A/N: I give you full permission to hate me. No, really. I mean it. I feel like I practically vanished from the face of the earth fanfic-wise. Fml. There's been a few personal issues that I've had to deal with. I just want you to know that you guys haven't been forgotten. In fact, updating this story was something that I've wanted to do quite badly. But again, circumstances came up that I couldn't ignore and here we are two months later.

A huge thank you to all of you that have left me such awesome reviews! I'm so glad that you guys are enjoying everything so far, and I can't wait to see how you guys respond as the story continues to unfold. Believe me, there is much more to come.

xx LCF

Disclaimer: Despite the fact that Naruto and all of the badass characters within that manga are not mine, I still feel the insane urge to mess with their lives. No worries, I'll try not to do anything too horrible to them. Try being the operative word.

Edit 6/20/17

Hey everyone! Don't mind me, I've just cleaned up and tweaked a few details around.

Storm

Chapter 3: Unmasked

She stood frozen before his blade; the sound of her heart pounding in her chest was all she could hear after he had uttered her name. There was a lapse in her control which was not something she was prone to do, especially when her life was on the line. But she had been so genuinely shocked in a way she hadn't been in such a long time that it had wavered, and for an instant her henge faltered, making the short dark hair she bore turn into a washed-out pink in the moonlight before reverting back to its inky hue.

It lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Sasuke to notice the shift of her chakra. Despite his beaten frame, it seemed his senses were as sharp as ever.

Sakura could feel the beginnings of a bone-deep fatigue begin to creep up on her. She was exhausted, and her body ached from the sudden movement when she'd attempted to escape. It had been too soon for her to move strenuously, but the desire to leave had burned desperately inside of her and she had to at least attempt it, because what other opportunity would there be? Now there was nothing of her chakra left for her to use in case a fight broke out between them. And she knew that if it came down to it, she'd most likely lose her life at Sasuke's hands.

She braced herself for his next move; waited for him to effortlessly glide his sword across her skin like nothing—waited for him to end her life as his reputation foretold. He was merciless now, and she didn't dare hope that she would be an exception to his ruthlessness. If he was killing to kill Naruto, what chance did she stand?

The feel of his blade biting into her neck made Sakura snap her attention back to him, and suddenly she was falling. The darkness of the night encompassed her like a blanket and the last the she knew was the Sharingan's spinning gaze.

I'm such a fool.

Warm tracks of blood ran down Sasuke's cheek as he felt the Sharingan fade. His hold on Kusanagi weakened as the last of his chakra burnt out, and he staggered slightly to the ground near Sakura's crumpled form, only Juugo and Suigetsu's hold on him kept him from toppling over. His breath came in labored pants as the final burst of energy he used when he'd confronted Sakura pushed him to his limits.

Limits, he thought bitterly, That should no longer be there.

"Sasuke!" Karin yelled from somewhere behind him. The muted sounds of feet hitting the earth were barely discernible through the haze of exhaustion in his mind.

"Quick! Bite before you pass out," she instructed as she thrust a bare forearm to his mouth.

Teeth barely connected to yielding flesh as she willed her chakra to seep into him. He felt the burning sensation of his skin knitting itself back together along with the gradual stop of the blood flow that had been steadily pouring from his more serious injuries.

As his exhaustion began to recede, his mind grew clearer and his thoughts grew darker. Onyx eyes narrowed slightly as the memories of the battle he'd been in flooded his mind. If it hadn't been for the fact that he'd had enough strength to summon one of his hawks and return to Taka's designated meeting point, he would have still been sprawled in the middle of that godforsaken battlefield and possibly perished like those corpses that'd surrounded him.

It was a large feat to be able to lay a hand on his person, and rarer still to be able to injure him critically and force him to waste such an absurd amount of his chakra. But then again, it hadn't been just anybody whom he'd fought against.

