke who had just landed in the branch before them, effectively blocking their way.
A smirk begins to spread across Sasuke's lips—but it soon takes a sour turn as Kankuro's expression sets.
"Temari, take Gaara and go ahead!" he commands, handing Gaara over to the blonde. The girl seems to hesitate for a brief moment, but soon nods.
"Yeah…" she says, before taking off. Sasuke however can do nothing but watch—it was evident by the way Kankuro had taken out his puppet that he was not about to let him through without a fight.
The Uchiha frowns, crossed by the turn of events. Why did these folks insist in wasting his time?
"I guess there's no helpin' it…" Kankuro begins, not looking any happier than Sasuke himself did. "I'll be your opponent!"
"No, I will be your opponent!"
The unexpected interruption had come from a nearby branch. Startled, both turn only to find Aburame Shino, hands in his pockets, eyes set on Kankuro's own.
"Tch, it's you…" mutters the puppet master.
"Shino… why are you here?"
Shino wordlessly points a finger at him in response, and Sasuke has to hold back a surprised gasp as he notices two small bugs walking across the collar of his shirt.
"Before you left the arena, I used some female bugs to spread their scent on you. The scent of the female is nearly non-existent, only the males of the same species can trace the faint scent of such females… although the males themselves have the strongest scent—"
"W—who the hell cares about all that?!"
"Uchiha Sasuke, you chase after Gaara," Shino continues, as if Kankuro had not interrupted him at all. "After all, your match with him has yet to be decided. I'll fight this one, since I was supposed to be his opponent, anyway." Faced with Sasuke's silence, Shino urges him on. "I will deal with this guy, you keep going!"
Kankuro scoffs, and Sasuke turns to Shino with a calculating look. "You're rather confident… you think you can do it?"
"Don't worry," is the boy's reply, and there are bugs crawling across his cheek. "I'll keep him off your back for ten minutes."
10 minutes? Sasuke snorts, fully smirking now. "By that time I'll have already finished up there!"
Are his confident words before jumping away in Gaara's pursuit.
…Had he stayed one second longer, he would have heard Kankuro's laughter.
"You guys have no idea! I don't think you guys have experienced… true terror!"
Yet—Sasuke would soon be finding out first hand just what that meant.
Meanwhile, back at the forest's entrance Karin is clinging to a tree-trunk in order to keep her balance, low and pained groans leaving her lips in uneven intervals.
What is… going on!?
Her mind screams at her, but the question is lost as another wave of nausea hits her full force, so that she has to bend over and put a hand to her mouth to try and keep the bile back.
The light headache that had begun sometime during Sasuke's fight with Gaara had worsened to the point its pain was almost blinding almost as soon as she left Kakashi. The closer she got to the forest, the worse it became—so she had succumbed to it no sooner than she arrived, the pain only made worse by the insisting pulsations puncturing her brain like needless; needless seemingly coming from her chakra circulatory system, which kept stirring listlessly, as if a whole army of ninja were trying to disrupt her chakra flow with their own and put her into a Genjutsu.
"Ughh…!"
Karin winces, her fingernails digging into the trunk and her eyes tightly shut—yet none of that is capable of keeping the sensation at bay.
The feeling of being ripped apart and pulled in a hundred different directions all at once—each one a spark of awareness forcefully carving itself into her skull, to the point her thoughts become nothing but an incomprehensible buzz and her stomach begins to turn again, her intestines crawling and arcades going up her throat at the same time that her five senses were shaken by a dizziness so intense that it made her growl.
For a delirious moment, her mind sways into pitch-black darkness, unconsciousness flexing its claws and trying to clutch her whole—and then Kakashi's words reach her like a lighthouse in the middle of a raging sea.
'If it gets hard… focus on him and hold on tightly. Don't forget that, Karin. Now, go!'
Karin had not known what he meant, then—and neither does she know it now. But there's no space for confusion midst the pain, and neither is there space for rational thought; so her instincts rise and take over, her senses spreading and reaching out through the countless of sparks—through the myriad of dots all so distinctive and moving ohgodwhycouldn'ttheystopmoving—in search of a certain one.
Once her heart gives a familiar tug when her senses reach one of the sparks, Karin tightly hangs onto it; no second thoughts, no questions asked.
She doesn't know how and she sure as hell does not know why, but a part of her—one that was nothing but raw instincts and feelings and desperation—is sure that spark is Sasuke; and so she holds onto him for dear life, focuses every inch of her being and her senses on him until all the dots surrounding him begin to ebb away and only Sasuke—who she thought was Sasuke—who she knew was Sasuke—remains.
And suddenly—suddenly she can breathe.
The redhead takes a huge mouthful of air, panting. It had felt as if she were submerged underwater and holding her breath for an uncanny period of time. The oxygen helps to alleviate the pain hammering her head and blurring her sight, but while her chakra system stops reeling as if it were a mix inside a cauldron, Karin could still feel light flickers of awareness spreading through it.
The strongest of all being—
"Sasuke…!"
