Sasuke: Prey

Sasuke was worried. It was practically his job on team seven: he was the one who poked holes in his team-mates' grandiose strategies. He was also the only one who seemed to be aware that some minor kami had it in for team seven. Maybe it was the number; 'Shichi' was supposed to be unlucky after all. First there had been the misclassified mission to Nami and the mess with Gatou and his goons, then Kakashi-sensei had done his utmost to permanently main them under the excuse of 'training' and now they were facing an unknown, probably-S-class nin during the chunnin exams. No wonder the bell test was so hard; Sensei had to be sure we'd survive long enough to make training us worth his time!

"Sakura, fall back," the Uchiha murmured as the wind died down again.

"Plan?" the pinkette whispered worriedly, gripping the branches around her so tightly her knuckles were white.

"Stall until Naruto returns, attack then run for the tower," Sasuke decided. Sakura nodded and faded into her surroundings with a single handseal.

Sakura's affinity was earth; however the kunoichi lacked the reserves for elemental manipulation. Kakashi had shown her four Doton jutsus and told her to concentrate on genjutsu and ijutsu and leave elemental manipulation until after she made chunnin and her body had matured more. Sakura had nodded obediently, mastered the jutsus in question and integrated some of the principles involved into her genjutsu. Her camouflage technique was one such nin-genjutsu hybrid, requiring very high control but very little chakra to produce an effect on par with the A-rank Mesai Gakure jutsu Sensei sometimes used to sneak up on them.

Confident that Sakura would be watching his back and exploiting all the openings he could give her, Sasuke drew a pair of kunai, quickly checked his wire spools were accessible and fell into a defensive stance. He did not have to wait long.

"What have we here? A Konoha genin all alone, and an Uchiha at that," the pale skinned grass kunoichi said as she emerged through the branches of a nearby tree. ""Just the kind of person I was looking for."

That does not sound good. Where's Naruto when you need him?

"And you are?" Sasuke readied his kunai, relieved beyond words he had learned Mantis. This was not an opponent he cared to exchange blows with.

"Ku ku ku, I'm no-one special, Sasuke-kun." The Uchiha flinched at the way the kunoichi crooned the endearment. "I do have something you want, though." She held up an Earth scroll, then wrapped her obscenely long tongue around it and swallowed it whole. "Now, if you kill me you can have it. If I win however, you will die." She looked up to meet his eyes for the first time.

The sudden burst of Killing Intent would have paralysed Sasuke had the Uchiha not spent the past months being repeatedly beaten bloody by Hatake Kakashi. In their fourth 'survival exercise' the jounin had blasted them with KI and gone straight for the kill. Only Naruto's instinctive counter-blast of Kyuubi-KI and a wave of sacrificial shadow clones had prevented that fight from being over in seconds. Sasuke was now as inured to KI as only someone used to fighting alongside a jinchuuriki could be. He hopped further out of reach and down towards ground level, leaving the heights to Sakura.

"Ooh, not as weak as you might be, are you Sasuke-kun? This will be interesting after all," the strange kunoichi taunted him. "Aren't you going to attack?"

I hate opponents who want to chat. Naruto is bad enough and Sensei is terrible. Whatever happened to just killing your enemies and getting it over with?

"Very well then, I'll start," the kunoichi cooed, then the world filled with fire.

Sasuke kawarimi'd to safety, briefly used his sharingan to pinpoint his opponent and flung a barrage of shuriken at her under the cover of a flurry of little fireballs. It was one of his favourite moves, one he used interchangeably with plain fireballs just to keep Kakashi-sensei on his toes. Another quick flash of sharingan located where the kunoichi had kawarimi'd to and he threw two lightning-charged kunai at her then swiftly moved around the small clearing, surreptitiously attaching tags here and there.

"Clever little boy, aren't you Sasuke-kun? A little genius just like your brother."

Four months ago Sasuke would have succumbed to a blind rage at hearing those words. Now he ignored the taunt -IamNOTmybrotherDAMMITsothere- and went on circling, seeking an opening.

"Ignoring me are you? We can't have that-" the attack came so fast Sasuke didn't even get to breathe before the tug on his chakra told him Sakura had used the remote-kawarimi seal Naruto had insisted on tattooing them all with and swapped him across the clearing to safety.

"Arigatou," he mumbled as the dented log fell to the ground and the kunoichi turned, tongue flicking like a snake's as if to taste his presence.

"Orochimaru," his pinkette team-mate whispered back before ghosting away again.

The rogue sannin? Dammit, I knew the kami hated us. Calling your team 'seven' is the kiss of death for three-quarters of the members.