After several minutes passed, the worst of his injuries had closed up entirely and when he felt he had enough strength, he removed himself from Karin's proffered limb and the other half of Taka's grasps. Karin slumped forward in exhaustion, sweat beading her brow as she took ragged breaths. Juugo quickly descended on her, scooping up the redhead easily in his arms before turning to Sasuke for further instructions. The Uchiha gave him a brief nod, which Juugo took as his assent before he turned and made his way back to camp. Sasuke then looked to Suigetsu who currently knelt over the unconscious kunoichi on the ground.

"What do you want to do with her?" he asked, the ends of his frosty hair brushing his shoulder as he tipped his head to the side in curiosity.

"Bind her and return her to the cave. We'll see just how much she knows when she awakens."

Suigetsu nodded silently, easily taking the girl—Sakura—in his arms and headed towards the cave. Sasuke fixed a glare towards the dark-haired kunoichi in the former Mist-nin's grasp, his eyes piercing as he took note of her altered demeanor.

He was positive it was her. There was no other explanation.

She was one of the very few shinobi that had the closest thing to perfect chakra control that he'd ever come across. A skill, if she'd bothered to hone it, that enabled her to use a henge that very few people would be able to pick up on, natural chakra sensors included. Perfect chakra control paired with her being a natural genjutsu type made her capable of pulling off impossible feats of illusion with dangerous ease. Considering that she was both unconscious and had her chakra bound, Sasuke presumed that Sakura had at least bothered to train that aspect of her strength.

The only question that remained was what she wanted from them. Was she sent for espionage? Reconnaissance?

...Was she there for him? To make another attempt to persuade him to return to Konoha?

The last thought made his aura darken considerably, enough so to cause Suigetsu to look over his shoulder a few times as they silently made their way to the cave. No matter her reason, the only way he'd ever step foot though those gates willingly once more would be to fulfill his own wishes and to cleanse the name of his clan once and for all.

The memory of his unexpected encounter with Naruto and Kakashi mentally replayed itself in his mind's eye. The words he'd screamed at them years ago reverberated like a fragmented echo of desperation.

"I want to change that laughter into screams and cries of pain and anguish!"

Shaking the confrontation from his mind, Sasuke turned his gaze upon the trailing arms that hung from Suigetsu's grasp.

Why was she there? What was her purpose?

The moment she awoke from the Sharingan's grasp, Sasuke had every intention of finding out.

Figures raced through the tree line at breakneck speeds, well-hidden by the shadows that the forest provided in the night. An entire platoon of shinobi was on the move, all following their taichou forward as he ran alongside his subordinate. Mismatched eyes slid towards the left as they rested on the Byakugan user's intent face.

"How much closer are we?" Kakashi asked.

"We're about five kilometers away, taichou." Hinata responded thickly, no doubt out of her mind with worry at the disappearance of his former student. As they closed in on their target, a surprised breath caught in her throat as the most recent battleground came into her sight.

They arrived within several minutes of her calculation and the scene they found was a gruesome one.

Hundreds of white Zetsu bodies laid strewn across the ground, bloody and torn under the light of the moon. The stench of rust and copper filled the air as they got closer along with ash. There was an electric charge that hung in the air, and Kakashi could sense a familiar figure not too far from their entering point. From the look on Hinata's face, he wasn't the only one to have sensed him.

"Hinata, go assist the medical corps with finding any survivors. If you do, keep them alive at all costs so we can get them to interrogation."

Kakashi looked at the morbid sight before him silently. He could hear the slight gasps that escaped his subordinates as they all entered the battlefield and could quite literally feel their trepidation and unease at the sight before them. War was never pretty and he had hoped, albeit foolishly, that the generation following his own would have been spared to see such a gruesome sight. War changed people, made people grow up quickly or killed them mercilessly, without hesitation.

"Kakashi," called Pakkun. "We found him."

He wasted no time and followed Pakkun through the trees as the small ninken navigated his way through the forest.