She breathes out, giving a step forward and letting herself be pulled in the direction of his spark. He was further ahead in the woods, going deeper and deeper in pursuit of something, or someone. She could tell from the speed at which his chakra was moving and—
Wait a moment… his chakra? Karin blinks, digging her nails on the tree for support. Was it… was it really his chakra she was feeling? But how? It made no sense for her to be able to—
Her thoughts come to an abrupt halt as Sasuke slows down, and then stops moving altogether.
Sasuke stops moving, and around him—around him there was another spark. An uneven flicker, vice emanating from it like venom.
I have to… reach Sasuke!
Karin tells herself, but her legs betray her as she gives another step forward. Before she could fall face-first into the ground however, a pair of arms appear out of nowhere and grasp her shoulders, breaking her fall.
The girl raises her sweaty face only to meet the eyes of Nara Shikamaru, who was giving her a weary look.
"You okay?"
Yet, before Karin could attempt to reply, another man makes his presence known—one whose voice she immediately recognizes, even despite having heard it for the first time only mere minutes ago.
"Hey, aren't you... the same girl from the arena? What are you doing here?"
Karin's voice is hoarse as she begins to speak.
Sasuke arrives just in time to see Gaara roughly pushing Temari away, not giving a second-thought to the blonde's well-being as he glared at Sasuke, his expression a stern glare that abruptly morphs into a painful grimace.
A bad feeling assaults Sasuke as he warily watches the guy, but he doesn't let it show. He had a duty, and moreover—he had a score to settle. "Although I don't know the motives of your village… I'll stop you!"
There's a moment of terrible silence as they look at each other. Then, Sasuke makes his choice.
"Also… I want to see your true face."
Gaara stops struggling and his panting slows down to a stop. The sand covering his body like a second skin is cracking more and more with each passing second and there is a thin trail of drool dripping down his chin—but he makes no effort to wipe it off as his lips contort into a smile that reeked of insanity.
"You, that is strong… you, that has companions. You, that has an ambition. You, that is like me…." his eyes widen with thrill and then narrow with killing intent, and Sasuke's hands curl into loose fists at his sides. "Once I kill you, I will be the one to have destroyed all that. Only then can I survive… only then can I feel alive!"
And then he is changing shapes before Sasuke's surprised eyes; the right side of his body losing all traces of humanity. A claw-like and deformed arm protuberating from what just mere seconds ago was a normal shoulder, and his face—
Gaara's cold but decidedly boyish face seems to melt and then stretches—until there's a row of long, razor-sharp teeth and no lips to conceal them. Stretches until his eye contorts into an endless black-hole with a yellow and canine-like pupil.
The same inhuman eye that had stared back at him from the depths of Gaara's sand cocoon.
It's… that eye from before…. Despite himself, Sasuke finds his body shaking—and he bites down on his lip to keep the fear—bitter, overwhelming, instinctive fear—from taking over him.
Gaara…. The Uchiha thinks, and his own voice drops an octave and becomes Karin's. Karin's stern, tension-filled voice as she looked at him and gave him one last warning.
'I know I've said this before, but… there's something… something really wrong about that guy; about Sabaku no Gaara. I can feel it. Kakashi-san said it was his killing intent, but… I don't think that's it. There's something… dark about him. No, more than that—there's something dark oozing off him.'
Sasuke thinks he gets it, now. Gets it and steers himself for what was to come.
…Looks like this battle won't end as quickly as I thought.
As if answering his thoughts, Gaara charges at him faster than the eye can blink.
Karin whirls around toward the depths of the forest, vertigo hitting her with the force of an avalanche coming at her at a mile per hour.
"We need to go in!" she yells to the other two, urgently. Shikamaru had been quietly sitting at the feet of a tree and his teacher, Asuma, had been leaning against one himself, smoking a cigarette. They're both looking at her now but neither makes a single move, so Karin steps forward, eager and desperate and serious and the words leave her almost as if they were not her own. "We need to go in now! Sasuke is in serious trouble, that chakra—it isn't human!"
"Chakra…?" Shikamaru echoes. For a moment, Karin gives him a confused look—but then she is shaking her head, distressed.
"What part of we need to go after him aren't you guys getting!?"
Shikamaru is about to say something when Asuma steps on his cigarette. "Alright. I will go in. You two stay here."
The boy gives his teacher a questioning look that the man returns with a firm one, causing Shikamaru to frown. "Are—?"
"No, I'm going in, too!" Karin chimes in. Asuma shakes his head.
"If what you're saying is true, then there's a good chance that you two will be in danger if you come with me. I can't let you do that."
Karin gives another step forward. It's a feeble gesture, but the look in her eyes is anything but and Asuma finds himself resumed to silence by it. "I am going with you."
Karin states, firmly. And Asuma cannot help but wonder where had this girl come from—and why was he always stuck with the stubborn, determinate ones.
"… Fine," he agrees, giving in with a sigh. "But you two stay behind me."
"Huh? So I'm going, too?" Shikamaru looks from his teacher to the redhead and back before heaving in a sigh of his own, one that is soon accompanied by a groan. "Guess I don't have much choice, do I? Maa… troublesome."
As the boy reluctantly gets to his feet, a memory echoes in Karin's tangled thoughts.
