Opening 11 - Courage by Haruka Tomatsu
X
The man wandering through a blizzard southwest of Iron's capital had once been a samurai, although he certainly no longer looked the part.
Gone was the helmet that would've shielded his face from the cold. He was middle-aged, with grey beginning to show through his short, scruffy black beard. Snow and frost was building up in it, and there was no foggy breath emerging through it. His eyes were closed; he no longer had any need of them.
Gone was the white breastplate he'd worn with pride over his navy-blue uniform, and with it went the attached pauldrons and tassets to leave behind only his shinguards and bracers. The scabbards for his twin shortswords had also been affixed to the tassets, and now he clutched only one of them in his blackened, frost-bitten right hand.
He hadn't been wearing one of the standard-issue heavy brown cloaks commonly worn by samurai in the cold, but when he left the city he took a purple-grey blanket and wrapped it around his upper body as best he could. It effectively concealed the sword in his hand and the yellow eyes clinging to his chest, over his tattered and bloodstained shirt and the wounds carved into his torso.
This was the second host Zetsu had taken for his escape, the first being merely a civilian as a means to this end. He cared not what happened to that first, weak body as long as he acquired one such as this, one truly capable of fighting. He pushed the civilian's body well beyond its limits to cut through this samurai's armor with a mere kitchen knife, producing an effect similar to the first of the Eight Gates. Even if he had lived, that man's right arm would be useless meat dangling from his body for the rest of his life.
It didn't matter. He was here now, armed with a sword and the body of a man who could use it. With this much, he could eventually recover all of his physical losses. That was enough for now, so the dead man continued to trudge through the storm, guided by Zetsu peeking through the gap in the front of his makeshift cloak.
Three properly equipped samurai appeared in Zetsu's path, crouching as though they'd jumped from a great height to land there. "Shingen! What the hell are you doing out here!?" the leader in the middle of the three stood first, and took a step toward Zetsu. He stopped abruptly, recoiling from his second look at the dead man walking.
His expression was hidden by his helmet, but his horrified reaction was shown through his body language alone. He drew the shortswords mounted on his armor and pointed the left one at Zetsu. "Dammit... we're too late..." he lunged and swept his left-hand sword toward Zetsu who parried with his single blade. "Bring him down!"
Considering that he was dead and freezing, Shingen moved with surprising speed. Zetsu backpedaled away from the lead samurai, but managed to swat back all of the dual-wielder's strikes with only his single blade. After some consideration he decided to let the samurai land a hit, skewering through Shingen's head with a thrust of his right wakizashi.
Zetsu's left hand snapped up and grabbed the samurai's offending wrist, holding it while he brought up his own sword. The man could see his yellow eyes now, his only weak spot, but it was too late for him to target them. Zetsu tugged his ice-cold sword across the samurai's throat and took a step back, gently pulling the wakizashi in his head from its owner's grasp.
As the leader melted the snow with his steaming blood, Zetsu defended himself from attacks from the remaining two samurai. With only one sword to fend off their four, he faltered and let a slash from one through to his chest, slicing through his black liquid body but narrowly missing his eyes. He retreated backward and reached up with his left hand for the sword running through his skull, pulling it roughly from his head and giving it a twirl.
I've lived for a thousand years already and made the world my plaything, Zetsu spoke up, watching with satisfaction as the remaining two samurai flinched at the sound of his unnatural voice. You can't just kill me, he added and lunged while they were off-guard.
The swordsman he targeted panicked and fumbled a step backward, just before Zetsu's right blade slammed into his. He cried out and braced his left sword against the right to hold Zetsu back, and in return Zetsu stabbed his own off-hand sword into the man's temple, its tip emerging out through the other side of his head.
He let go of it entirely and spun to face the third samurai in his approach. The sole survivor let loose a battlecry and held his right sword high over his head, ready to bring it down on Zetsu with all of his strength. The corpse that had once been Shingen caught the blade with his left hand, stepping forward into a stab from the third samurai's left sword.
Zetsu's exposed yellow eyes peered down at the sword embedded in Shingen's stomach, and he disregarded it entirely. The tiny splash of liquid that remained of his body flicked out and crawled along the back edge of the sword with frightening speed, but the samurai still had time to scream.
He fell silent after a few seconds, and pulled back his left-hand sword. Shingen finished crumpling to the ground before Zetsu, just as the creature sheathed his new swords at his waist.
Good. A living body will serve me much more reliably... but then again... he glanced around at the three corpses laying in the snow and paused. Yes, I think I have enough raw material here to rebuild myself.
