Fighting Darkness
By xCastielsGirlx
Author's Note: Yay! I'm so cool, I've actually managed to sort my life out so you get an update of this once every three weeks! That's much better than waiting a whole year, ne? Oh! Don't forget to check out the sidefics to this :) There's usually one after every chapter update unless I'm not in the mood. Currently, I'm not in the mood because I just pulled an all nighter trying to get out a story chapter to have no-one review on it. So, without further adieu, here's the next chapter!
Warnings: shonen-ai (SasuNaru), OCs, violence, gore, swearing, death, mentions of drug use
Rating: T
Full Summary: It's the year 2014; the World is in a post-apocalyptic state because of its ruler that took over 15 years ago. Two survived the tragedy that became known as the Uchiha Massacre; Uchiha Itachi and Sasuke. Sasuke was only an infant, Itachi 8 years old. Uzumaki Naruto was the only survivor of the Namikaze Massacre, sent to an orphanage whilst the other two were never seen again. It's all coming together now though. As the World tilts on the edge of existence, it's up to the Freedom Fighters to save it. So, who's willing to stop the Apocalypse?
Dedications: I, xCastielsGirlx, dedicate this FanFiction to the following Authors: Juura99, Fullmetal Gary, Visualxx and Raven.
Disclaimer:
Kaoru: Well, we all know the drill!
Me: Yeah, it's so sad. I only own Cassie. All Naruto characters belong to Misashi Kishimoto. Kaoru, Kamari and Juura belong to Juura99 and Gary belongs to Fullmetal Gary.
Chapter 1
Nervously, almost timidly, Naruto glanced around to his fellow peers to see their reaction.
"So, what do you say?" he asked, fiddling with his hands. Sai just smirked.
"Looks like you aren't so dickless after all. I'll join you." He smirked, shaking the blonde's hand in a professional manner. Ignoring the comment, Naruto turned to the rest of his friends. Kaoru and Kamari wore identical grins and so Naruto knew their answer. Gary sighed and shook his head.
"Just give me some chocolate. Someone needs to make sure your ass stays out of shit you can't handle!" he joked. Naruto snorted.
"I agree with Gary. There needs to be food!" Chouji supplied. Enthusiastically nodding, Naruto agreed.
"You're so troublesome Naruto but I have to admit, Orochimaru is even more so, so I'll assist you." came the tired voice of Shikamaru as he settled down deeper into the sofa. Shino just nodded.
"You've all gone mad!" Naruto jumped at the yell that came from the other end of the room. Cassie was pointing at them accusingly. She looked a mixture of anger and fear. Startled, Naruto tried to calm her down.
"Cassie, it's just-"
His sentence remained unfinished as a hand crossed his face.
"You idiot! Why didn't you suggest this sooner?" she grinned. Confusion descended upon Naruto. Really, girls were beyond him.
"Well, uh, this is great!" he murmured, rubbing his smarting cheek.
"Okay, so we need a name for our group. What should we call ourselves?" he asked everyone. They fell silent in thought for a few moments before Kamari clicked his fingers.
"Freedom Fighters'. It's what we do y'know and we can shorten it to FF so that if anyone asks, we can say we're talking about FanFiction!" he told everyone. There was a murmur of agreement before Naruto grinned, putting the sun to shame.
"Great! Well, welcome Freedom Fighters!" This statement was followed by a scattering of applause.
Orochimaru wouldn't know what hit him.
"C'mon Sasuke, you can do this," a voice mumbled softly as the owner took in the view of the sixteen year old boy currently holding a hidden blade. Raven duck-butt hair stood out against the white backdrop of the hospital walls as the boy walked further down the hall.
"Excuse sir, you're not allowed down-" the man's warning was stopped short as the hidden blade was pressed to his throat.