'Don't worry about him. Just wait for him to reach you. Understood?'
I'm sorry, Kakashi-san. Karin thinks, as she and her two companions begin to move. This time, I can't do as you say.
She could not—would not—stay on the sidelines while Sasuke's life was in danger.
If she had to risk her own, then so be it.
"What's the matter!? Are you afraid of me!?"
Sasuke does not reply. He is crouching behind a tree—one of the few that had not been blown off by Gaara's last attack. Ever since Gaara had charged at him, Sasuke had not had any room to attack and had been limited to avoiding his monstrous hits. He hated to think it, but—
'Don't forget… you're my prey.'
It did feel that way. As if he were nothing but a mouse trying to escape from the claws of a cat; an atrocious, feral cat whose roars were akin to those of a blood-lust filled monster.
A hunter that did not give up. "Has your fear overtaken the hatred, the killing urge!? Is your reason for existence as puny as that!?"
… Such a shameful thing—such a cowardly thing as escaping, such a disgraceful role as being someone's prey—that was not the way of an Uchiha.
Slowly, Sasuke rises to his feet—his limbs and resolve empowered by a single image. One that has been cruelly and permanently engraved in his mind's eye, for better of for worse.
That of a pair of merciless Sharigan, coldly staring back at him.
My brother Itachi chose me to be the avenger… the sole reason for my existence… is to hunt him, to destroy him!
He was not going to be Gaara's prey. "Chidori!"
Sasuke charges forward, his Chidori cutting through the uneven maze of Gaara's skin and completely destroying the inhuman-like side of him. Behind him, Gaara is letting out a blood-chilling wail of pain—but it comes to an abrupt stop as he grins madly, completely out of himself.
"Defeating a man strong enough to hurt me and utterly destroying him… that's what gives me an even greater sense of existence!"
Sasuke cannot help but to smirk, satisfied. If what Gaara wanted was to prove his existence, then Sasuke would give him more than he bargained for.
… Except that it seemed to go both ways, for the side of Gaara that his Chidori had just destroyed begins to shift, reconstructing itself only to take a completely different shape—and now there even was a tail of sand and skin protruding from the bottom of Gaara's gourd.
What the hell is he…!? He keeps changing shape…!
He has no time to dwell on such a question however, as Gaara is suddenly taking impulse. "Here I come!"
One moment he is on the tree, and the next he is charging at Sasuke at such a speed that Sasuke is thoroughly taken aback. He's faster than before!
Luckily, his reflexes do not freeze the way his mind did; and so he gathers some chakra in his feet and lets himself fall backward, avoiding Gaara's attack by a hair and ending up standing upside-down on the reverse face of the branch. Dodging his attacks would be impossible if I wasn't reading his movements… I would have been long gone without these eyes.
Sasuke frowns, his Sharingan set on Gaara and keenly taking in his every move. The redhead had just changed his course midair, and was using sand tentacles to grab onto nearby branches and get some impulse to charge at Sasuke again. Being able to tell what Gaara was about to do, it gives Sasuke the enough time to prepare a seal.
But… since the tournament, that last one was the second… Chidori isn't an option.
"Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu!"
A huge fireball comes out of Sasuke's mouth, but Gaara charges through it as if it were nothing. "Die!"
Seems like fire is useless against sand… besides, a jutsu of that level isn't…. Sasuke curses inwardly, not having another option but to cross his arms across his face in order to defend himself from Gaara's upcoming attack. I knew it… Chidori is the only way, after all!
Despite his defense, Gaara's attack is a powerful hit that sends Sasuke flying backwards and through the trees behind them.
'…What would happen to me… if I attempt for the third one?'
Kakashi remains silent before turning and meeting Sasuke's eyes squarely, his voice severe. 'There would be no third one… never forget that.'
"Is this all your existence means to you?" Gaara inquires, landing on the branch across Sasuke's own and watching him. Watching as he laid there, sitting against the tree, head hung low and limbs drained of any strength. "Let me make it clear for you, then… You are weak!"
Sasuke twitches, but he is too weary to attempt anything. He had already pulled the two Chidori, and Gaara was still there; unharmed and seemingly getting more powerful by the minute. What was there to do, now?
"You're too soft because your hatred isn't strong enough!" Gaara continues, wickedly. And his words are more merciless than his own attacks. "The power of hate is the power to kill, the power to kill is the power of vengeance! Your hatred is weaker than mine!"
The face of a single man shines clearly on his mind's eye again, and Sasuke feels a hot current of rage and hatred running through his veins, re-awakening his tired muscles.
"Shut up…." He mutters darkly, and Gaara's monstrous leer widens sinisterly.
"Do you understand what that means…?" he mocks, but Sasuke does not listen.
For he is already forming a Chidori—the third one—and lunging at him. Gaara wastes no time and jumps to meet him, grinning with anticipation. "It means you're weaker than me!"
As if on cue the lightning chakra concentrated on Sasuke's hand flickers and ebbs away, a powerful and sizzling surge of pain spreading from his wrist up his arm and shoulder to his neck, so that something inside of him snaps as he and Gaara collide.