It didn't take them long to find Naruto. They found him in the middle of another bloodbath, the ground blasted apart as he wrenched a dismembered arm from his right pectoral with a sharp grunt. The limb fell to the ground to reunite with its equally bloody owner. Obito's Sharingan could already see the Kyuubi's chakra healing the injury. Thankfully it didn't appear to be too deep.

Kakashi allowed himself half a second to feel relieved.

"You don't normally let yourself get hit. Especially by one of those," he nodded to the white Zetsu corpse at the blond's feet. "You're usually much faster than that."

A mirthless chuckle escaped his former student before he shrugged his shoulders with a forced nonchalance that rivaled his mother's when she'd been alive. "Yeah well, I was distracted. It happens."

The sigh Kakashi had been holding back since word of Naruto deserting camp finally came to the surface.

"Naruto."

"Sensei," the blond mimicked and Kakashi felt his patience grow thin. It'd been far too long since Naruto stooped to such childish antics and the Copy Ninja found himself dangerously out of practice in how to deal with it. Catching the look in his eyes, Naruto dropped it with a petulant glare that reminded Kakashi of the overexcited boy he'd been when he'd first been assigned to his team.

"Do you care to explain why you took off like a bat out of hell without so much as a word to me or any other supervising officer? You put us on high alert and I had to assemble nearly a quarter of the battalion to come after you."

At this, Naruto had the decency to look shamefaced. "I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei. I didn't mean to run off like that, and least of all to make our comrades come after me, but I'd just gotten off patrol when I sensed a skirmish breaking out. I had to come."

"Naruto, we're nearly thirty kilometers from camp. How could you have even sensed something out this far?"

The blond's guilty look came back and everything suddenly fell into place.

"You used sage mode," Kakashi deduced, unamused. "I didn't realize you'd expanded it's range yet again." The Copy Ninja let out another sigh before he pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"You know you have to come to me whenever you expand your parameter! Not to mention sage mode has been expressly forbidden to be used during your patrols for this exact reason."

Naruto opened his mouth to defend himself but Kakashi cut him off. "No, I don't care about the reason anymore. You've put yourself and others in unnecessary danger. Danzou will find out and when he does, I don't know if I'll be able to keep you from being disciplined."

"I am not some kid for him to just—" Naruto started, but was once again cut off.

"You're right, you're not a kid. You're shinobi, and not just any shinobi. You are the vessel of a bijuu, one of the last remaining two that Akatsuki has thankfully been unable to get their hands on. What do you think would happen if they found you before we did? If Madara came upon you?

"You're eighteen years old, Naruto. Start acting like it!" At this Naruto's growing ire promptly exploded.

"I KNOW!" the blond roared before leaving an uncomfortable silence in its wake.

I always figured it would've been Sasuke that I had to beat this lesson into. Kakashi thought miserably. He'd never expected it of Naruto.

Former student and teacher stood before each other, tense. Seconds passed with both of them refusing to back down, and it was only after several agonizing moments of silent warring did the younger of the two finally yield.

"I'm sorry, sensei." Naruto started. "I really am. You know I'd never dream of putting any of my comrades in danger—not after everything we've been through, but I sensed something and I couldn't turn a blind eye and walk away."

"What was it you sensed, then?"

"It was Sasuke." Kakashi stiffened at Naruto's declaration, but the blond pressed on before he could get a word in. "At first I thought he might have encountered some of the Root patrols, but I recognized who it was he was fighting."

The blond jerked his head to the decimated Zetsu that surrounded them. "And there's more, at least two hundred."

At Naruto's words, Kakashi felt his age catch up with him. With the adrenaline in his veins wearing down, the ache of his bones and the strain on his body slowly trickled back. Harsh reminders that he was past the prime of his life and that it all went downhill from here. Gai would be thrilled to know that the fire of his youth outstripped Kakashi's by far.

These brats will be the death of me, he thought grimly. Sasuke defects, Sakura is missing, and Danzou's got Naruto on such a short leash I'm surprised it's not strangling him.

"Don't you see, Kakashi-sensei? Sasuke's fighting against them now!"

