Reviewers;

Duh Bomb: Welcome back my friend, and I appreciate your reviews as they were very productive to the story line based on the story itself.

St3rfire: How about both huh? Let's see where it goes I suppose.

Czar Joseph:Yeah, now we'll get to see just how the battle goes!

AN: Hey everyone! So Let's have a great read today and begin the final portion of the story! Let the story begin!

Fire & Ice

Arc 3: Trust

Chapter 45: The Initial Battle

For such an important time in everyone's life and destiny, the sun rising into the sky was pretty ordinary. It seemed as if the Gods above were just going about their control of this realm as if it was just another regular day. In fact, nothing was different besides the light snow on the ground and the fiery brown grass that served as the middle ground where the two great powers of the region met. It was just something that was supposed to happen it seemed, but everyone's eyes preferred to see this day in their own light, whether it was a premonition of good or evil.

For our two lovers, they awoke in each other's arms, and were happy to be laying here in their tight embrace. It was because as soon as they left this tent, the world would forever change for them, and in all fairness, they were scared for the on coming future, whatever that may be. Both eyes were open, and their smiles were apparent as they gazed into their lover's eyes, seeing deep into their content souls. Naruto's hand softly caressed Sakura's bare side, and Sakura giggled at the touch of his skin on hers. "You were so beautiful last night."

"You too, Naru. I wish we could do that again, but then we'd sleep through the battle."

"You're right," Naruto hmmed as his hands dipped lower to brush against Sakura's breast and tip as Sakura took in air at the feeling of being under his power.

"Naru~?"

"Fine." Naruto leaned forward, and kissed her forehead, before he pushed himself off and moved to his clothing strewn about the floor, before he sat down at the table and began to get changed. Sakura herself watched him for a bit, before she sat up and using her own hands, pushed off the bed before the world around her spun lightly and she leaned against the wooden pole with her shoulder, her hand touching her stomach as it swirled a bit, before her vision cleared again.

Sakura moved forward and quickly dressed in her clothing and armor. She was nervous obviously, right? So much to do and so much to accomplish today. One way or another, whether she could convince Sasuke to surrender or kill him and Akhlys, this would end today. She'd make sure of it.

It was soon enough before Naruto and Sakura looked to the other, before Sakura walked closer to stand in front of him and pulled on his leather straps to his red and black leather armor, tightening it in place, as it would block the fire and arrows that would be the main offensive to Sasuke's power. She smiled as he pulled her close, and her leg popped back as they shared one last kiss before they stepped outside of the tent, into the predawn morning air.

They would be in different positions for the battle, with different objectives and strategies, but Sakura knew that he would be okay. Still though, while he was here, she'd make sure he was.

"You be careful, alright, Naruto?" Sakura asked as Naruto nodded and Sakura smiled to herself as she turned to move off to her horse before Naruto leaned forward and pulled on her wrist to pull her back into his arms.

"You too, Sakura." Naruto smiled, and Sakura flashed a bigger smile in return.

"Of course." Sakura spoke with her voice more sweet…too sweet.

"I know you, Sakura." Naruto warned, as his thumb stroked her knuckles. "Don't approach Sasuke until I meet up with you."

Sakura sighed and shook her head. "You know I can't do that. I need to end him before more troops die. But, I'll keep him busy until you show up."

"See that you do." Naruto spoke as he moved off to the far right side of the battlefield area, behind the main lines of spearmen and swordsmen. Naruto and his five hundred soldiers would keep the right flank from falling while Kakashi's ninja group would do so on the left. Sakura's cavalry units numbered ten thousand and were split among herself and four other commanders, who would push through the enemy and hopefully surround them.

Her own ten thousand creations were to be spread evenly so as to help the army when they needed the push and to fight the more fearsome commanders of Sasuke's. Along the rear of the battlefield were the various packs of wolves, which would be moving along the tall grass and snow to hopefully sneak around and attack them from behind in time.

Sakura gave an order to her units as well as the rest of the cavalry to begin moving into arrow formations so as to crash into the enemy lines in force, as the Yamanaka and Nara archers got themselves ready in front of the spearmen, for the range as they stood at the crest of the hill. The rear of the army in the center held the twenty or so ornagers ready for action, with their ammunition held in two or three small caravan wagons next to and behind them and finally on either side of the flanks were repeating ballistae just behind the spearmen lines, their slots being filled with rows of arrows as their siege bows were pulled back and cranked into firing position, aiming far ahead of them, waiting for the enemy to get in range.