Each of them lands on a branch at each other's back. There's a moment of eerie silence as they both stay still, waiting—
And then Gaara's beast-like arm caters to the ground, torn apart by the Chidori Sasuke had managed to strengthen at the last moment thanks to the seal spreading across his skin like wildfire.
A shriek-like groan leaves Gaara's lips at the same time a pained one leaves Sasuke's, who falls down on the branch and clutches his neck, pressing his fingers into the seal.
Ugh… the cursed seal again!
Behind him, Gaara's left arm has morphed into another monstrous claw.
Sasuke turns just in time to see the beast coming at him at full speed, ready to kill him—but for the life of him he cannot move a single finger, he could barely breathe through the pain as it was.
Damn it, I can't move!
There's an unbearable moment that seems to stretch on forever, as Gaara's claw looms over Sasuke's body and the Uchiha thinks his moment to die had finally come—
And then there's Sakura's voice, "Sasuke-kun!"
And Naruto is suddenly before him, landing a potent kick right into Gaara's face.
Shikamaru is the first to spot him.
"Sensei, over there!"
Their eyes widen as they fall on the lone and cloaked figure of a boy laying face-down on a branch. Without wasting a second, Asuma changes his direction and lands by the boy's side in order to check his vitals.
"He is… he is poisoned!" the jounin announces, and Shikamaru curses under his breath. Karin holds back a gasp as she sees a trail of bugs crawling across the cloak of the unconscious boy, whom she now recognized as Ryuu's opponent from the prelims, Aburame Shino. Asuma however pays the insects no heed, grabbing the boy and draping one of his limp arms across his own neck. "He needs to be treated, fast! You two wait for me, I have to take Shino back!"
Karin frowns. "But Sasuke—!"
"I will be right back, it won't take long! Just wait here!"
"Wait—!" but Karin's frustrated call falls on deaf ears as the man poofs away, taking Shino with him. "Damn it!"
She had felt it, just mere moments ago. Felt how Sasuke's chakra had darkened and then weakened, flickering in and out like a match in the middle of a storm. By now, Karin is not bothering to question just how was she able to feel it, and neither does she doubt it is his chakra what she was sensing. It was just something she instinctively knew, just like she had known when to move to avoid Temari's attacks a month ago, and moreover this wasn't the time to wonder about such things. Karin had more pressing matters to attend to.
Shikamaru seems to notice just that, because he sighs.
"Look… I would rather not have to do it, but if you try to keep going before Asuma gets back, I'll stop you with my shadow."
He is looking at her through weary, half-lidded eyes but the redhead does not spare him a glance, not once taking her sight away from the forest extending ahead of them.
"Tch," she mutters, absentmindedly. "You don't even have enough chakra for that."
Shikamaru's eyes widen. How had she known that?
After a few moments of silent contemplation, Shikamaru lets out another sigh. The girl gave no signs of wanting to make a run for it and that was enough for him. No point wondering about stuff that didn't concern him.
Still… Tch, why do I always get stuck with the troublesome girls? Jeez….
"Ughhh…!"
Sasuke groans, blood gorging up his throat and out through his gritted teeth.
'If you give in to hatred and depend on the cursed seal… that will be it for your strength growth.'
Sasuke's nails dig into the branch, the pain and effort so agonizing that his head was starting to spin.
Kakashi's eye is somber, his demeanor more serious than Sasuke has seen it being since the battle against Zabuza. 'In that case… you can never defeat Itachi.'
I have to… control this! He adamantly tells himself, repeating over and over the warning Kakashi had given him that very morning, taking the chance of Karin not being around to hear it.
Ahead of him, Sasuke can hear the mayhem of the fight. Naruto had taken over and was now fighting Gaara for their lives—for his, Sasuke's and especially Sakura's, who had been pinned to a tree and was being held hostage by the mad redhead who had become a monster reeking of nothing but bloodlust.
A loud crash is followed by a sharp cry of pain from Naruto, and Sasuke grips the branch so tightly that he almost rips a nail off.
It was no good. It just was no good. Gaara did not even look remotely human anymore, Naruto was outmatched and Sasuke—Sasuke was useless.
Damn it! Why now… why am I still so useless!? Naruto…!
The blond's name sounds remarkably like a plea inside his mind, but Sasuke does not flinch away from it. He does not doubt, does not deny, does not hesitate one bit—that was his closest friend out there risking his life for them and he was laying here, helplessly and uselessly, letting it happen.
He could not—he could not allow Naruto to die for him and Sakura. He could not allow Gaara to claim Naruto's or Sakura's lives. He could not—would not—let history repeat itself.
He was not going to lose the people that mattered—the people who actually cared—once again.
He would not let his precious people be ripped away from him.
He would not.
A current of determination takes over his body, battling the pain for dominance—it doesn't win the fight yet, but Sasuke seizes his chance and springs into action just in time to break Naruto's fall, shielding the boy with his own body and crashing against a tree as he did so.
For a mind-numbing moment Sasuke thinks he is going to pass out as his back creaks and his sight blurs—but then Naruto is saying his name and Sasuke comes back to his senses, pushing unconsciousness away.