"Whoa dude, my wallet's in my pocket just don't hurt me, un!" he panicked, trying not to do anything that would apparently upset the boy. Frowning, Sasuke withdrew the blade and could visibly see the relief flooding the dusty blue eyes of the doctor. He only looked to be about twenty-three. Satisfied that the man wasn't a danger, Sasuke turned on his heel and continued down the hall to his destination. The doctor was stood in a trance, fiddling with his long blonde fringe that covered his left eye as he watched the teen go before seemingly snapping out of it to go follow the boy. Sasuke stopped in his tracks.
"What are you doing?' he mumbled. The doctor swallowed.
"I-I- You need permission to go down these halls. This way if you're caught, a life won't need to be wasted as I can give you an alibi, un," the blonde doctor told the raven. Sasuke frowned.
"How can I trust you?" he asked, cautious of the doctor who was willingly helping him break into a hospital to steal some high class drugs. The man hesitated.
"You can't. You'll just have to take my word for it. So, do we have a truce, un?" he asked, grinning nervously, extending his hand in agreement. Reluctantly, Sasuke shook it. Itachi groaned.
"Foolish little brother! You can't trust him!" he whispered as he followed his brother further into the hospital.
"So what's your name, un?" the cheerful doctor asked, lacing his hands together and placing them behind his back. Sasuke shot the man a glare.
"Why should I tell you?" he snapped. The doctor chuckled slightly.
"Good point. I'll tell you mine though. It's Deidara Okamoto, un." He smiled at the younger boy as they turned down another corridor. Sighing, Sasuke turned to the man.
"My brother's most probably going to kill me anyway so I guess I'll tell you mine. It's Uchiha Sasuke." He explained, putting his last name before the first unlike the grown man had done. Deidara stopped in his tracks with the expression similar to that of a goldfish on his face.
"N-no way! T-The Uchiha Sasuke!" he whispered in awe. Sasuke turned his face away and continued to look through the doors for the correct one.
"Awesome! You so have to tell me what happened back then, un! I mean there'd been so many ru-"
"Shut up." Sasuke interrupted. Deidara looked taken aback.
"Dude, I'm sorry but I-" he was interrupted once more by Sasuke slamming into a wall into an alcove.
"Shut up!" he hissed. Angry replaced offended.
"Now look here-" a hand covered the mouth of the blonde, blocking out all noise from him.
"Deidara? Is that you?" A voice called down the hallway. Angry onyx turned to look into frightened but hopeful blue.
"Did you rat me out?" Sasuke whisper shouted. Blonde locks shook from side to side and Sasuke's hand itched towards the blade in his back pocket. The footsteps were getting closer, quicker.
"Deidara? Hey! Deidara?" the voice started to sound panicked and the knife was now pressed against the blonde's throat.
"Damn it you art loving nuisance! We need to get out of here before Orochimaru gets back and asks for the drug!" the voice snapped. Three pairs of eyes widened simultaneously; two pairs of onyx and one blue. As the footsteps were just about to pass where the two were hiding, Sasuke grabbed the other doctor by the sleeve and shoved him next to the taller blonde one. The redhead looked shocked for a moment and even more so when a knife was pressed to his throat.
"Hey, how's it going Sasori-danna?" Deidara asked, trying to lighten the mood. Confused eyes glanced form the blonde to the redhead.
"What's going on Deidara?" Sasori asked the blonde. Deidara was about to answer when Sasuke shot him a glare.
"Nothing much Saso-danna," he laughed nervously. Chocolate brown eyes narrowed as he took in the appearance of Deidara. His glare then shot towards Sasuke.
"I swear to God that if you've harmed him, you'll be dead before you know it!" he growled. Deidara chuckled.
"Aww, thanks, un!" he smiled. Shaking his head in disbelief, Sasuke then pulled the blade away from Sasori's throat and allowed the shorter male to examine his friend. After all was checked, with many blushes and much stuttering from Deidara, the three set off down the hall in search of the drug room. Eventually, after the two males had reached their third heated discussion on what art was, they found the room. Sasuke held his hand up to silence the two and they stopped bickering.