Seeing where this was going, Kakashi quickly intervened. "Don't get ahead of yourself yet, Naruto. Do you remember the conversation we had with him on the bridge two years ago? The one where Sasuke said he wouldn't rest until Konoha and all its inhabitants laid in ruins? Regardless of his reasons for fighting with the Zetsu clones, we can't trust him. Not when there's so much more at stake."

Naruto nodded slowly at his words before he pulled himself to his full height. There was a painfully familiar glimmer in his eyes that was not unlike his father's when he set his mind to something. Kakashi felt both pride and wariness at once.

"I know that this war is important, and I know that those who don't follow the rules are trash… But those who abandon their friends are worse than trash, right sensei? So I'm not going to give up on him, I know Sakura-chan wouldn't," Naruto bent down and picked up something that up until that moment had been hidden by the debris of the battlefield. He tossed it down at Kakashi's feet before heading to where the rest of the platoon was situated.

"And neither should you."

Kakashi remained, mismatched eyes staring down at the pristine Akatsuki cloak that had been discarded.

Orange eyes landed for the umpteenth time on the unconscious kunoichi that lay bound on the floor of the cave. Large hands tightly held onto the bloodied cloak that had been stripped of her, long fingers fidgeting with the material as he looked towards the mass of dark hair. Said hair was splayed over her face after Suigetsu had unceremoniously dumped her onto Juugo's bedroll, and after a sharp glance from Sasuke, began binding her hands, wrists, and ankles.

She took steady breaths, meaning that her injuries were no longer causing her any severe discomfort and she laid on her side with a blank expression on her heart-shaped face.

It had been thirty minutes since Sasuke had woken from his rest, and currently all members of Taka sat congregated around the fire, each looking towards Sasuke with expectant eyes.

"How did she get here?" He asked brusquely.

Karin shifted her eyes slightly towards he and Suigetsu with a frown on her face. Her displeasure and obvious contempt towards the situation in plain view. Suigetsu, on the other hand, did nothing as he folded his hands behind his head and reclined against the wall of the cave after taking another swig from his water canteen.

"Simple, it was Juugo." he muttered.

"He wasn't the only one, Suigetsu." Karin snapped, "You helped him get here with a half-dead child in his arms."

"Yeah, but it was Juugo's idea." Suigetsu replied, his pointed teeth glimmered slightly in the light of the fire as he narrowed his violet eyes dangerously.

Karin opened her mouth with what was sure to be a violent retort, but was cut off by Sasuke.

"Enough." his voice rang out.

Suigetsu paused momentarily as his gaze settled on Sasuke before he gave a noncommittal shrug and closed his eyes. Karin let out an impatient huff before crossing her arms over her chest angrily, but made no other form of protest. The steady crackling of the fire and continuous torrent of the waterfall was the only source of noise in the cave for a few seconds before Juugo came forward with his explanation.

"It was my idea, Sasuke. If her being here is a disturbance I will quickly remedy the situation."

"That's not going to be possible." Sasuke deadpanned.

"I only need a day or so to find a small town to leave her, it wouldn't be diff-"

"I said no."

The large man stilled at the Uchiha's hard tone. Having spent the last three years with Taka, Juugo was well accustomed to all of Sasuke's tendencies. He knew the tones he drew for when Suigetsu and Karin's fighting wore down his patience. He knew when he was tired, even as he failed to show it. He knew his preferences and his dislikes, knew how he wanted his operations carried out. It was the sort of gift that only time was able to give, it was the fruit that years of comradeship bore. This was the first time in all their time together that he'd ever spoken that way towards him, and Juugo found he did not like it.

It made him feel ashamed, no matter if he did what he felt was right. Because Sasuke was the one who kept his murderous impulses at bay. Sasuke was the one Kimimaro had sacrificed his life for. Thus Juugo's devotion laid with only him, and he'd betrayed that confidence by allowing his impulses to take hold of him, no matter how pure his intentions had been.