"Finally decided to go back to your normal self, huh? Even after all that… you only managed to land one blow, shape up will you?" Sasuke tries to taunt, but the truth is he is panting too much and his voice is too hoarse for it to sound sardonic. Still, he carries on, determined to talk some sense into Naruto. "I can't save you this time, like I did in the Wave country… you dimwit."
Naruto scoffs, but he is also panting through his bravado. "Shaddap… will you?"
"Hey, Naruto…" Sasuke calls, after a moment of pause during which he steadied his thoughts and voice. "Sakura… you have to save her no matter what. I know you can save her. Once you've got her, carry her and run as far and as fast as you can."
"Sasuke, you…." Naruto trails off, giving him a surprised look that the Uchiha deliberately ignores.
"If it's just for a while, I will be able to hold him in place."
If I end up dying, it just means that I was at the end of my limits….
His body trembles all over as he begins to slowly raise, his feet unsteady but his gaze determinate.
"Never again," he says through gritted teeth, his back turned toward his friend. "I already lost everything once before… I don't ever want to watch those dear to me die before my eyes again."
As he stood there, head held up high and back set straight—strong-willed eyes set on the monster Gaara had become, a memory flashes through his mind all of a sudden.
'But… if you ever feel like telling me, I'd be willing to listen.'
A tight, strained smile quirks up Sasuke's lips.
Sorry, Karin… seems I won't be able to tell you, after all.
"I get it… yeah… that's right."
Startled, Sasuke looks at Naruto over his shoulder only to find that the boy was slowly rising to his feet.
"Because he was like me… because he lived feeling the same kind of loneliness and sadness I did…" Naruto rambled on, seemingly talking to himself. "I thought he was strong 'cause he survived that solitude, fighting only for himself."
A tight-lipped grin draws itself across Naruto's face as he comes to stand by Sasuke's side, who can only stare at him with confused surprise. Naruto…?
"But I was wrong," Naruto firmly declares, not yet raising his eyes to meet Sasuke's. "His strength isn't real. Strength doesn't come from fighting alone. Real strength is not what you have when fighting only for yourself…."
The self-appointed No.1 unpredictable ninja trails off and swiftly raises his face, his hands coming together to form a seal—his gaze as focused and sharp as shards of glass. His look alone makes Sasuke's eyes widen with disbelief.
"Naruto…!" he breathes out, and at once has to leap back as a tremendous amount of chakra begins to ooze from his friend, who was yelling a loud battle-cry.
What the…! I don't believe the amount of chakra he is gathering! Is this really… Naruto!?
"I will protect them, no matter what!"
Naruto yells, and all of a sudden there's not only one but a thousand Narutos surrounding them, taking every single inch of space as far as the eye could see.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting! Well, are you ready?!" Naruto grins, confidently. "I'm gonna start the 'Naruto Ninja Scrolls' now!"
Less than six minutes transpire between the moment Asuma leaves and his return. There had been no need to take Shino to the Hospital because he had run into none other than Shino's own father, who had been just about entering the woods in search of his son. The Aburame had said he would be taking care of the poison, and so Asuma had left the kid in his arms and gone back at full-speed.
Now they were moving again, dashing through the forest—Asuma at the head of the group, Karin a step behind him and Shikamaru at the rear, two branches behind the redhead.
"Damn! Just how deep did they go in!?" the boy asks, upset.
"There's still a long way to go!" Karin shouts back, briefly throwing the boy a look over her shoulder. Shikamaru looked tired and was probably in need of rest; he had almost run out of chakra back during his match against Temari, and thanks to the speed at which they were moving he had not been able to recuperate enough stamina, either. Were the circumstances any different, Karin would be asking for a break herself; there was a faint pain already starting to puncture one side of her stomach as it was.
But she could not afford to stop. Not now.
A new wave of chakra fades in and out her perception at that very instant, as if reaffirming her thought, and Karin almost halts out of sheer surprise.
That chakra—it had come literally out of nowhere but it was so powerful that it had made her head momentarily spin. And at the same time it was so… familiar?
It takes her a moment of contemplation, but then she intuitively recognizes it as Naruto's—the Naruto she had gotten a glimpse of during his match against Neji—and his name leaves her lips in the form of a faint, surprised gasp.
"Huh?!"
"Naruto is… fighting!" Karin explains, her face tensioned due to how deep in thought she was as she tried to sort the feeling of the chakra. Shikamaru and Asuma listen closely, not making any questions. "But this isn't… this is nothing like what he showed against Hyuuga Neji! This is… unreal! Almost like—!"
Almost like Gaara! Is what she left unsaid, a shot of trepidation going down her throat as she bites back the name.
But no, that wasn't right—it was not like Gaara's. Maybe in sheer size, but not in nature.
Gaara's felt menacing. It was dark, raw and uncontrolled. But Naruto's—Naruto's was driven, focused. She could not discern anything apart of determination on it. A will so strong that it made a shiver run down her spine.
Asuma looks away from her expression and back ahead, his own eyes narrowing in concentration. "Are they straight up ahead, Karin?!"