"I only need one vial. You!" He pulled a pistol from his hip holster and pointed it at Deidara's head.
"Y-yes, un?" he asked shakily. A gun pointed at his person, in Deidara's opinion, was much worse than a sword or blade.
"Go in and get me a vial. You screw up, I blow his brains out!" he ordered, turning the weapon so that it pointed directly between Sasori's widened eyes. Going pale at the thought of losing his friend, Deidara complied, entering the darkened room. Had he not had a gun being forced in his face, Sasori would've chuckled at the muffled bangs coming from inside the room. Deidara was so clumsy sometimes.
"Ouch! Who put that there, un?" he complained loudly. Sasuke rolled his eyes and checked his watch. The setting of the hammer could be heard from inside the dark room.
"Saso-danna!" Deidara cried out in fear.
"Hurry up then his brains won't be decorating the wall!" Sasuke threatened. Deidara hurried around before finally spotting a little glass vial. Sighing in relief, he ran forward and grabbed it. Exiting through the door in which he came, he then gave Sasuke the glass vial.
"You sure this is it?" he asked threateningly. Deidara nodded. Sasuke smirked.
"Good. Now to thank you two for your patronage, I will spare your lives and call on you later, should I need more help." And with that, he ran up to the nearest window, slid it open and dived out. Deidara and Sasori watched in shock before the redhead grabbed the blonde and ran out of the emergency exit, away from the coming footsteps.
Blonde tresses swayed in the wind, dampening with the drizzle. A nod signalled the next phase of the plan. It was a hard job but it had to be done by someone. Who else better than the freedom fighters?
Two hours Earlier...
The group sat around the table in Konoha Orphanage. Naruto twirled a lock of his hair around his index finger and looked over the sheets of paper once more.
"When everything feels like the movies hmm mmm hmm," Kamari was humming a tune as he re-read the map of the designated area. When Naruto had said they were going up against Orochimaru, he'd meant it. Not ten minutes after establishing the group, they had formed a plan of how to get their own back from a recent event in the news. A local hospital had been testing a new drug. What they left out was the fact that they had kidnapped a child to do so. Kaoru was reading up on the underground passages leading towards the hospital. Shikamaru was dozing in the corner, Chouji eating a packet of crisps whilst going over the plan just to refresh his memory, Cassie and Gary were in a heated discussion about what the best type of escape plan would be should the worst case scenario arise, Sai was rechecking their equipment and Shino...well, he was just being Shino. When it got to 9pm, Iruka ushered everyone to bed. Goodnights were said all around and the social worker went to bed not suspecting a thing.
As soon as the all clear was given, everyone jumped out of their beds, speedily changed and snuck out of the house. That's how they arrived at their current situation...
Now...
Kaoru nodded to Kamari who in turn nodded to Gary. Standing up, he confidently strutted into the hospital. The plan so far was going brilliantly. All that was left was for them to do after Gary entered through those doors was for them to find the doctors responsible and teach them a lesson. In all honesty, the knives were well hidden and you could only see them if you looked in all the right places.
White walls temporarily blinded the brunette as he walked up to the receptionist. She ignored him as he slipped past, just continuing to type on her laptop. Gary blinked. That'd been easy. Taking off at a steady pace, Gary made his way down the hall, passing by a sprinting redhead and blonde.
"That was scary Saso-danna!" He heard the blonde tell the redhead, who just nodded in reply. Not thinking much of it, Gary continued down the whit halls when he came across a metal door, locked with thick iron chains. He clicked his collar, activating the small microphones Shikamaru had modified for the group.
"Naruto?"
'Yeah?' a voice replied.
"I'm going in," There was no reply so Gary took it as an okay. He had picked the lock within a matter of seconds and stared at the door with baited breath. Slowly, he opened the door. It was dark, almost black; the only thing stopping it from being so were the flickering fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. A cough to his left startled the boy. Turning his head, he caught a glimpse of what had made the noise. Green eyes widened as he saw the horror before him.
