Reviewers;

Duh Bomb: Oh God how I have truly loved your poems for each and every one of the chapters that you can portray for this story. I must say that I am impressed with the upcoming 50 poems that you have written. Really Duh Bomb, pat yourself on the back! The different perceptions of S&A were great together and Sakura's own turmoil put it simply over the top. Great job, and thank you my friend.

Mangaka Shuzen: She hasn't!...in a sense...think of it in the sense that they agreed to get to Sasuke...well, Sakrua has done that, and though she didn't arrive with Naruto, they both knew that in battle nothing is for certain, so Naruto practically is allowing Sakura to leave his side for the day. Also, after a few months, one can imagine that certain rules become more complex and others allow for more leniency. I'll explain it better in the last chapter.

Czar Joseph: Yes, precisely, Joseph. I also want to thank you for your continued support of my story, and for yur simple and yet inspiring words throughout these past few months. It's meant a lot and I truly appreciate it.

St3rFire: Well, this is how I believe that Sasuke did in fact change in the real series, but this chapter will tell you what I think would have happened to Sasuke if he had continued his course. Either way, it's my way of showing just what these characters are capable of and those are: compassion, mercy, and lying for the cause of saving face. Naruto did these things, Sasuke did, and Sakura did. Also, I want to thank you Star. Being a mother and yet having the time to read and review my chapters really inspires me to keep a story going and not just post a chapter early just for the sake of getting it finished in a quick setting. You have pushed me to create a whole world and story and made it into a story that includes much deep understanding. Thank you so much for that.

AN: So...a guest reviewed a few days ago on the 1st chapter and said that this story title reminded him of an edgy vamp theme, and so he couldn't read it. It was apparent to me that he opened the story but did not read past the first paragraph. It saddens me on how he took the effort to post that, but not to actually read it.

But then...It also makes me proud to have the lot of you readers who wish to read what I write, and even though my physical friends and family don't read these stories as fst as you do, and though I know that you are only considered by other sources as 'random internet friends, know that I appreciate every phrase that you write and hold it to a standing equal to my friend's words when they do get around to reading these chapters.

AN: Hey everyone! SO, in reality the ending is in this chapter! The last chapter will be a modified ending for years later. So I hope you all love this next to last installment of one of my best stories and one that has fantasy stored inside it. I have truly fallen in love with the idea of medieval ninja and knights, so do please expect another medieval story to roll out of my mental studios and onto this site soon enough. Besides, there aren't that many that I have red on here...none in fact. Hmm...

AN: Also WARNING-CHARACTER DEATH-

Fire & Ice

Arc 3: Trust

Chapter 49: To Give up one's Soul

A grey mist covered the clearing, a mixture of black and white, with snow drifting back down to the ground below. The atmosphere was charged with both heat and cold, and these small crystals floated seamlessly across the small pass. Ice crystals lay jaggedly formed along the edge of the circular sinkhole, its edges leaning over the chasm below and pointed out in a steep angle towards the sky as if in a circle of prayer. The cloudy weather continued to be the same...as the black tendrils of smoke moved slowly around the clearing, before they began to dissolve into ash, and billowed in the wind.

Down in the hole, Sasuke coughed something fierce as his upper figure moved up from the rocky floor of the dusty hole, before he groaned and fell back, breathing heavily as his spine crackled with hot lava like sizzling across it. Sasuke opened his eyes fully and looked over his body to see a six inch spike of ice, impaled through his right thigh, as blood coated the top…his blood coated the spike. Sasuke moved his arm down, as it glowed red hot and moved to cut it slowly.

Usually, the ice would melt quickly under his touch, but Sasuke breathed out in short bursts as it took a whole minute to cut through. Sakura must have poured her own ethereal fire down into this hole for a long time, if all of these spikes around him were coated with her magic. Sasuke looked to his right and gulped, and next to his head was a six foot spike, a foot in diameter, sticking out menacing next to him. Sasuke sucked in air before he screamed in his throat as he pulled his leg up and off the rest of the spike, and breathed quickly as his wound burned with intensity as the wound closed inside him.