"Y—yes!" the girl replies, startled out of her thoughts. "We're going in the right direction!"
"Alright! Then let's quicken our pace, but don't let your guard down!"
Karin adds an extra notch of chakra to the soles of her feet and charges ahead, the pain in her abdomen completely forgotten and replaced by pure resolve.
Sasuke, Naruto… hold on a bit longer! We're coming to get you!
What mere hours ago had been a spotless, lively arena had now become a bloody battlefield. There were bodies of enemy shinobi sprawled everywhere, blood splattered on the floor and leaking down the walls.
Pillars had cracked, railings had melted and rows of seats had crumbled down. And the arena itself—the area where Sasuke and Naruto and Shikamaru had fought that noon was now full of craters everywhere, smoke and debris and corpses covering all of it.
Konoha's jounin looked down at it; some of them still engaged into fights, others just making sure the audience remained safe and their genjutsu-induced sleep unperturbed.
Kakashi and Gai were one of the former, and as they disposed of the bodies of the Sound shinobi who had just attacked them—two more carelessly thrown into the arena—they come to stand back to back.
"I'm surprised at how many of the Sound have invaded." Gai comments gravely. There's a moment of quiet between them as Kakashi frowns, his expression stern.
"Well… it was only to be expected, you know," his forehead protector is no longer lidded, his Sharingan exposed, its tomoe swirling. "This is war, when you get right down to it."
There's a deafening noise and then the whole forest seems to shake. A surge of wind blows past them, and Karin has to hold onto a branch to avoid being swept away.
"What's going on!?" yells Shikamaru, both arms defensively raised across his face to protect himself from the blast of wind.
"An earthquake!? But no, it can't be…!" muses Asuma, crouched on a branch ahead of the two teens. "There must—!"
But Karin and Shikamaru don't get to find out, for the words die on the jounin's lips as there's suddenly a huge toad jumping high in the air a considerable distance ahead of them.
The three of them can only stare up, mouth agape, as the toad unleashes three big bursts of water the size of waterfalls. For a moment the droplets are so thick and numerous that they miss the massive ball of chakra that comes from below and hits the toad full-force on its exposed belly, causing an explosion that makes the ground below them shake yet again.
"What… the hell…?" stammers Shikamaru, his voice barely above a murmur.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu…?" mutters an awestruck Asuma. But Karin has got no time to make questions of her own, as a different and enormous beast suddenly rises from the woods, its sand-colored skin covered in irregular black markings.
What a colossal… quantity of chakra! Is the dismayed thought that races through her mind, but soon that is too completely erased from scratch.
"Un… believable…."
Right in front of their amazed stares, the toad has morphed into a ferocious nine-tailed fox.
"Kakashi, that guy is moving! Do we chase?!"
"No, Gai! Wait."
"Ah…." sardonically marvels the cloaked ANBU standing before them. "When you don't have good battleground information, you don't like to move around much for fear of falling into the enemy's snare, huh?"
Gai's eyes narrow. There's unmistakable distaste for the enemy coloring his firm look. "We agree with those words a hundred times over. There could be traps, and unseen areas. And it's wrong to lose sight of an enemy… that's what a Leaf shinobi is."
Kakashi mirrors Gai's expression and tone as he speaks, "After all, you're right before us… Kabuto."
Leisurely, the ANBU removes the mask only to reveal the smirking face of a bespectacled, gray-haired man. "…Completely exposed."
By his side, Baki doesn't seem that thrilled by the turn of events. "Hey, what do we do?!"
Yakushi Kabuto's response is simple, but clear. "Slowly retreat."
"Now, you are going to run away from me?" taunts Kakashi, but unlike Kabuto's, there's no amusement present in his voice.
"Right away, because you will just copy all my secrets," the closest thing to a serious look passes through Kabuto's features then, as he adds, "your eye isn't as good as a member of the Uchiha clan, but…."
And then he is making a single seal, after which a cloud of smoke envelops him and Baki. There are no traces of them left as the smoke dissipates.
But Kakashi's intense glare doesn't ease in the slightest, a thunderstorm brewing inside his sole Sharingan.
"That's enough, Naruto. Sakura is all right now."
The blond gives him a startled, unconvinced look as Sasuke kneels down by his side, so he elaborates. "This guy has run out of chakra, Sakura has been saved from the sand."
Naruto's lips curve upward in a remarkably peaceful and content smile, his struggles to drag himself forward with his chin in order to reach Gaara finally coming to a stop. "Is that so…?"
With a start, Sasuke turns away from him as two figures land in front of Gaara's fallen body. Temari and Kankuro are in defensive, alert stances, and for a moment Sasuke wonders if they would attack—but then Gaara speaks, taking all three by surprise with his words.
"That's enough… stop it."
Kankuro turns to Gaara and looks at him for a long moment before leaning down to help him up, draping one of his brother's arms around his shoulder. "I understand."
Wordlessly, Temari gives Sasuke and Naruto one last, contrite look and then the three of them are gone.
Once they're alone, Sasuke shifts his focus to Naruto only to find that the boy had fallen asleep, his exhaustion finally getting to him.
