Heads or Tails 3

Part 1 and 2 : Yet More Fragments chapters 57 & 58

Naruto turned to his two teammates, Sakura was panting and out of breath while Sasuke looked a bit winded. "You may wonder why I brought you to this specific clearing and if you aren't you should be."

Sasuke looked around the clearing while Sakura caught her breath. "The trees are a bit larger than the other ones in this area of forest and there's a convenient river," he noted.

"Right," Naruto agreed. "And it's also a very convenient area to arrange for a training accident that removes the deadweight from my team and enriches my own pocketbook." Half a dozen nin with slashed hitai-ate marking them as missing nin stepped out of the edges of the clearing surrounding them.

"Traitor!" Sasuke snarled, showing more open and honest emotions than Naruto was used to seeing from him.

"Oh, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru purred as he stepped out of the shadows. "You look almost perfect. I can't wait to breed you!"

"My payment?" Naruto reminded him.

"Of course," Orochimaru replied, pulling a small bag of coins out of his pocket and tossing it to him.

Naruto caught the bag and opened it up. "Silver coins?" he asked with a frown. "This wasn't what we agr-URK!" A sword burst through his chest interrupting what he'd been about to say. Sasuke and Sakura stared in horror as Naruto's limp body fell to the ground, the nin behind him casually wiping off his sword with a rag before sheathing it.

The most feminine of the jounin chuckled. "Thirty pieces of silver, too bad no one here will get the reference."

"You bastard!" Sasuke snarled his anger at Naruto forgotten as he stared at his still bleeding corpse. "I'll kill you!"

Orochimaru smirked and flooded the clearing with killing intent dropping both genin and even a couple of his own men. "Please you're just a tool, and not even a very useful one really, more a toy. One I'm going to enjoy playing with," he leered. "Kill the girl; she's of no use to me."

"No!" Sasuke just managed to deflect a lazily thrown kunai with his own.

Orochimaru grinned and gestured to another one of his nin on the other side so they both threw kunai at Sakura at the same time.

"I won't let you kill her!" Sasuke snarled as he deflected both kunai with one in each hand.

Orochimaru chuckled and nodded to another nin with a smirk on his lips.

Standing over Sakura, Sasuke deflected another two and took the remaining kunai in the back of his left leg. "Arrgh!"

"Try not to maim his ass," Orochimaru said with a leer while gesturing for another nin to start throwing kunai as well.

Sasuke managed to deflect up to six at a time before one got past and gouged Sakura's shoulder. His eyes narrowed and his teeth ground together as he heard her cry. He redoubled his efforts just managing to keep up with the increasing number of blades being thrown.

Orochimaru burst out laughing, a strangely cheerful sound as he gestured and all the nin vanished in bursts of smoke as did the kunai littering the ground. The killing intent cut off like a switch had been flipped.

"What?!" Sasuke asked confused by the sudden change in atmosphere.

Naruto's bloody corpse vanished in a puff of smoke as did Orochimaru's countenance, revealing a perfectly fine and slightly amused Naruto.

"You bastard!" Sasuke exclaimed when he realized it had all been Naruto and his shadow clones.

"That's bastard-sensei to you," Naruto replied. "How is the Sharingan usually awakened?" Naruto asked in a seeming non sequitur.

"Battle," Sasuke said slowly.

"Sakura what color are Sasuke's eyes?" Naruto asked.

"A beautiful-" Sakura began, climbing to her feet, holding her bleeding shoulder.

"Look at your reflection in the water," Naruto interrupted.

Sasuke quickly limped over to the river, ignoring the bleeding wounds on his thighs. "I have the Sharingan!"

"This was all…what?" Sakura asked confused and holding her injured shoulder.

"The Sharingan is most easily awakened when the user is in battle and believes his life is in danger, so it was either wait until an actual battle, where lives were on the line, try a risky medical procedure, or put on a play like I just did," Naruto replied.

"And it was necessary to stab us?" Sakura demanded.

"It's the easiest way to convince you both it was real and truthfully… I've been wanting to stab you both since the bell test," he replied easily. "Now, Sakura why were you just lying there through the whole battle?"

"Because I was still trying to catch my breath when they attacked and then because I didn't want to distract Sasuke," Sakura admitted.

"Very good," Naruto said in approval. "That was actually the right thing to do. If you can't help a situation, at least avoid making it worse."

Sasuke ignored the two, looking around the world with new eyes and an actual smile on his face, clearly in a world of his own.

"So why were you out of breath when the two of us were both well enough to fight?" Naruto asked.

"Because I don't have as much stamina as you guys do," Sakura said with some heat.

"First you recognize a problem…" Naruto began and waited.

"And then you solve it," Sakura said with a sigh. "Here's a problem I recognize, we're bleeding," she deadpanned.

"Flesh wounds," Naruto dismissed it taking a scroll out of his jacket and tossing it to her.

"What's this?" Sakura asked opening the scroll and reading it.

"A very old, very basic medical technique," Naruto replied. "Med-nin sneer at it because all it really does is close wounds and prevent scarring without healing the underlying damage."

"But all I've got is a shallow cut," Sakura said before smacking herself in the forehead. "Stupid, this would be perfect for that."