Sasuke breathed heavily, his magic exhausted him every time it healed him, as where he knew that Sakura's magic numbed her pain while it healed her, it burned him and melted his skin as new skin formed over it. It was a sacrifice that Akhlys had suggested he take and he never was sure if it was better for his fighting prowess, or to fuel the misery of pain for Akhlys. Sasuke stepped up from the ground, as the mist was still around, and only now evaporating, as he heard a whimper and groan on the far side of the hole and narrowed his eyes at the person in curiosity.

Sakura though, simply laid there on the snowy rocks, her mind spinning from so much release of magic and the fact that the back of her head was healing after blood wrapped around in a tiny pool behind her. Her eyes were blurry and the world was spinning much faster than it should have been. She just wanted it to slow down again as her whole body ached from the twenty foot fall.

Sakura shielded her eyes as she opened them to look around and smiled at the enlarged spike pit that had been formed from her magic, the ethereal glow of the fire merged with her ice to form these ever hardened spikes of death. Sakura looked up to see twenty or spikes along the rim of the hole, to moving out towards the center as if creating a dome, and wondered why she had imagined that, but the effect was easily heard as a guttural scream was heard.

Sasuke looked to his left as Sakura looked straight ahead as the mist cleared away and there she was, that magnificent creature, Akhlys, laid out flat against the wall of the hole, with a foot sized spike pierced through her chest, as two more spikes were lodged inside her right hand and left upper bicep. Akhlys screamed and yelled obscenities as her legs thrashed around, scrapping uselessly against the air below her, her feet dangling just inches from the ground.

Sakura and Sasuke stepped closer, their bodies moving closer to the entrancing screams until Akhlys snapped her neck forward to face the both of them, her screams ending as she breathed more evenly and smiled towards Sasuke as her voice echoed hypnotically. "…..Help me…Sasuke-Kun…" Her voice sounded, like a little girl begging to be given food.

Sasuke moved forward before he was aware, his hands glowing red hot as he stepped to six feet in front of her.

"Sasuke! Wait!" Sakura yelled breathlessly, as Sasuke turned to face her. Her trap was Akhlys's prison. If he freed her, Sakura wouldn't be able to stop her again. "Don't release her."

"I have no choice, Sakura. I-"

"You always have a choice. Without her, you can rule beside Itachi, and we can be like siblings, like we always were, fighting over the small trivial things that make us who we are."

"Sasuke-Kun,"Akhlys whispered helplessly, "don't listen to her. She knows that once I am released, she will lose to you."

"I…I…."

"Sasuke, you will be okay. You can sleep and rest."

"Sasuke-Kun,.. I will give you more powers…wouldn't you like that?" Akhlys shivered as her smoke dissipated around her, leaving her body to slowly bleed from her wounds, her host body dying, as Akhlys had to have a body that used to be a witch, sacrificed to her from her dedicated followers.

Sasuke looked back at Sakura. I" can't."

"You can!"

"I-I choose…"

"Sasuke…"

"Sasuke-Kun…."

"I'm tired of this!" Sasuke yelled as he reached down, and pulled his flaming sword out of its sheath and twisted around before plunging it into the rock wall, its piercing edge slicing through Akhlys's neck and windpipe, as her eyes closed and her head dropped. Sasuke breathed heavily as he leaned into his stance and sword, as Sakura breathed a sigh of relief.

Sasuke leaned back up, and turned to smile at Sakura. "It's over." He said before blood spurted out from the neck wound and Akhlys's eyes flashed blacker than black as black tendrils shot out all around her bleeding body, and a black cloud of smoke descended all around Sasuke, pulling him inside with invisible hands, and taking him from view.

"Sasuke!" Sakura yelled as he disappeared and as the cloud billowed away, Sakura took a step forward as Sasuke's body reappeared, his skin whiter, his eyes closed, with his hair darker than ever before. His body stood limply, as Sakura's throat gulped back the worrisome liquid inside it. "Sasuke?..." Sakura whispered slowly.

Sasuke's eyes opened wide as Sakura took a step back, as she saw his red eyes merged black, the white of his eyes disappearing from view as he smiled widely, as black rune symbols appeared all over his exposed flesh. His stance twisted to a sickly confidence that only someone with all the cards could obtain, and Sakura shivered as he spoke in a voice not his own.