His face was completely covered in blood and smeared with dirt and his clothes were not any better, but his expression was serene. The lengths to which he had gone out of sheer drive to save Sakura… Sasuke could not begin to wrap his mind around them. The kind of power the boy had showcased was far beyond Sasuke's understanding.
Their fight had been inhuman. Incredible. Had Sasuke been in Naruto's place, he… he would not have lasted a full minute.
"Sasuke!" Pakkun calls out as he lands by his side, his voice successfully cutting Sasuke's thoughts short before the bitterness could get a hold of him.
"Didn't I tell you to keep an eye on Sakura?" Sasuke questions, frowning at the little dog, who simply points a paw in the direction of the forest's entrance.
"Don't worry, the reinforcements are here."
"Hn?"
The sound of approaching footsteps is more than enough to answer his question. He turns toward the sound, half-expecting Kakashi—but what greets his sight makes his eyes widen with utter surprise.
A very familiar redhead was at the head of the group, running towards him with a relieved look lighting up her features. "Sasuke!"
"Karin…! What are you doing here?"
"Isn't that obvious?! I came to help!"
Behind Karin, Asuma has turned toward Shikamaru. "Shikamaru, you take Sakura. I will take Naruto!"
Shikamaru mutters something under his breath but complies either way, turning so that Asuma could carefully lay the unconscious pink-haired girl he had been carrying onto Shikamaru's back instead.
Meanwhile Karin is drawing in a surprised breath, having come to kneel down by Sasuke. Once realization dawns on him, he hastily looks away—but he knows there was no helping it.
Karin had seen the cursed seal covering his skin.
"Sasuke, what…?"
Sasuke grimaces in anticipation of the question that would surely come, the gesture angled away from Karin's concerned gaze.
"Are those… the same ones from the prelims?" Karin softly asks, taking him by surprise. "I thought I had seen… something, but I wasn't—…."
Suddenly, Karin's eyes widen and her fingers let go of her glasses due to sheer surprise. It had lasted for less than the blink of an eye, but she could have sworn… she could've sworn that she had seen—
'Black marks going up Sasuke-san's face…?'
It's slowly that Karin blinks and lowers her hand, her fingers once again lying against the cold handrail.
'No, no way. My bad eyes played tricks on me.'
She tells herself as she shakes her head roughly in order to get over her stupor and return her attention to the fight, and as she does so she realizes that the awful sensation had left her altogether without her notice.
She trails off, giving Sasuke the chance to object. But he stays silent, and so she carries on, her brow lightly furrowed. "Are they… the reason why you weren't yourself back then?"
The Uchiha curses inwardly. Really… out of all the possible people who could have come to find him like this, why did it have to be Karin? Karin, who always seemed to figure everything out whether he wanted her or not. Karin, who would comprehend that these markings were a sign of his weakness—and bad.
Dangerous.
Sasuke would have much preferred to be found by someone else. Someone who would not care; perhaps then he would not have to worry yet another person over his carelessness.
He… just how useless could he be?
His bitter thoughts come to an abrupt end as Karin's fingers unexpectedly ghost over the flame-like markings covering his left cheek. His breath halts as he turns into the touch out of surprise, finally meeting her eyes.
In them he finds—concern, yes. But there was curiosity as well. And not a single hint of reproach, or of disapproval or disgust.
"Do they hurt…?" Karin asks quietly, curiously, and Sasuke has to try two times before his throat unclogs enough to be able to reply.
"N—no…." He mutters back, and Karin nods and retreats her hand, placing it on her kneecaps instead.
Her eyes, however, take over her fingertips' task and she traces the markings down until her sight lands on the Cursed Seal engraved onto his neck. When her red eyes flicker back to his, Sasuke holds her gaze with his own stern one. "I… would rather not talk about it."
Karin stays quiet for a moment, her gaze wary—but then she takes a deep breath and nods, candidly, "Fine by me."
"Oi, you two," suddenly calls Shikamaru, and the two genin look away from each other and at him with a start. "I don't mean to be an ass, but Sakura is kind of heavy. So could we…?"
There's a moment of quiet before Asuma heaves a sigh and lightly knocks Shikamaru over the head, earning a startled complaint from the boy. Shikamaru, you really need to learn how to read the mood! The jounin inwardly lectures before clearing his throat. "I—it may be better to get going, yeah."
Sasuke's eyes slightly narrow in wonderment as his eyes lay on Naruto's body, which was securely held in Asuma's arms. When had he…?
"Alright!"
Karin obliviously agrees, before grabbing Sasuke's wrist and swiftly flinging one of his arms around her shoulder. As expected the boy protests, but Karin pays him no heed, simply throwing a nonchalant look his way before getting to her feet and pulling him with her. "Don't even dare to tell me you don't need help, Sasuke. Frankly, you look like crap."
The Uchiha frowns, affronted. "Tsk, thanks, Karin."
Karin outright ignores him. "How is Naruto-san?"
"He will be fine; seems he lost consciousness out of exhaustion. Nothing some rest won't heal."
Karin sighs with relief, weakly smiling up at the jounin. "I'm glad. What about Sakura-san?"