"You are fast, little Uchiha," the disguised shinobi purred. "I'll have to step up my game a little if I want to witness the power of the sharingan."

Somewhere above them, Sasuke knew, Sakura had just snapped. She hated it when people went for his eyes in any way, shape or form. He flung a barrage of kunai, which were dodged, then used the wire tied to the hilt loops to entangle the sannin and sent electricity down the wire, as much as he could handle.

The earth clone crumpled instantly, prompting Sasuke to move. An explosion just to the right of where he'd been standing proved it had been a good idea. Take that; I love Naruto's tags, no sense of restraint in explosions.

"Well, well, well," the irritating voice of his opponent rang out, "Aren't you a feisty one, Sasuke-kun. You ruined my disguise." A slim hand peeled the blackened feminine features away to reveal the visage Sasuke recognised from the Konohagakure bingo book. "Let's see how you deal with the unexpected, shall we? It's been a while since I had this much fun." The sannin smeared a splash of blood across a tattoo exposed by his tattered left sleeve. There was a burst of chakra smoke, which cleared to reveal Orochimaru perched on the head of an unnaturally large viper.

Summons. Where's a jinchuuriki when you need one? Sasuke kawarimi'd again, this time with a pre-prepared log wrapped in Naruto's improved shock tags that he'd set aside earlier. The sound like ripping fabric, shriek of reptilian fury and stink of burnt flesh were highly gratifying. I don't care what Iruka-sensei says, Naruto's pranks have all the hallmarks of a master of guerrilla warfare strategy.

The snake, hissing furiously through badly burned lips, turned swiftly and lunged at him, missing by a few feet. Genjutsu. Go Sakura!

Gah. Naruto-proximity is infecting my mental processes. It was a very tactical use of genjutsu though.

The snake turned and lunged again, this time clipping his ankle with the force of an insulted Akiminchi.

"Wait!" he stalled, staggering upright and digging through his pouch. "You want the scroll, right? If I give it to you will you leave?" It wasn't like the one he was offering wasn't the spare...

The snake stilled as Orochimaru straightened on his perch on the reptile's skull. "I'm not really interested in the scroll anymore, Sasuke-kun; you are far more fascinating. I want to see your pretty red eyes."

"Ya know," came a blessedly familiar growl to Sasuke's left, "that sounds kinda perverted." Naruto lunged at the snake summons, the tail of his fully manifested chakra cloak piercing its right eye and dispelling it with a keening wail. "Okay you snake-wielding pervert," the orange-eyed, gore-covered jinchuuriki rumbled, "Now it's my turn."

Sasuke fell back to watch for openings and catch his breath as the renegade sannin immediately upped his game in the face of a genuinely dangerous opponent. Much as he disliked admitting it, Sasuke knew Orochimaru had just been toying with him.

"You alright?" came a familiar female whisper from behind him.

"Sore," Sasuke grunted, flexing his bruised foot. A burst of medical chakra soothed the battered appendage:

"Don't put your weight on it without chakra reinforcement or you'll damage the tendons too badly for me to fix," the pinkette murmured, eyes looking past her patient to where the brawl was evolving.

"Get him with Sakuri," Sasuke muttered viciously as Naruto's chakra cloak flared then was snuffed out as the blond fell unconscious all the way down to the ground, "that'll slow him down." His eyes bled red as his fully evolved sharingan whirled angrily. What did he do to my team-mate!

The anger kept him going for a little while but two minutes after attacking Sasuke had a twisted knee, several bleeding wounds and had been completely disarmed. Orochimaru idly tossed the ninja-to aside with an unnaturally wide smile. "You are all I had hoped for and more, Sasuke-kun. For that I'll leave you a little something to remember me by." The sannin's head was suddenly by Sasuke's ear as the S-class nukenin's neck elongated unnaturally. Then the world exploded into white-hot agony centred on the left-hand side of his neck.

"All the power you could possibly desire in one tiny package," crooned the sickening voice as Sasuke felt himself losing consciousness, "Power only I can fully unlock for you. Ja ne, Sasuke-kun."

I'll join you when Naruto puts a blanket ban on ramen, Sasuke tried to say as everything went black.

A/N: So yes, it is another cliffhanger. Unconsciousness will do that to you. Nonetheless, the encounter with the snake sannin went a little better and a little worse than in canon. I hope the differences make sense to everyone. A big thankyou to all my reviewers; even just a few words make all the difference to a writer. I'm really writing for those who write back. Oh and myself, of course.

Next up, I have finally caved and written a chapter from Sakura's point of view. Oh, and she is not happy with the status quo. Be very afraid.