"My new host has an amazing body, don't you agree?"

"...Akhlys...?..." Sakura whispered, her throat tightening in instinctual fear

"I knew you were smart, and I knew you might be able to kill my earthly body, but can you truly kill a man who you have just spent your whole day trying to save?"

"You disgusting bitch!" Sakura yelled, but Akhlys laughed lightly.

"There there, witch. I have done this a thousand times, and I will do it a thousand times again. But now, I will obtain your body as well."

Red fire surround the hole, and sped towards Sakura who tried to run, but her magic was depleted, and her head swam with the dizziness of the fall and the injuries of the recent day. Akhlys laughed as she tripped the girl from behind, her body falling face first into the hard ground, as Sakura laid there to slowly move inch by inch to try to recover. But before she could, the red and black smoky fire wrapped around her leg, and lifted her high off the ground.

Sakura's body was slammed once, twice, three times against the various walls of the hole, her ice shattering from the impacts as Sakura's lips and chin filled with coughed up blood as her internal organs were destroyed, healed, and destroyed again. Akhlys was not killing her, she was playing with her food! Akhlys slammed Sakura into the large rock in the center and the force had the rock crack into tiny pieces, the mountain shaking from the force, as snow slipped down into the hole, as the flames disappeared and Sakura struggled to even get onto her hands and knees.

Akhlys visually skipped over to Sakura's side, her host's eyes fondly widening in delight at seeing Sakura's distress. She bent down and Sasuke's used hand gripped nicely around Sakura's throat, pressing on her windpipe as Sakura gasped for breath and stared up into Akhlys/Sasuke's eyes. The demented arm rose up with the body, Sakura's body leaving the ground as her hands uselessly clawed in desperation at the fingers that tightened over her throat, as Sakura's magic stilled for the first time in years, as the black smoke seeped inside her lungs, nose and eyes, as Sakura choked on misery itself.

Akhlys smiled dementedly as Sakura's body began to glow sickly white, as her throat glowed a bright yellow, her eyes shimmered with blue, and her heart glowed a nice green streak around itself. Lines of yellow seeped out of her throat, along her tongue, and sliding deep into Akhlys's awaiting lungs, her blue seeping out in dry tears down her cheeks and into the hands of another, the blue joining the black smoke as it turned to a midnight moon color. And as these two colors stopped, Sakura's throat ceased to resist as her hands dropped to the side, as green pulled out through her skin, merging through the air into Akhlys's body, before the light emerald turned into a dark ruby color, as Akhlys's grip disappeared and Sakura fell two feet, her feet buckling underneath her, on her knees, as her glazed eyes stared forward at nothing in particular.

Sakura felt so warm, and yet so cold. Her skin was so dry, flaky with death. Her heartbeat was slow, so slow that her fingers were cold, and her nose was cold, and her ears were cold. Sakura breathed in a ragged breath as Akhlys drew her black dagger, and in a split second, Sakura gasped as her hands held onto Sasuke's burning shoulders, as Akhlys stabbed into her gut, twisting the blade as Sakura coughed out blood behind them along the snow, and Akhlys smiled as she backed up, and grabbed at the Haruno's pink hair, pulling her back up as she held the dagger above her heart.

"You have no magic left, and unlike you, I will use your powers and create a new world!" Akhlys sputtered as the knife dug into flesh.

Sakura stilled, her mind reeling from the loss of everything. Death held no pain, did it? She hadn't even felt the blade entering her heart. Was this death? Thinking about your last moments and reliving it over and over again? Sakura wanted to cry, but her tears were gone, along with the magic that moved within-oh…Used to move within her. Sakura wondered what death was like.

"AHHHH!" Akhlys screamed as the dagger tipped up just before entering Sakura's exposed skin and with the strength inside the arm, the dagger dug into flesh of the left shoulder, as Akhlys backed up and Sakura's body stayed where it was, unable to move at all. "What is going on?" Akhlys yelled as the dagger moved again to stab her, at her other arm holding it back.