As this occurred and the formations were formed and the battle strategies were made known to all of the soldiers, Sakura and the rest of the Alliance watched as about a third of a mile away, or more precisely, two thousand feet away, Sasuke's army came over the lip of the hill on the other side of the plain. It seemed like a flood of fire as they seeped slowly down the hill, all one hundred thousand of them drops of fire as the land below them, began to fizzle and smoke with ash as the light snow melted underfoot.

The howls and barks of wild dogs and canines on chains sounded this far away, pulling to be set free at the front of the enemy lines, just waiting to be released and set upon their master's enemy. It seemed as though Sakura's packs would be setting on another assignment as the shifting formations, found the chained animals moving south to the right, and so Sakura's packs moved there as well, until they and their handlers were on the right flank completely.

In the main battle lines, spears were held up to the sky, as three chunks of three lines of spearmen began to form at the base of the hill, and behind them, Sakura saw what seemed like sickly looking horses, their skin and manes black as cracks formed and red lava seeped across their bodies, as if both destroying and healing them in the process. But Sakura saw that there were only one hundred of them or so, and Sasuke probably planned to use them for a large explosive charge so she was not too worried. Finally, the Alliance watched as more soldiers moved through the lines of spearmen and soon, two lines of archers appeared at the front and at the flat of the plains themselves, ready to exchange a missile battle when the battle commenced.

The silence between the two armies was simply anticipation. They all watched as the sun began to make its final ascent as the moon had already dipped over the west, and that when it did, they would enter into what only a few would escape from by the end of the day. They knew the odds were low, and that the armies were even, but Sakura's side was content in the knowledge that they held the high ground…for now.

An unknown trumpet sounded off in the distance as the dawn truly broke over the crest of the hill of Sasuke's, and Sakura's army leaned forward and braced themselves as the units began to move forward slowly, as the wheels of the siege engines turned forward slightly. The archers at the crest of the hill moved downwards towards the lip at the bottom, followed by the spearmen as the siege weapons reached the peak of the hills.

As Sakura's troops reached the crest of the hill, Sasuke's soldiers began to move forward as well and the order to defend themselves was given as the archers rushed forward from the safety of the lines as the ornagers readied themselves and the ballistae's bows were tightened once more as the cranks were stiffened and the slots were filled with long spears of icy arrows. Sakura's eyesight saw that Sasuke's troops had finished their changing formations and were now moving towards them in force.

The Uchiha banners were flying with black smoke in a red outline, and the spearmen from the first and second chunks began to move forward, soon followed by the third and last chunk, which followed a hundred yards behind the other two groups. The alliance watched as the group spilt into eleven main points along the battlefield, in order to try to break through the enemy lines, spreading themselves out to an arm's length from the other for the missiles to come.

Sakura looked back and gave the order to fire when ready and it was soon that the ornagers reached their positions and the enemy entered their range. Ornager levers were pulled and the baskets at the end were lifted up, as weights were dropped to the ground, as the basket hit the metallic lines and large rocks flung out of the open gate as they were launched into the sky, their graphite bodies swirling in the air, before beginning their descent in an arch as the enemy reached the position of maximum effect. The large rocks were the size of two people a piece and as they began to smash into the enemy lines, they began rolling along the flat plains to crush more, as spearmens' weapons and bodies exploded on impact. As they hit the ground and soldiers alike, the rocks split into many fragments and were sent everywhere, from before the enemy's lines hitting there too early to hitting the second and third lines as they approached that deadly point.

The enemy continued to move as they burst into flames, but it served to soften the blows for as the rocks hit the first soldiers, they immediately lost half of their force, and after the initial contact and as they kept rolling along, the rocky projectiles were content at killing maybe twenty soldiers at a time.

Sasuke's army of archers ran ahead of the army, splitting up in front of the army that was being hammered by the heavy ornagers' assault, and pulled out arrows from their quivers with fiery points glowing in the morning light, and began the inconsistent volleys at firing into the Alliance's lines. As a few soldiers fell, shields of circular making were pulled in front of the spearmen, as swordsmen made their way out of the lines and dipped lower to bring forward body length shields as the army pulled out their defenses from missiles.

As the archers continued to fire at the enemy, Alliance archers began to fall, being outside of the shield walls and unable to hold them, but the swordsmen moved to stand in front of them as the archers pulled out their own arrows, these ones tipped with ice as they began to sporadically fire at the front lines, hitting spearmen and archers alike, as along the rear and flanks, the ballistae begin to crank out their payloads of icy spears, kicking up snow from the ground as well as soldiers as they sailed back across the battlefield, flying into other soldiers as well as piercing into the spears behind them as well, their bodies fizzling on the pikes before exploding and disappearing from the battlefield, leaving back ash to blanket the once white snow.