Off to the side, it seemed that Sasuke's quiet outburst had not gone unnoticed by the others. Despite her anger, Karin peered over at them, and Suigetsu had cracked open a violet eye from his perch.

Sasuke ignored them all.

"I don't want any of you interacting with her. At least not until we find out what she wants with us."

Karin snorted from her spot. "Well you don't have to worry about me. Just let me know whether you want to kill or interrogate her."

"No!" the words exploded from his lips before Juugo could even think to hold them back.

No matter his devotion to Sasuke, the damage was done and the girl was here now. He would not allow them to harm her, and if Sasuke found her presence too much of a danger then he would figure something out, but he would not let Karin get her jealous claws into her.

Sasuke's gaze flicked from Juugo to the girl's slumped form. "You know nothing about her."

"Neither do you," Juugo replied in a rare show of resistance.

"We'll see when she awakens." the Uchiha replied before sitting back and allowing himself to be consumed by the surrounding darkness of the cave.

Kakashi sat behind the desk in the tent that served as his office. His former student had been forced into isolation the moment they'd returned from camp as per Danzou's orders until further instructions came.

Naruto, of course, had kicked up quite the fuss. Not that he could blame him. It was a simple known fact that when someone you cared for was on the line, one would do anything in order to protect them. Sakura had done so for the boys during the second part of their chuunin exams, Sasuke had done the same during their mission to the Land of Waves, and Naruto continued to do so for them. Even now, six years after life had pulled them down different paths.

The masked-nin let out a deep breath, silver brows pinched together as he tried to remember when exactly he'd come to love these brats as his own.

The legendary Copy Ninja pulled himself out of his thoughts as he felt a familiar chakra signature approaching. He gave a subtle flex in his chakra that let his incoming visitor know that he was free to meet with him. In a matter of seconds a masked operative crossed the meager barrier of his captain's tent.

"How is he?" was the first thing the Root operative asked as he approached. The cloaked figure pulled down his hood and removed the porcelain mask to reveal an equally pale face.

"He's fine. Though I gave him the ass-chewing of a lifetime." Kakashi sighed, his head already hurting just from recalling the spat they'd gotten into. "Any idea what the word is yet? Has our fearless leader thought up any punishment yet?"

"Nothing's been confirmed, but keep an eye out for a missive. I'm not sure what the Rokudaime's got planned, but I know that he is extremely displeased by your inability to rein him in. It's the only reason he allowed him to stay with you."

"I'm aware," Kakashi responded dryly. "Regardless, I'm the best option he's got with Tsunade's whereabouts remaining unknown and Tenzou's capture."

Sai merely nodded before he began putting his mask and hood back on, rendering him to just another faceless operative under Danzou's regime. He made his way to the opening of the tent when Kakashi found his voice again.

"Is it true?" He asked before Sai left. "Did Sasuke really turn on Madara?"

It was a long shot, he knew. But if anyone could find their way around the seal, it would be him.

Sai paused his departure, though he did not face Kakashi again. "It seems that the hawk is on the hunt once more."

He was gone without another word.

The first thing Sakura noticed when the first waves of consciousness crashed into her were the four chakra signatures in her immediate vicinity. She paused warily, her own chakra spiking slightly instead of keeping the regular flow she was capable of holding steady. Her sluggish actions had not gone unnoticed, because the very second her chakra shifted, someone was on her in an instant. Hands roughly took hold of her and Sakura opened her eyes to find a shock of white hair. Suigetsu gave her a slightly apologetic smile.

"Sorry kid, it's nothing personal." he said as he hauled her over towards where his teammates sat around the open fire.

He dropped her onto the ground before them before going to sit on Juugo's right, as though he were going to make sure the large man wouldn't go further out of his way for her sake in the moments to come. The thought didn't bode well with her.

Her transformed eyes swept over them, quickly averting her gaze when she caught sight of Sasuke's own eyes staring her down. He stood and made his way towards her, making Sakura tense as she watched his approaching figure. She would not let him get one over on her with the Sharingan again.