"H- Help me," a strained whisper called out. Sea foam green locked with dark green, pleading undermined in the fear. Without much hesitance, Gary rushed forward to see the girl who was wrapped up in chains. Blood was dried at the corner of her mouth as she struggled to stay awake.
"J-just hold on. I'll get you outta here!" he comforted, gently laying a hand on her bare arm. Using his lock-picking skills once more, he freed her of the chains.
"Are you the only one here?" he asked. The girl nodded, pink hair falling over her shoulders. She was wearing a tattered white blouse and had a crumpled black pleated skirt on.
"What's your name?" he asked gently, checking around the corner after he exited the room. A hand was around the teen's waist in support as she limped.
"Sakura Haruno," she replied weakly. Gary smiled bitterly.
"Well Sakura, I'm sorry for this and everything but I'm afraid we can't just waltz out of the front door. I have a few friends waiting outside and we can bring you back to the orphanage. Is that okay with you?" he asked gently, leading her towards the emergency exit. She nodded, casting her eyes down.
"Can I see my parents after?" she asked. Gary stopped trying to deactivate the door alarm and looked to the girl with a small smile.
"Sure thing," he replied. Finally managing to disarm the alarm, he stepped into the cool night. Sakura shivered and so Gary pulled his hoodie from over his head and gave it to her. It was too big for her but she smiled appreciatively at him. They made their way down the wet and slippery stairs and turned a corner, Gary expecting to see the group looking proud. What he did not expect to see was his group tied to one another, apart from Naruto who was currently being held to the wall and choked by a man with a dark ponytail.
5 Minutes Earlier...
'I'm going in!'
After that sentence was uttered, Naruto drew out a sigh of relief. He turned to Kamari and Kaoru who had accompanied him to his area. Everyone else was further back, keeping an eye out. He grinned at the two and they grinned back before breaking into idle chatter. A presence behind the blonde appeared and he turned around to see a shocked teenager his age with duck-butt hair.
"AHHH!" he yelled in the boys face. Black bangs fluttered with the force of the yell. Sudden movement alerted Naruto to the fact another had just joined them.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked as the older boy with a black ponytail grabbed Kaoru and Kamari, before tying them to the rest of the group. The duck-butt boy smirked.
"Why should we trust you?" he asked. Naruto twitched. He'd had it already. Had it with the lies, the pain, the untrustworthiness. His eyes darkened and he pounced on the dark haired boy, landing a hit at the same time.
"Sasuke!" came the worried voice of the teen's counterpart. So the boy's name was Sasuke eh? All sense of solidness vanished from beneath the blonde as he was lifted into the air and slammed against the wall, winding him. A shaking hand brought itself around the blonde's throat, squeezing.
"Ah-ow," Naruto whispered, kicking against air.
"Don't touch my brother," the elder snarled.
"Naruto-kun!" Cassie's voice was full of fear as she watched the blonde being pushed harder against the wall, the fingers tightening so that she knew there would be a bruise in the morning...if he ever got to see it that was. Darkness was creeping upon Naruto and the last thought through his head was about he had failed.
"Naruto! What the hell are you doing to him?" Ah, that was Gary.
"Itachi, stop it! He's going purple!" The boy known as Sasuke yelled. Air came rushing back into his abused lungs and he collapsed to the floor, panting.
"Aniki, let them go. They were rescuing this girl!" Sasuke told his older brother, pointing to a shivering Sakura. Gary had rushed over to Naruto, checking if he was okay.
"Dude, are you okay?" he asked. Naruto coughed a few times before nodding and rubbing his throat. Itachi had seemingly calmed down and released the others from the ropes that were binding them. Everyone ran over to Naruto to check if he was okay.
