A/N: Dedicated to tenterhooks, who deserves all your praise for bribing me with some exceptional fanart. If you want to see it, check out the fresh cover and my profile for the links.

First Flower of Spring

-Chapter Eighteen-

A More Perfect Madness (Part II)

One day, she would be almost as quick as Shiki-dono. Not as quick, because Shiki-dono was primarily wind-natured and it felt almost blasphemous to contemplate one day being his equal, but almost as quick.

But not yet.

If she was, there would be no question of how she would defeat Gaara. As she was, she had only those few explosive tags she'd kept back from their seal earlier and Shiho-nii. In traditional Haruno fashion, she would master herself and her partner before they began on specialized elemental ninjutsu. Doing so generally produced ninja who were competent in more than the element that came most naturally to them, unlike the shinobi of most villages whose shorter life expectancy meant expedience was a crucial element in forming their training plans, but at the moment it meant that she was somewhat limited in her options. Aside from her weapons-based jutsu and her propensity to engage in explosive offenses, she knew exactly one genjutsu.

After tentatively agreeing with her Academy assessment of her being genjutsu dominant, Kakashi-sensei had shown her the illusion he'd intended to use on her during the bell test. Sakura had been severely underwhelmed. He'd reassured her that for normal, non-Haruno shinobi, the Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu could be a traumatizing realization of their worst fears of the moment. Sakura had taken him at his word and dutifully learned to replicate the technique, but she really doubted the showing Gaara his worst fear of the moment-whatever that happened to be-would do anything but push him completely off the edge.

Strategically speaking, Gaara was a poor opponent for her.

Naruto had plunged right into the battle, his shadow clones giving her plenty of opportunity to marvel at the speed and flexibility of Gaara's sand defense. She could sense Naruto himself somewhere in the branches to her right, not yet so caught up in Gaara's taunting that he was risking himself alongside his doppelgangers. It wouldn't be long, though. Judging by his chakra signature, he was all but vibrating with tension.

There was something almost godlike about Gaara's jutsu. Simply moving the sand, the mass of which must have been enormous, would have been enough to make it an A-level jutsu. But the sheer flexibility of it was something else entirely. Most elemental jutsu were designed to produce a simple response. Raise a wall of earth, a clone of mud, a spear of stone. They did not shift shapes as his sand did, did not seem to evolve to meet any new threat. His sand was the most formidable thing about Gaara.

The obvious tactic would be to disarm him, but it wasn't as simple as knocking a kunai from his hand.

When he used it to sheer through trees like they were wet paper, all the cuts were left clean of sand. Not a grain seemed to stray, which eliminated somehow wearing down his weapon. Water might have done it, but none of the three of them could have produced the volume necessary in any case. And there was no guarantee that would have been effective regardless. Oil would have been better. If they could have saturated the sand and set it aflame, she had no doubt that might have done away with the problem of Gaara, but would have introduced a subsequent issue with a massive forest fire in the midst of an invasion.

But as she watched him crush another group of clones, she was beginning to have an idea of the ebb and flow of the technique.

Once you surmounted the scale and horror of it, there was something really peculiar about it. It was almost autonomous, she realized with surprise. Some of Naruto's clone army was obstructing itself by favoring quantity over quality, but it wasn't a bad tactic, per se. Even the most talented ninja would have difficulty in repelling coordinated attacks from all directions. No one's reflexes and peripheral vision were that good, which was why it was the favored tactic of hunter-nin for bringing in highly dangerous missing-nin. But Gaara didn't even seem to be trying to track all the attacks, instead focusing on eliminating the largest clusters of clones. The sand itself seemed to do the rest.

Sakura's eyes narrowed. Sand manipulation had been made famous by the Third Kazekage, whose techniques, like those of all Kage-level ninja-most of whom earned the ranking in wars and therefore had occasion to display said techniques before witnesses that survived the encounter-had been subjected to intense scrutiny by outside countries. But while his Satetsu would logically seem to be the superior destructive technique, none of the records had ever mentioned this ability. And it was highly improbably to think that trained jounin wouldn't spare a sentence or two to lament over what was almost a separate sentience guiding the sand.

A separate sentience.

That was impossible, unless...