He rolled Shingen onto his back and laid a palm on his chest, sending a thin thread of his remaining liquid body to touch the cold, pale skin. It began to darken and reflect the dim sunlight through the storm like a liquid, and once it had turned fully black it started to bubble. The stain on Shingen's chest began to spread, melting down his body into more of the oily black horror-
X
Tenten woke up with a gasp, and nearly screamed at the top of her lungs before she registered that she was here in Konoha, safe, with Gaara next to her and Zetsu nowhere in sight. She sighed shakily, closing her eyes and trying to suppress the memories of her battle with the possessed Raikage. She glanced down and noted with a smile that Gaara was still sound asleep next to her, but then she saw her own cold sweat just before she started shivering.
The sun was only beginning to rise, but she quietly crawled out of bed and tucked the covers back up over Gaara's shoulders. He's still inside Soujihonou, she reminded herself. He probably doesn't have to breathe which means he's still alive in there, but if I melt the damn thing down he'll never get out.
She picked up a pair of loose red pants and a white silk shirt she wore while off-duty and shrugged them on, again making a point to remain quiet and leave Gaara to his sleep. She plucked up Soujihonou in its scabbard by the half-open bedroom door, and she slipped out without moving the door enough to produce a creak that might wake her fiance.
In truth, it wasn't the liquid monster that had featured so prominently in her nightmares and stolen her rest away; it was Sasuhonou's catastrophic failure in mid-flight. She remembered the look on Gaara's face just before she grabbed Umiyou and used its liquid glass to save them, and she knew what he'd been looking at.
He was watching the ground get closer and closer to them, near enough that Sasuhonou's armor scratched the earth when she pulled up, near enough that he was faced with the utter certainty that he was about to die. The look on his face had been the purest possible expression of despair and fear, and it was horrible enough to remember seeing that look coming from Gaara.
But then she reminded herself that it hadn't been Zetsu that brought Gaara to that point. Ultimately it had been a failure in Sasuhonou's design, a failure that she would've seen if she had tested the prototype before releasing it in battle. It was Sasuhonou that had sent the two of them to their closet yet brush with death, and she alone was responsible for Sasuhonou.
Never again. I will never make that mistake again. She arrived in a room dominated by a forge and assorted smithing equipment, most of which was covered in a light layer of dust. On her way to one of the various workbenches by the walls, she picked up a blank sealing scroll from where a triangular stack of them was kept ready at all times.
I'm gonna test my prototypes and double-check everything, before I use this stuff with someone's life on the line. She set Soujihonou on the workbench and snapped open the blank scroll, then stopped and looked at her sheathed sword once more. ...Actually, now would be a good time to start.
She unfurled the scroll and pulled the blade from its scabbard, tightly wrapping it up in the thick paper instead. She had intended to use a fuinjutsu on the scroll to melt down the sword immediately, but now she was having second thoughts. It should've been impossible for him to get out; the pocket dimension gets jumbled around way too much for him to ever find his way back to the entrance... but I have no reason not to make sure.
She scribbled down a basic fuinjutsu she learned when she was still in the Academy; a seal meant to collect and list all of the contents of a given storage seal. She tweaked the formula and added in a few more complex scripts, splitting the list into inanimate objects and animate beings. He should show up right here; the seal will pick up his movement and his organic body mass... even if he's just a pair of eyes like Naruto thinks.
In finely printed black script, the scroll displayed a single list of contents.
Tatami mats, sliced through: 12
Bamboo stalks, sliced through: 3
Steel panels: 2
Unidentified liquid, predominantly carbon-based, 38.9 liters
Tenten took a step back and let go of the scroll. She felt a pang of adrenaline electrifying her body, accelerating her alarmed thought process. It didn't take her more than a few moments to frantically think through how the monster wasn't on that list.
The table.
She ripped off a section of the scroll and flipped it over, scrawling a hasty message for Gaara on the back. Zetsu is still out there. I went to tell Naruto. She took it to the main bathroom of the house and laid it on the counter, since Gaara was sure to see it there. It wasn't a particularly tactful way to break the news to him, but she was in a hurry.
Moments later, she was out the door with Soujihonou at her hip, leaping from roof to roof across Konoha with the Hokage's office in her sights.
X
Currently resting on the stump of his neck at the center of the Hokage's desk, Hidan looked out the open window past Naruto and noted, "There's some fucker with a sword coming this way pretty fast."
Jiraiya, Hinata, Ino and Itachi all turned and looked, recognizing Tenten by her distinctive hair and the sword she carried. Naruto simply slumped over his desk and groaned into it, already guessing that it was only more bad news Tenten had to offer.