Missiles continued to be fired at each other as Sasuke's army continued to move forward, their lines moving too close for comfort as the ornagers stopped firing for the fear of hitting their own troops, and as the enemy soon raced forward, Tsunade sat on her royally bred horse, and as the acting commander of the army of the Alliance, from her years of experience with Itachi in the field saw that it was time. Tsunade gave the signal to the trumpeters next to her and they blew out the rallying of notes that gave the signal to attack as the lines of spearmen began to ready their shields and leveled their ice tipped spears in a horizontal line, as they slowly moved forward, their poles slowly jousting out at the enemy, as the archers fell back to higher ground, to attack where the enemy was grouped together and waiting their turn, hopefully unaware that missiles of arrows would be attacking them from a new angle.

The swordsmen though, stayed ahead of the spears, letting the spearmen move slightly around them as they soon moved behind their longer shields as they slowly moved behind the phalanx of spears. The archers moved into lines of five archers deep, each holding their bows near the shoulder of the archer in front of them as they fired into the second and third chunks of spearmen, as the enemy moved to within twenty feet of the Alliance lines. Sakura, Tsunade, Naruto, Kakashi, and the rest of the commanders knew that now was the point of no return, and that this battle was officially to the death as spears were thrust forward from the walls of shields as the explosions began to sound and as bodies crashed together, and the front lines met on the snowy fall ground.

Minutes passed, while Sakura sat rigidly atop her own creation of a horse, seeing and watching the flames were now moving all around the battlefield, and smiled as she nodded to herself. For though the fires ran amok all over the battlefield, only a few of her soldiers were being affected by it. For as the explosions were set off by piercing arrows and thrusting spears and slicing swords, soldiers used their shields in front of them, close to their bodies to face the explosions and fire, their bodies being only pushed back from the force of the blasts, but held up by the men behind them.

The mass of the armies moved like waves upon the sand, uneven, and anything but straight. In the center of the lines, her units were holding strong, and the flanks were still secure, but the middle of these lines were filled with the many points of the enemy, and as her defenders struck against these other points, the explosions served other purposes for Sasuke and the soldiers were knocked sideways, back and forth off their feet from these forceful pushes of air and pressure. But when the need to kill them was trying to be accomplished, the defenders thrust out their spears, and so as the men stood back up and rejoined the cause, the enemy fell back over time, and Sakura knew that this was making Sasuke more agitated, where he was, from the other hill at the other end of the plain.

At the time of an hour of battle, the men moved slower, and the arrows were let loose with much less precision, but the work was getting done, as bottle formations began to form on Sasuke's positions, as the eleven points of his strategy were now folding in on themselves, as the Alliance soldiers began to surround them on three sides and forming into the enemy ranks. Another trumpet sounded, but from Sasuke's side, and the spears were dropped as swords were pulled out for close combat before the enemy began to hack and push their own way inside the lines of spearmen, and Sakura knew that now was the time as she made a motion with her hand as green magic shimmered in the air.

As the magic faded, the cawing and chirps of falcons and eagles flew up into the sky from their perches on the caravans, and as they reached a thousand feet above the battlefield, they dove down, while in their talons, they each held a glass blue ball in their grips, and Sakura's eyes watched as the birds of prey dove faster and faster, their eyes the perfect precision instrument, and as they reached the pinnacle and maximum of their speed, they flew through the friendly archery fire and sped down at over sixty miles an hour before they released each of their orbs into the groups of enemies near or in the Alliance's very own formations.

Sasuke meanwhile, could only watch from his point atop his sickly horse, surrounded by the royal cavalry surrounding him, and watched from his own position as gaseous explosions of blue ice exploded just above the battlefield and froze his soldiers in place as their movements slowed to a halt for a single second or two but down considerably as the Alliance soldiers must have been trained in what to do as they charged forward and the fiery soldiers were cut down like sitting targets. Sasuke sighed and shook his head before he looked to his right as shadows appeared next to him, and the Goddess Akhlys appeared next to him.

He looked into her eyes and say that they were bright, brighter than ever before, no doubt from the misery out on the battlefield. "Akhlys, my army is about to fall. Will you allow me to proceed?"

"Of course, my dearest Sasuke-Kun~," Akhlys purred, as Sasuke's eyes shimmered with a glazed over fashion, as Akhlys nodded to the trumpeter beside them and as the trumpets blared, Sakura's Alliance watched as smoke filled the air behind the far hill, and watched as their eyes opened wide as new lines of spearmen, fully rested and ready for battle, appeared from beyond the hill.

So then, it appeared that Sasuke had more than one hundred thousand soldiers. no…he had two.

AN: Well, tell me what you all think so far!