Her eyes flicked over to Shiho-nii. Her voice was hardly a whisper as she asked, "Does Suna have any ninja disciplines that utilize some sort of spirit captured in sand?" She'd only ever read of one that manifested in a like manner

Shiho-nii's face settled into tight, angry lines as he took her meaning. "The jinchuriki of Shukaku," he snarled, almost angrier than she'd ever seen him. "Suna has the ichibi. The sand manipulation might be his own, but to use it like this is Kage-level or better. As the Kazekage's son-his father must have..." his voice was drowned in an inarticulate sound of rage and disgust. "It's one thing to raise your children to be soldiers," he railed viciously, "but monsters...!"

Sakura watched him, feeling for the first time the edge of pity. Here, poised on the cusp, it was easy to imagine why Jun thought their kekkei genkai was better than sex, drugs, and violence. There was a sweetness in the annihilation of the weak, cringing self that lived in the daily world. But it was beyond Shiho-nii's reach, just because he'd been born to the white instead of the red. And, somehow, that was sad.

"Monsters and soldiers, we're weapons all the same, Shiho-nii. Some of us just get the benefit of enjoyment in the bargain," she murmured absently, earning herself a sharp look. But she was focused on Gaara again.

Jun's words came to haunt her. Demons were just gods too strange to worship. But neither were infallible. One just needed the right weapons. Which were usually-her gaze wandered to where she knew Naruto was hidden-provided by other spiritual beings.

There was potential there. And in Sasuke too. Deep potential in them both. Friends don't exploit friends, but this was a battle. There were no friends here. Only tools to use.

-\\-\\-/-/-

Naruto was hoping Sakura did the thing with the thinking soon, because he was running short of ideas. He was down to water and a quickset cement mixture, maybe, if they had Sasuke's fire jutsu to dry the stuff. All his pranking experience had taught him that he was at his best with the element of surprise on his side, but Gaara didn't even flinch at any of his usual tactics. He doubted he'd even blink at the sight of a naked woman. And though when surprise failed he could usually grind down his enemies with tenacity, Gaara didn't even look flushed yet even though he'd thrown dozens of Narutoids to their death.

The feedback was unhelpful. He was pretty up on exactly how it felt to be crushed to death, but that sort thing had stopped being exciting back when it had stopped being weird. All it did was reinforce the impression that Gaara was sort of ridiculous.

He didn't flinch when a familiar hand closed on his shoulder. Sakura's scent was distinctive, just like the teme's. Neither of them were nice scents. Sasuke smelt like closed houses and old misery. Sakura normally smelled like a man, the same man who'd lived in the room she lived in. Now her scent had spiked. It was sharp with excitement, edged with a musk he didn't normally associate with battle. He trembled a little under her hand, because there were other things in her scent that he'd never caught before, his own senses heightened by the fight. Her grip tightened in response.

He glanced up at her to find her grip tight on the shaft of her weapon, but it was her eyes that caught his attention. Sakura was controlled, rational, logical to the point of sometimes being a stranger to the rules everybody else just sort of understood by virtue of being a person. But she wasn't looking like any of those things at the moment. She was smiling, eyes dancing, the pupils...odd. He'd seen odd pupils before, but Sakura's were normally, well, normal. Now they were bumpy around the edges, not smoothly circular.

"Your eyes-," he started.

She cocked her head at him almost like her old self, then blinked. The pupils were round again when her eyes opened. "Do you know how Sharingan is activated?"

"Nooo," he drawled slowly. "Are we going to have one of those long, involved conversations that are a really bad idea if we want to live to celebrate with ramen? 'Cause if we are, you can skip to the part where you tell me what to do. Promise I'll listen later."

Sakura nodded, eyes twitching to one side like something had drawn her attention, but Naruto didn't sense anything. "Do you think Sasuke-san likes me?"

Naruto blinked. "Say what?"

Sakura repeated the question.

Naruto gaped at her for a moment, then remembered that he'd been the one to point out they didn't have time to chat. "Sure. Of course Sasuke likes you. You're his teammate. I think you freak him out a little, but still-."

"Good," Sakura said sharply. One hand went to stroke the shaft of her over-sized weapon like it was a pet or something. Something fond and strange was in her face, but then she leaped from their hiding place right into Gaara's line of sight.

His gaze zeroed in on her in moments. "You," he said accusingly.

"Hello, Gaara-san."

"I'm going to kill you," Gaara snarled, eyes wild and face hardly human in its twisted grimace.