She flew in through the glassless window and skidded a short distance along the smooth floor, panting slightly. "Narut- I mean Hokage-sama!"
The Sixth raised his head from his desk, steeling himself. "What's wrong, Tenten? How bad is it?"
"It's Zetsu," she confessed. "He's alive." Naruto immediately stood and turned toward the window, ready to activate his chakra cloak and lunge into battle against the liquid abomination, but Tenten stopped him. "He's not here," she added hastily. "He... he got out when I unsealed that table at the Kage Summit."
"The Kage Summit!?" He paled and turned back to his desk and the ninja gathered around it. "It's good that he isn't here in Konoha, but by now he could've moved in any direction away from Iron and we have no idea how far he's gotten. The other Kage need to know about this."
Tenten glanced around the room at the other Konoha-nin, surprised to see them. "So... what's going on here, anyway?"
"We've been interrogating Hidan," Ino explained. "I've been using Yamanaka jutsu to read his memories directly."
"So does he know where they're growing the Zetsu clones?" Tenten asked hopefully.
"He does." Naruto sighed. "It's underground, directly beneath Ame."
"...Oh. Oh shit."
"There's more... Up until now, we've known that the figurehead leader of Akatsuki is a man calling himself Pain who has the Rinnegan in each of his six bodies, each using one Path. We thought the strongest one, the Deva Path, was the real Pain... but Hidan clarified that for us at the Kage Summit. There's a seventh body."
"Well... that complicates things a bit, but what's so bad about it?" Tenten wondered. "I don't get it."
"The seventh body..." Jiraiya spoke up, drawing her attention. "He's someone I know. I trained him during the Second Shinobi War; his name is Nagato." her eyes widened slightly, but she stayed quiet and let him continue. "He uses the Rinnegan almost exclusively... and there's no doubt in my mind that his is stronger than Naruto's."
"S-Stronger than...?" she blinked and turned to Itachi, confused. "Hold on. How didn't you know about any of this!? You were Jiraiya's mole in the Akatsuki; you must've seen this guy!"
"Whenever I met Pain," Itachi replied calmly, "He was addressing Akatsuki through his Deva Path. I described his appearance to Jiraiya; this man and Nagato look nothing alike."
"According to Hidan's memories," Ino threw in, "Nagato kept his real body hidden up until Madara came back from the dead and replaced him as leader of Akatsuki. Later that day Madara came after Itachi and tried to rip out one of his Mangekyou Sharingan... he never had a chance to meet Nagato face-to-face."
"Another one of my students, a woman named Konan," Jiraiya added with a solemn frown, "is also a member of the Akatsuki alongside Nagato. The third of them, Yahiko... is dead. He's the body Pain uses his Deva Path through... the only one Itachi met in person. He's the one I should've recognized."
"It's not your fault, Jiraiya-sensei," Hinata tried to reassure him.
She got nowhere. "It's completely my fault! If I had've stayed with them, Yahiko would still be alive and Nagato and Konan would be innocent in all of this. I could've brought them home to Konoha! Failing that... I should've recognized Yahiko when Itachi described him. I could've done something then, warned Naruto... maybe tried to contact Pain years ago... anything but this."
"He was a good kid," Jiraiya went on miserably. "A really, wholeheartedly good kid. And now he's working with Madara Uchiha to destroy the world."
"I... I can't quite say I know how you feel, Pervy Sage," Naruto answered. "But I understand that you're feeling it. Go do whatever you have to. Drink, sleep, write, whatever."
The Toad Sage nodded and stood. "Naruto... I know it's a lot to ask, but if there were a chance... would you try not to kill him? For me?"
"...Yeah. Definitely." the Hokage watched his sensei leave the room, exhausted and broken. He ran a hand through his blond spikes, then turned to Tenten next. "You should head home too, Tenten. Get some rest."
"What makes you think I'm tired?" she protested halfheartedly.
"The sun's still coming up, you've got bags under your eyes and a bedhead, and you forgot your shoes," he gestured to her bare feet. "Go home."
Tenten sighed and nodded. "Okay. Maybe you have a point. It is still pretty early," she admitted with a glance at the orange sky. "But you guys look like hell too," she nodded to Hinata and Ino as well as Naruto. "I'm guessing you were up all night dealing with Hidan?"
"Not all night," Naruto defended sheepishly. "We started well before sunrise, though."
"We'll be getting some rest too," Ino added, "soon. So don't worry about us."
"Alright," she shrugged and made for the window once more. "See you guys later then."