"Guys," he chuckled weakly, "I'm fine, don't worry!" he soothed. Sakura looked fearfully at Itachi and Sasuke before walking over to Gary's side.
"Hn, he shouldn't have hit you little brother." Itachi scolded. Sasuke sighed and looked towards the blonde who was surrounded by his friends. Now that he really looked, he could see the whisker markings on his cheeks and the fact that his eyes were a magnificent shade of blue. Sasuke couldn't help but blush as the blonde locked eyes with him. What was this? The blonde had just attacked him for crying out loud! Although he hated to admit it, Sasuke was kind of jealous of the fact the blonde was surrounded by friends and people he could trust. What would it feel like; to have someone other than his family to trust?
"Stop thinking so hard little brother," came a deep voice from his right. Sasuke glanced to where the voice had came from to see his older brother with his arms crossed across his chest.
"Hn. It's your fault. How was I supposed to know these hero-wannabes would come to the hospital on the same evening as us?"
"Excuse me? Did you just call us 'Hero-wannabes'?" came an angry voice from the crowd around the blonde. It was the boy with dark hair and pale skin. Sasuke's eye twitched. He kind of looked like him.
"So what if I did?" was his counter.
"It seems a bit rich coming from you! Although we actually bothered to help the person your drug was being tested on!" Chouji growled. Sasuke and Itachi blanched before looking to Sakura who was huddled up in Gary's jumper.
"You were being tested on?" Itachi asked harshly. Still shivering, she nodded. In an instant, Itachi had walked up to her, hands on her shoulder.
"You need to tell us anything you can about Orochimaru!" he ordered. Sakura shook slightly.
"I-I can't!" she stuttered. Itachi's eyes darkened.
"Why not?" he demanded. Tears filled the pinkette's eyes as she shook her head.
"No! I can't!" she cried. Itachi snapped, shaking her by her shoulders.
"TELL US DAMMIT! WE NEED THE INFORMATION!" he yelled. Tears started to pour relentlessly down her cheeks whilst he kept shaking. That was until a hand crossed his cheek. He stopped shaking to see the brunette with glasses standing above him and looking outraged.
"You son of a bitch! She's just been through a traumatic ordeal and you do this to her? What the fuck do you think this will accomplish huh?" she yelled, pulling the pinkette away from the raven. Itachi's eyes widened as he took in the group of teens before him. They looked haggard, damp slightly from the drizzling rain, but full of determination. A small smile came to his lips.
"Well Sasuke, looks like we've found some other people to trust," he told his younger brother. Onyx eyes widened as he took in the team before him. A smirk crossed his face as he looked on, eyes lingering on the tan blonde for just a second longer. Itachi smirked and leant down to his younger brother's ear.
"I'm guessing you've got dibs on the blonde," Sasuke flushed uncharacteristically and shoved his brother.
"Yeah, well try not to murder them in your sleep," he smirked as he walked up to the group. Naruto watched with apprehension as the raven approached.
"What do you want teme?" he asked as the two approached, the elder lagging behind a little.
"Dobe, we want to join you." He told Naruto as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Naruto blinked. Once. Twice.
"TEME! Don't call me dobe!" he yelled, pointing his index finger at his face. The raven just blinked at the offending appendage before smirking.
"Then stop acting like one, dobe." He smirked. Naruto growled.
"Why do you want to join us anyways?" Kaoru pushed in. Sasuke sent him a look of disdain before answering.
"Because we want Orochimaru dead. Isn't that what you want?" he asked incredulously. Naruto sighed before sticking out his hand.
"Fine. It's a deal!" he pouted. Sasuke smirked and grabbed the offered hand.
"Nice to be working with you, Dobe."
Author's Note: Do you know how long it took me to write this? TWO FUCKING DAYS! Yarp. And then when I went to update it, I still had to edit it by adding another thousand words or so! So anyways my fluff bunnies, REVIEW! I deserve it after putting up with 45 minutes of annoying bitches looking over my shoulder!