"Loot at me, " he ordered once he stopped a few paces before her.

Sakura set her chin defiantly as she kept her eyes glued to his movements, refusing to give him an edge. She was caught off guard when his hand sped forward so quickly that she was barely able to follow it and gripped her jaw tightly. He turned her to face him. She still refused to meet his eyes.

"I won't repeat myself." he warned as his grip tightened.

It was with great trepidation that she finally met his dark gaze with her own.

"Drop it."

"No," she replied stonily.

"Don't test my patience. Drop the henge now." he ordered.

"I refuse." she bit back.

Red eyes narrowed dangerously at her words and without warning, Sakura felt a surge of his chakra force itself into her and disrupt the steady flow. A surprised gasp escaped her at the intrusion and the effects of the henge she'd been using were gone in an instant. Pink tresses cascaded over her shoulders as dark eyes lightened to jade. The bindings provided dug painfully into her skin as her body returned to normal.

Sasuke's grip on her jaw tightened with bruising force before he thrust her head back against the wall. His chakra spiked dangerously as he raised fingertips of his free hand grew alight with lightning chakra. As his hand flew towards her, Sakura through her bound hands towards him with a small surge of her own and successfully knocked him back several feet. He landed in a crouch, red eyes narrowed dangerously just as Suigetsu came down on her. There was a brief glint of metal before Sakura was once again pinned to the wall as his blade curved around her neck.

"Now, I don't know who you are or what you might've done to make Sasuke want to kill you, but I wouldn't suggest moving. There's a reason this blade is called Throat Cleaver and if you don't quit acting out then I'm going to have to give you a first-hand experience and we wouldn't want any pretty heads rolling today, would we?" he asked as he held the bladed lightly against her, ready to press forward and behead at any given moment.

"I don't see why that should make any difference to you," Sakura bit back, icily. Who cared what she did now? There was no way she'd escape with her life. "If you're willing to defile a grave, than what sort of moral code would force you to stay your hand when it comes to killing me on the spot?"

A dark chuckle escaped him as his blade shifted, now biting into her neck. "So you know who this belonged to, then? Did you also happen to know that before Zabuza abandoned Hidden Mist that I was training to become its next wielder? You can't steal what was always meant to be yours."

"Suigetsu, enough." called Sasuke, the tomoe in his Sharingan activated. "Karin, deal with what remains of her chakra."

The redhead immediately appeared over Suigetsu's shoulder, a heavy scowl on her face as she narrowed her ruby eyes at the kunoichi before her.

"I knew there was something off about you." she said as she approached, her own fingertips alight with chakra as she finished forming hand seals and touched them to Sakura's forehead. Sakura scowled but said nothing, choosing to show her anger through her eyes as the two kunoichi stared each other down.

A sharp pain raced through Sakura's skull then, and she was quick to slump to the ground. Suigetsu drew back and shot Juugo a hard look when he stepped forward.

"Keep away, Juugo." he warned.

"She's in pain," the giant man replied.

"She's not your problem," Karin hissed. "You've seen plenty of other people in pain, dying. Some of them because you were the one to do it. What is watching her get a headache going to do to you?" Karin spat venomously. "What's so different about her that you can't stand the sight of her hurting? She lied to you, used you. And now that Sasuke's exposed her for what she is, you're still fretting over her!"

Juugo said nothing as he looked to Sakura with an unreadable expression on his face. The trapped kunoichi swallowed nervously beneath his gaze, feeling the sharp edge of Suigetsu's blade press further into the exposed column of her throat. After a long moment, Juugo looked away as he steadfastly stared at the tiny pot of paste that rested nearby.

"Enough," Sasuke said once more.

The moment Sasuke's eyes met hers, the cave fell away. Sakura was left in a neverending expanse of darkness. Gone was the rush of water that hid the entrance of the cave from view, gone was the glow of the fire and his teammates.

Sakura was alone.