X
She woke from a nightmare once more, but this time she was fully rested and only annoyed by the bad dream. The sun was shining vividly through her open bedroom window and bathing her in warmth, despite the chill in the late autumn air.
Zetsu is still out there, she mused silently and touched the pocket of her pants where the note she'd written for Gaara now rested. By now he was awake, and Tenten had no idea what he was up to but it certainly wasn't obsessing over Zetsu's return. She had taken the note back before he saw it, intent on breaking the news to him in a better way. Along with Madara Uchiha and Kabuto Yakushi. All of them would be happy to kill me and everyone I care about.
So what am I gonna do about it?
She put on a grin and sat up, brushing down her bedhead with her fingers. The same thing I always do. Build something awesome enough to stop them.
She stood and grabbed Soujihonou once more, but this time she took Umiyou to the forge room as well. She belted on the jian and fixed Umiyou to her back with chakra control, then crouched down over her black bodysuit where she'd discarded it last night. She decided once and for all that it was time to replace Kekkai Kokuei, so she detached the scroll of seals from it and pocketed it.
Alright, let's do this.
Feeling completely revitalized, Tenten opened her bedroom door and stepped outside. She immediately went for the forge room, and to her surprise she found Shukaku squatting atop an anvil with a hefty manga volume in his deep black paws. For a human that position would be rather uncomfortable, but a creature made entirely of sand had no trouble.
"...Hey! That's one of mine!" Tenten realized with an indignant scowl.
"Oh, is it?" The One-Tail momentarily folded the volume to glance at the cover. "Well then, I guess you want it back."
"That'd be nice."
Shukaku resumed reading the book. "It would, wouldn't it?"
"I swear to Kami I'll find a way to gut something that doesn't have any guts."
He cackled and set down the book, lashing his tail back and forth and grinning viciously at Tenten. "Looking forward to it!"
She continued to fume for a few moments, glaring evenly at his eerie yellow eyes without flinching. After that however, they both started giggling and went back to what they were doing. Shukaku reopened Tenten's manga while she moved to a workbench and set both of her swords there. "So where's Gaara?" she asked.
"Apparently Kakashi Hatake got a copy of the second Icha Icha movie way early," the tanuki replied casually. "His team saved the lead actress' life or something, so he called in a favor... anyway, Gaara went to borrow it from him."
Shukaku flipped a page and kept reading for a few moments, but then he realized the room had gone silent. He looked up to see Tenten frozen in place with a huge smile lighting up her face.
He chuckled evilly. "He told me not to say anything; he was gonna surprise you. So much for that."
"...I'm still pretty damn surprised," Tenten answered with eminent delight. "Well if we're having a movie night, I'd better hurry up and start working on my next weapon of mass destruction before Gaara gets home." Her smile faltered when she reminded herself that Gaara was still unaware of Zetsu's return, but it didn't fade completely. We beat him before. We'll do it again.
She unrolled her scroll across the workbench and touched one of the seals with her chakra, releasing another of her black bodysuits for use as the base layer of her newest and most likely her final armor. Unlike the previous one, this suit had no leather armor panels and no half-mask.
It was instead distinguished with a series of thin red stripes, most notably two of them looping in an X over the front and back of the chest, along with a similar stripe around the waist. A slightly thicker stripe was also present at each of the wrists and ankles as well.
Tenten set aside her two swords and laid the suit face-down on the workbench, then set to work drawing a simple storage seal on the back between where her shoulder blades would be, just above the center of the red X.
"I take it you've already started working on this thing," Shukaku observed without fully looking away from the manga he was reading.
"I have a design planned out, but all I've really done so far is dye the outfit with these colors," she admitted. "I still have to forge the armor and the next version of Sasuhonou itself. Fortunately, I finally have a faster way to do that." She tapped one of the other seals on the scroll, producing a triangular stack of heavy steel bricks. The workbench creaked momentarily under the sudden load.
She next unsealed a bowl of what appeared to be black marble with wisps of pale grey running through it, along with a dome-shaped lid of the same material with a circular hole in the top. It was large enough to contain one of the ingots but no more, and Tenten promptly shifted the steel bar at the top of the stack into the bowl.
She set the lid into place and tapped a seemingly blank spot on the side of the resulting rough sphere, revealing a small fuinjutsu there by making it glow white. By now Shukaku was mildly interested, peering at the crucible rather than Tenten's manga. "So what's it supposed to do, anyway?"
"Melt the steel," she answered simply. "Shouldn't take more than twenty seconds." next she unsealed a pair of red cloth gloves and slipped them on, and finally she tapped one more seal that projected a transparent orange barrier ninjutsu in the likeness of an empty, headless suit of sleek armor, a silhouette seemingly standing at the edge of the workbench.