"You leave Sakura alone!" Sasuke's voice echoed out of the body, and Akhlys screeched into the host inside of her.

"Y-you dare to oppose my new body?!"

"Sakura-Chan!" A voice called out as a flash shined from below the clouds, and Naruto's blond hair and blue eyes looked over the edge of the hole, to see Sasuke fighting with the demon literally inside of him, before he saw Sakura just sitting there in the center and sped down the embankment, rushing to her side to see her eyes glazed over. "Sakura!"

"N-Naru-to?" Sakura's eyes flickered with life, as she looked slowly and lazily around herself, taking forever to find Naruto's face again as a soft content smile filled her face. "Hello, handsome."

Naruto saw Sakura's body sway from the dizziness, as he felt her arms, where the seal on her wrist faded from sight, but that meant! Naruto looked to Akhlys, at the green-ruby magic surging across her body and growled. She had stolen his lover's magic! Naruto quickly laid Sakura's body against the flat of the snow, and whispered. "This'll be over in a flash." Before he disappeared in a flash as he sped towards Akhlys.

Normally, as Naruto formed seals in his hands, Akhlys may have been able to see Naruto and defend against him, but this one time, her black smoke billowed out of the ground, before red fire covered and squashed them, and as Akhlys moved around on her feet, her stance was drunken and sloppy. Naruto nodded to the Sasuke inside as his hand glowed and he sped straight forward, ducking underneath Akhlys's wild sword swing and slammed his palm straight to the body's forehead.

Akhlys screamed as the runes all along the body burned and black smoke surged out of Sasuke's body, as Akhlys's body reformed as if as a ghost inside the body and slammed into the wall nearly twenty feet behind them, as Sasuke breathed heavily while his reflexes grew steady. Green lava seeped out of his wounds, healing them as Sasuke felt no pain at all, and her eyes burned red in one eye and blue in the next. Red, yellow, and orange fire moved along his hands, and he smiled at Naruto, before they both turned to Sakura's plea for help.

Naruto turned and pulled out a scroll, one that he'd been working on for the last two months at night, as he rolled it along the hole's ground, the end reaching Akhlys's unconscious body, before he completed twenty seals and slammed his hands along the ground, as golden seals seeped along the paper and flew onto the ground, slowly moving across the circle as it began to seal Akhlys in here forever. Naruto turned in time to see Sasuke drag one of Sakura's arms around his neck, and Naruto raced over to grab the other, as they jumped up and out, between two spikes of ice, and rested themselves on the cold snow, the golden seals now beginning to reach the walls below.

Sakura mumbled and shivered, as her knife wound bled out, but slowed to a still. Naruto kissed her forehead to see Sakura's smile at him, before he looked to Sasuke. "So then, I suppose you're with us, now."

Sasuke let out his breath as he laughed, stroking Sakura's hair. "What can I say? I want to be with my sister, and to repay my debts to this world." Naruto stood up, as Sasuke followed his lead and Sakura's eyes refocused in time to smile as they nodded and shook hands. Everything was going to be alright.

Down below, Akhlys's eyes opened as she screamed as golden symbols surrounded her legs, moving up her body to her knees. Akhlys tried to stand, but the seals locked her in place. She looked around the circle, looking for anyone to blame, when she saw them, that blonde sealer, her traitorous acolyte…and that pink haired witch! Akhlys screamed in defiance as her arms shot out towards the group.

Suddenly, black tendrils shot out from between the spikes and coiled around Sakura's neck and throat, as Sasuke and Naruto moved to hold Sakura's hands as she flew backwards, hitting the two spikes that held her body from falling, but choking her throat, as Sakura's eyes began to close from the lack of oxygen. Drops of magic seeped out of Sakura's heart to the black vines and Sakura's eyes tears teamed with tears as her vision of Naruto pulling her back died as her eyes closed, as she struggled to breathe.

"Sakura!" Sasuke yelled as he pulled out his flaming sword and nodded to Naruto as the blond pulled Sakura's body forward as Sasuke slashed at the vines, but they simply stayed where they were, as the golden seals continued their way up the walls.

"It won't break!" Sasuke yelled as he cut repeatedly, as Sakura's body began to spasm from the lack of oxygen.