They jump on a branch, and then another, and then Sasuke allows his eyes to travel to Karin's profile, thoughtfully taking in the blood smeared on her cheeks. The girl must have felt him staring, because she spontaneously begins explaining. "They're just shallow cuts. Things… got a little crazy back at the arena after you left, so it could have been worse."
Before Sasuke could even attempt to inquire Karin hardens her expression, her eyes momentarily meeting his own. And so Sasuke knows what she expects him to do before the redhead trails off, "Moreover…"
"…You were right, Karin," he says, thoughtfully looking down and allowing himself to be guided by the girl. "There really was something wrong with that guy… Gaara isn't normal. He transformed into a complete monster."
"I know." Karin states, sternly. Her eyes are set straight ahead even when Sasuke turns sideways in order to give her a slightly surprised look. "I felt it. His chakra… it wasn't human."
He doesn't even bother to wonder how she knew that in the first place. There are other things monopolizing his attention.
"Gaara's chakra wasn't the only one. That fight… the fight itself was inhuman. I've never seen anything like it before, Karin."
Dimly, Sasuke is aware that Asuma and Shikamaru are also listening in, but he can't bring himself to care. He carries on through his relate, so preoccupied by the memories that he barely registers his surroundings. The only thing anchoring down to the present is Karin's warm body and the slight grunts of acknowledgement she lets out in order to edge him onward whenever he got stuck.
"It… it felt as if I had been caught in the middle of a storm. It was surreal." The Uchiha finishes, and he is almost startled when Pakkun's voice reaches his ears.
"Sasuke is right… it did feel like a storm."
Karin is so flabbergasted that she almost lets go of Sasuke altogether. "D—did that dog just talk?!"
"Don't ask," Shikamaru wisely advices.
Asuma turns to look at Sasuke. "Where did that huge toad come from?"
"…I don't know. It was Naruto's." Sasuke replies, honestly. Asuma looks down, deep in thought.
"… So it was a summoning jutsu," the jounin mutters under his breath, but Shikamaru is close enough to hear, and so he looks back at Sasuke over his shoulder as they abandon the branches and jump down onto the path leading them to the forest's exit.
"So the other thing—the one with the black-markings, it was Gaara's?"
"…No." Sasuke states, his voice hardening along with his face. "It was Gaara."
There's a moment of quiet following his words.
"… You are kidding, right?"
Sasuke offers no reply aside from his silence. But it suffices, and after taking a look at Pakkun's grave look, Shikamaru curses under his breath.
"Then… how did you…?"
The black-haired boy understands at once what Shikamaru was trying to ask.
"It wasn't me." Sasuke replies, eyes narrowing and wistfully focusing on the ground. "…It was Naruto."
Karin, who had kept quiet for the most part and had simply focused on listening to Sasuke's words, can't help but to let her eyes widen with astonishment. But what takes her aback isn't Sasuke's revelation, no—what surprises her is the feeble but thick veil of bitterness that slowly but surely befalls upon Sasuke as he utters those words. More than pick it up in his voice, Karin picks it up from his chakra—and as she turns sideways in order to observe his expression, her red eyes widen an inch more.
There was a new flame-like marking spreading across his neck and up his ear.
Its sole sight makes Karin's stomach clench. She had a bad feeling about this.
"Sasuke—"
"Asuma-san!"
Startled, Karin and Sasuke look ahead only to see a jounin running towards them from the forest's entrance.
"What's the matter, Tekuno?"
"Hokage-sama has—!" his voice wavers, and the chubby jounin struggles to put himself back together. He audibly swallows, but despite his efforts there are unleashed tears threatening to spill from his black eyes. "… The Sandaime has passed away."
Sasuke stiffens under Karin's hold.
A stunned silence engulfs the forest. A soft breeze passes by, rustling their hairs and the leaves of the trees surrounding them—but no one moves a single inch.
And then Kanden Tekuno starts weeping and reality sets in, cruel and sorrowful.
—
End of the 16th Chapter
Not much SasuKarin interaction this chapter, I know—but don't worry! Next chapter will hopefully make up for it; I decided to write an extra chapter to hopefully fill (at least a little) all your requests of romance, haha! So do look forward to it~ it will be the last chapter before the epilogue, so we're almost done!
Now, a few notes:
I believe it may have been the sheer amount of people approaching her village that which triggered Karin's senses into awakening; so playing along to that hypothesis of mine, I'm replacing the invasion of her village with the Konoha invasion, which is why she awakened only now.
The reason why she could use her sensing quite properly this chapter was thanks to Kakashi's training, which was specifically aimed to hone her senses and Chakra control—as you guys can hopefully see clearly now, Kakashi was all along preparing Karin for her unavoidable awakening as a sensor.
Lastly, there were also a couple of instances where Karin dropped her suffix for Naruto in this chapter; I did those deliberately, because Karin using suffixes is something she does consciously. So since her mind was busy with other matters, she did not pay a second-thought to her manners lol
Thanks a lot for reading and (as always) I'm looking forward to your thoughts, so please don't forget to review~!
Kanae