"It also uses a lot more chakra than modern techniques," Naruto told her. "Easy to learn though."

"Yeah," Sakura said absently already deeply enamored in the scroll.

"Yo, Sasuke," Naruto called out to get his attention.

"Yeah?" Sasuke replied focusing on him with the Sharingan.

"I activated your Sharingan so I can show you what it is and isn't good for," Naruto told him.

Sasuke snorted. "I think I know a little more about it than you do."

"Watch this technique," Naruto said and made a ram sign, gathering his chakra in his feet he walked up the side of a tree and back down. "Now you try."

Sasuke grinned widely, Sharingan spinning as he made the ram sign, gathered his chakra and took two steps up the tree before sliding down to land flat on his back. "What the hell?!"

"You aren't the same weight as I am and you weren't stepping in the same spots as I was," Naruto explained. "The Sharingan allows you to copy what I did, but an exact copy won't help when the circumstances call for something similar but tailored to you."

"Copying someone drawing a self-portrait won't give me a picture of myself," Sasuke said as he climbed to his feet, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Exactly," Naruto agreed, surprised Sasuke had gotten it so quickly. "Now have Sakura fix your legs or at least stop the bleeding so you don't attract predators."

Sakura had rolled up her sleeve to expose her shoulder and wasn't paying attention to the two as she carefully made several handsigns and placed a glowing blue hand over the cut in her shoulder, removing it a moment later to reveal smooth, though still bloody skin.

"IS there a reason I can't copy that?" Sasuke asked.

"Your cuts don't match so it wouldn't heal correctly," Naruto explained glad Sasuke was actually thinking things through. "However you do know the handsigns and how to focus your chakra thanks to the Sharingan, so you could use the jutsu without copying it so it'd function correctly."

Closing his eyes and concentrating Sasuke slowly went through the handsigns a couple of times before he had it down. Opening his eyes he ran through the handsigns and focused his chakra only to find he had another problem. "I can't reach back there that easily and I'm not sure I want to risk screwing it up because of an awkward angle."

"Thinking things through and accepting you can't do everything yourself," Naruto said. "You are beginning to impress me."

"I'm not that bad," Sasuke said rolling his eyes.

"Not at the moment, no," he agreed cheerfully. "Sakura would you care to heal our teammate?"

"Sure," Sakura agreed, happy to be able to lay hands on Sasuke and help him, only to frown as she examined the wound.

"Well?" Sasuke asked after a minute.

"I-I don't think I should use this jutsu on it," Sakura admitted. "The scroll said it was for shallow cuts and surface abrasions only. In fact there's a warning that using it on stab wounds could cause serious medical complications."

"You knew," Sasuke said turning to Naruto. "That's why you nailed me there with a kunai, so I couldn't use the jutsu and would ask Sakura who would know not to use it."

"But why?" Sakura asked confused.

"Because I needed to learn that there was more to a jutsu than just knowing the handsigns and being able to use it," Sasuke said eyeing Naruto like he was someone he'd never seen before.

Naruto tossed another scroll to Sakura. "The jutsu used to heal stab wounds when you don't have a mednin available. It's not nearly as effective and wastes chakra so it fell into disuse."

"How many more lessons have you got planned?" Sasuke asked.

"Tons, that's what we're here for," Naruto replied.

"I mean, how many more lessons where I have to see underneath the underneath?" Sasuke asked.

"Just one," Naruto replied. "I thought it would be much harder to get you to accept the limitations of your bloodline."

"Every bloodline has limits," Sasuke admitted, "even mine."

"Yeah, but the fact that the Copy Wheel Eye is poorly suited to copying jutsu is usually kind of a shock," Naruto told him.

Sasuke just stared at him, not even noticing Sakura heal his legs and slump against a tree, nearly exhausted.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Clone number sixty four paused in his survey of an unmarked cavern beneath Konoha as he spotted a tripwire. Several minutes of careful work allowed him to disarm and disassemble the trap for his own use later. As he searched for more traps he discovered a hidden door protected by seals. It took nearly half an hour to disable the seals and sixty four had to call in another three clones to help.

Once the door was open and they could see inside, the clones exchanged evil grins and called in another dozen clones to help carry away everything they found.

Number fifteen stopped working on a hole in the roof and dropped down to see what his fellow clones were bringing into the warehouse. "You guys rob an ANBU storeroom?" he asked curiously.

"Root," another clone answered carrying in a box of medical supplies and soldier pills.

"Cool!" he said with a smile as he saw a couple of clones stop to examine the armor and chakra blades that were being brought in. "Remember to booby-trap the place?"

"That's what we forgot!" the clone exclaimed. "But where am I going to get a dozen banana cream pies and mildly poisonous blue dye at this time of night?"

"Improvise," the clone suggested, as another dozen came in carrying crates of supplies. "Root?" he asked.

"Root," the clones chorused.

"We should send Danzo a thank you card when we're done," he said as a third group arrived carrying enough gear for an ANBU squad.

"Only if it's on an explosive tag," another clone agreed.

"When's his birthday?" another clone asked brightly.

Typing by: The Last Primarch!