Sakura nodded. "So you've been saying. Are you going to introduce me to 'Mother'? I'll introduce you to Shiho-nii in return. My 'precious person'." She extended her arm until the tip of her guandao aligned with Gaara's chest.

His brain didn't even have time to register how weird it all was before Sakura was charging forward, almost dancing despite the weight of such a bulky weapon. When he saw her like that, he really got everything the Academy teachers had droned on about 'being one with your weapon,' though that wasn't really right either.

"What are you doing, Sakura-chan?" Naruto screamed at her, but she ignored him, instead closing the distance between she and Gaara even further.

Naruto sent in another wave of Narutoids, but they were swept away like gnats. From Sasuke's position came a huge wall of flame, but it was met by a wall of sand that buried it in an instant. Sand was shredding trees like they were paper, leaves filling the air like confetti. Sakura in the meantime had managed to get closer to Gaara than either of them and for a crazy moment Naruto thought she was going to do it again, that she was going to kill Gaara like she'd killed Haku and that would be the end of it.

He must have blinked, because one moment Sakura was fine, the next there was a sound he could have sworn shook the forest as she was at last caught, swept up as if by a giant's hand and crushed against a tree. The guandao tumbled from her hand and she made an ugly, broken sound.

And something in his mind snapped.

Chakra boiled in his veins, like something red and viscous spilling into the sea of blue, transforming it all to something all teeth and fangs and power. Naruto roared, leaping forward from his branch in a burst of chakra that was enough to shatter it beneath his feet. The little scorch marks he'd left on the bark when learning tree climbing in Wave were like grains of sand in comparison to boulders from the devastation he left in his wake. He was moving almost on all fours, hands scrambling for purchase alongside his feet as he rocketed toward the enemy.

Sakura hadn't had any of her paper explosives, but his did the job well enough when infused with his chakra. The 'limb' of sand was severed in a grainy explosion and he whirled on Gaara, teeth still bared. Behind him, Sasuke caught Sakura's slumping body, but all Naruto's attention was on the red-headed boy across from him. He'd felt sorry about his story before, seen reflections of his own life in the Suna-nin, but he'd ki-hurt Sakura-chan. And for that he would tear him down. And no ultimate defense would save Gaara from that.

-\\-\\-/-/-

There's something odd about the way dead bodies feel. The way they bend, the color of their skin, the pervasive and unnerving chill until the rot sets in to give it a false warmth. Sasuke had never mistaken an unconscious human for a dead one, but Sasuke was almost preternaturally sensitive to the slight signs of life that separated them. For some reason his vision seemed even sharper than usual, but Sakura's vitals were so faint as to be nonexistent. Her pulse beat only weakly, her breathing wouldn't have been enough to stir a leaf placed on her lips. He was familiar with death. Every memory of his childhood was stained by it. He knew she was as good as. Extinguished, with no more thought than a candle snuffed out, for no better reason than whatever sick reason Gaara had in his mind.

Sakura had been right to say Sasuke didn't like killing. Not like this. In the course of duty, in pursuit of a mission, that he understood. He was comfortable with that kind of killing. He was fine with causing that kind of death. But whatever the scope of Gaara's mission, he hadn't done this to achieve any goal. He'd done it because he was a monster.

And Sasuke had made it his central, overwhelming goal to slay the monsters in his life. He'd thought that he didn't have any more room for hate in his heart, but he learned that the heart was something with no finite limits. He could find it in him to hate Gaara for taking Sakura from them. Odd as she was, unnerving as she was, she'd been his teammate. The closest thing he had to family. And it was Gaara's fault that she was dying in his arms, her head tilted back at an angle that looked so uncomfortable he couldn't help but be gentle as he lay her down on the branch.

Suddenly he knew what the new clarity of his vision was. Sharingan.

The legacy of his family, the inheritance that was his birthright.

His path to him.

But for now, there was Gaara.

Just in front of them, Naruto was-he looked almost as monstrous as Gaara, his teeth bared, his hair wild, the marks on his face that were almost invisible normally becoming deeper and more savage even as he watched.

"Gaara!" With the roar came an explosion, vicious red chakra so powerful as to be visible spilling over his skin, twisting behind him like a tail.

The shinobi responded by bringing down a crushing arm of sand, but Naruto caught it in his bare hands. The red chakra flared and Naruto sank elongated nails into the surface, almost as he thought he could toss the whole weight of the sand construct. And maybe he might have, but Gaara tried to pull the sand back and Naruto shifted his strategy.