"If I die, you are going with me!" Akhlys yelled from below, her eyes mad with rage, feeling Sakura's heart stop beating. Sasuke looked to Sakura, her smile bitter sweet as her hand slowly let go of Naruto's, as if to saw goodbye and cursed to himself, as he braced himself above the spikes, and prepared to save his adopted sister's life.

"Sasuke, what are you doing?!" Naruto yelled back as the seals moved over the spikes, moving over the center of the dome.

"Naruto, it looks like I'm paying back my debt today! Take care of Sakura for me!"

"Sasuke, no!" Naruto yelled as Sasuke jumped into the dome, the seals passing him by inches as his body soared through the air, as his sword moved before him, the blade filling up with hot fire and cold ice. Sasuke slammed into Akhlys's body, his sword sliding deep into her heart, and Akhlys cursed as her tendrils dissolved, and Sasuke smiled as the seals neared the top.

"Y-You!...I'll-"

"I suppose I'll be the one joining you in hell, Akhlys." Sasuke whispered as the seals exploded in light as they took effect. Naruto quickly grabbed Sakura's unmoving body as the tendrils broke off from her neck and slammed them away and into the snow, as the walls sounded and crushed as the roar of the two mountain tops boomed and snow fell in waves over the hole, covering it in layers upon layers of snow.

Silence filled the barren landscape, the snow packed evenly across the clearing which was now three feet higher than it used to be, as the snow burst up as one Naruto Namikaze breathed heavily as he pulled the back of Sakura's shirt with her as they reached the top of the clearing. Naruto breathed and choked back a sob as his eyes saw the wound still prevalent, not healed, on her body, as black lines tattooed around her throat, strangled and unbreathing.

"S-Saku…?" Naruto breathed as he leaned in and opened her lips with his tongue as he breathed air into her lungs, before he backed up and kissed her forehead, looking at her in hope. Naruto's mouth closed around again to deliver more air as he stroke her side, before he felt it, as he looked down and watched as a small green dot of magic, the tiniest and faintest of color, zipped across the wound, closing it before it dissolved onto the snow below.

"S-Saku…" Naruto breathed as he leaned down and kissed her with all his passion, pouring all of his own available magic inside her throat, as her body spasmed and punched the air and body around her, and Naruto backed up as Sakura slid to her side and moved to throw up the nonexistent air as she gasped and coughed as Naruto held her. Sakura's eyes quickly looked to his as tears formed as her weak arms encircled his as she cried and held her lover close.

They sat there for what felt like ages, just Sakura's body held over Naruto's figure bridal style as Naruto soon stood up and began to walk towards the exit. "N-Naruto, m-my powers..." Sakura whispered.

"Yeah?"

"...I-I can't feel them." Sakura snuggled into Naruto, and they stopped, as he pulled out a heavy jacket to cover Sakura's shivering body as she sneezed and swayed again as her nose began to run from a high fever that she was quickly developing before Naruto picked her up again, her legs too weak to support her any longer.

"It's okay. We'll get through this, just as we've gotten through everything...Come on." Naruto encouraged as he pulled what magic his body had left to speed their way down the mountain as they arrived back at the entrance of the mountain pass and Naruto sat his Queen down on the snowy banks. Sakura looked up to smile in wonder as Layla stood there, her wounds just as bad as Sakura's, but still able to function unlike her tired body.

"My Queen." Layla smiled fondly as Sakura's eyes filled with questions.

"But how? My magic is gone, and yet t-you're still here."

"You gave us your magic, and so we will always be at your side."

Sakura smiled as she yawned and snuggled into Naruto's embrace, as she looked off to the sun coming out and dipping over the horizon, the moon moving out from the east, and the small campfires forming all along the battlefield lines. Quickly, she passed out and Naruto held her closer, as Layla moved over to watch her Queen.

"Let her sleep. After all, starting tomorrow, she'll have a new world to take care of."

AN: A Final Time Skip will occur, but there is only one more chapter in which I can respond to you without a PM, so tell me your thoughts, ideas, and how I could do better next time. Also, tel me if you want to be PM'd for the next story.