Allowing the momentum of the sand to fling him upwards, Naruto landed atop the sand. What was an appendage made to kill became a bridge between them, Naruto moving at a speed Sasuke'd never before witnessed from him.

But he'd had enough gawking. Now was the time to test the predictive capabilities of the Sharingan.

What was before an impossible game became merely a difficult one. His speed was still limited by his body, while Gaara's sand was less limited, but he could see the miniscule shifts that signaled an attack. However, he found it to be less effective in the face of Gaara's defense, which didn't telegraph itself at all. Not even Naruto in his suddenly enhanced strength seemed to have much effect, though the words he kept shouting at him seemed to be blows that actually hit.

There was a moment that Gaara faltered and something, some part of Sasuke that he didn't listen to often, told him to wait.

That was when the blow seemed to come from nowhere, the crack of metal against flesh astoundingly loud as the blade of a too-familiar guandao pierced through the thinned veil of sand, turning only at the last instant to hit Gaara upside the head with the flat of the blade.

As Gaara toppled to the ground, falling from the trees, Sakura was left standing in his place, as whole and well as if he hadn't ever seen her crushed.

"Wh-what? How?" Naruto stuttered, red chakra receding.

"Genjutsu," Sakura answered easily. "The Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu, specifically. It was obvious that if I confronted Gaara, the two of you being who you are, your most acute fear at that moment would be my death. Which is what the genjutsu showed you. Gaara had already set the forest in disarray, which is why you failed to notice the swirling leaves that are an obvious and stupid indicator of the technique, and Gaara a large enough threat that you failed to notice the illusion being what it was. You're more susceptible to genjutsu than I thought you would be, Sasuke-san. I wasn't certain whether the illusion would be sufficient if you handled my 'body' directly, but I miscalculated exactly how intense your fears about the deaths of your teammates might be. I will take that into consideration in the future. After that, it was only a matter of opportunity."

"And you just...stood there and watched us as we thought we were avenging your death?" Sasuke spat.

Sakura blinked at him. "My plan would have been ineffective otherwise, Sasuke-san. I apologize for any emotional distress I might have caused, but it is the trigger for your kekkei genkai. Congratulations on your Sharingan, by the way."

"You-," he growled, but he couldn't find any more words.

It was Naruto who found them. "Sakura-chan, what kind of-? Are you nuts? We thought you were dead."

She just gave them that look of incomprehension, shifting restlessly as she glanced down to where Gaara had fallen. "That was the intention of the plan, yes."

"You can't do things like that! Ever. Never. Ever. No matter how much you want Sasuke-teme to develop some fancy new eyes or force the-or me to get angry. We like you, Sakura-chan. We don't like to see you get hurt. It hurts us too. Because we're nakama," he concluded. "So don't do it again, okay?"

Sakura's brows furrowed. "That's an interesting theory, though unlikely unless one of us possesses a broadcast-type kekkei genkai that would build a physiological link between us."

Naruto smacked himself in the face with his hand. "You missed the point of that entire conversation. Teammates shouldn't trick teammates into thinking that they're dead."

"They shouldn't emotionally manipulate other teammates at all," Sasuke growled.

"That too," Naruto agreed.

Sakura shrugged. "I can let you die next time, if you prefer." Apparently finished with the conversation, she leaped down from the branch toward were Gaara had impacted the forest floor.

Sasuke and Naruto shared a glance. "I don't like that she has a point," Naruto muttered.

Sasuke scowled. "Just don't tell her that."

"...so who in your family decided they wanted ominous glow-in-the-dark red eyes o' doom that had to be triggered by trauma?"

A/N:As you've noticed, and this is the last time I will write this, I have no intentions of reproducing Naruto's 'convert the lost' speeches. Probably ever. Just know that they occur. The first reason being most of you are intimately familiar with the pattern, the second being that I'm so emotionally divorced from the actual manga/anime at the moment I couldn't force myself to rewatch the scene to borrow the dialogue. I didn't like this battle, but sometimes that happens. Gaara didn't get to talk much, but anime-Gaara was barely coherent for most of it, so you'll have to wait for a proper introduction in coming chapters. No Shukaku either. But of course this battle didn't last for three episodes, so no need to depend on the monster that keeps you awake at night. The next chapter? Itachi. Now that's the one I'm excited to write.