"Huh." Shukaku blinked, sizing up Tenten's design. "You sure you've got enough metal for that?"
"A full suit of plate armor should weigh about fifty-five pounds, tops," she answered. "I'm pretty sure I've got fifty-five pounds of metal here." she swept her hands up, and to Shukaku's surprise a stream of glistening orange liquid floated up through the opening in the crucible's lid, guided by Tenten's gloves to fill dozens of the hollow barriers making up the armor blueprint. She held the liquid metal there and twisted her hands into fists, and the metal cooled and hardened.
It took her two ingots to forge the entire suit of armor, and when it was done she deactivated the orange barrier that still glistened over its surface. The entire suit of metal began to fall forward, but Tenten caught it and lowered it into a laying position over the scroll and bodysuit. Next she began drawing thin lines of fuinjutsu script along the outside of the armor, radiating out from its shoulder blades.
"So you're adding your barrier ninjutsu to metal armor?" Shukaku guessed.
"Yeah, but not yet. This seal is just supposed to move the pieces of the armor out of their current shape..." she finished drawing the fuinjutsu, and the armor unanimously clicked. The sleeves and leggings of metal retracted toward the torso piece by piece and unfolded away from the limbs they were covering, flattening out to better fit into their new position over the back plate of the suit.
Then the armor meant to cover the sides and front of the torso popped open and retracted back, locking into place over the back to contain all of the armor in a single hull to be mounted on the wielder's back. With some effort, Tenten flipped over the hefty block of steel and drew a rudimentary seal on the inside of the back plate, before aligning that seal with the one on the back of her new bodysuit.
She pushed, and the neatly folded armor vanished into its storage seal with a puff of smoke.
X
Eight days later at sunset, a team of five ninja stood before the gates of Konoha and made their final preparations.
Naruto wore his long leather coat to ward off the cold and rain, now paired with a hood of the same brown color to keep his head and hair dry as well. Hinata also wore the same long coat she'd brought to the Land of Iron.
Tenten had donned a new cloak over her now-finished barrier armor, a dark red one with a collar covering the lower half of her face as had the black mask on her previous outfit. The lower edges of the cloak were decorated with a pattern of stylized flames the same shade of orange as Soujihonou's blade and Umiyou's glass. Oddly enough however, the cloak lacked a hood to keep her head warm and dry.
Gaara was wearing his usual tan robe and blue scarf, along with the paired white haori and ceremonial headpiece that marked his status as the Fifth Kazekage. The extra layers did well to protect him from the growing cold, and when the team arrived in the Land of Rain he would be similarly kept dry.
Haku was far less concerned with staying warm, but he too was wearing an ankle-length white cloak with a hood. His equipment remained unchanged since the Hyuuga Coup a year ago; a set of loose blue hakama and a slim black shirt with long sleeves were hidden under his cloak. He had added a kunai pouch to each side of his waist however, both filled with senbon instead.
High atop the wall surrounding Konoha, Sasuke watched them pass through the gates and leap into the forest beyond. From such a distance he'd been unable to hear whatever they were talking about, although he'd been able to read a few words from their lips with his Sharingan. Zetsu. Pain. Nagato.
He powered down his doujutsu and turned at the sound of Itachi emerging from a Pulse Step. The elder Uchiha brother peered past Konoha's walls and watched the Hokage and his team leaving, and he frowned slightly.
"Niisan," Sasuke greeted shortly.
Itachi watched Naruto's team disappear completely into the foliage, then turned to his younger brother. "Something's bothering you," he observed.
"A few things," Sasuke answered. He turned back to the village and peered over the edge of the wall, to the spot where Naruto and his team had been standing. "Do you think you'll handle it well? Leading a division of the Alliance, I mean."
"I can only hope. I've served as a leader on the battlefield before, as a Jounin and ANBU... but it was never on this scale, and the shinobi from the other four villages likely don't think highly of me."
"Hn." Sasuke tucked his hands into his pockets, but the motion went unseen under his cloak. "So where have you been staying, ever since I left for the Land of Waterfalls?"
"The ANBU barracks," Itachi answered coolly. "I've received a kinder welcome than I'd hoped for there." he chuckled momentarily, sadly. "It's been so long since I stayed there as a boy... the nostalgia makes it feel almost like home."
"You have a home." the younger brother turned his gaze to the district of the village formerly occupied by his clan, currently empty. "Come back to the Uchiha compound."
"No," Itachi sighed and shook his head. "You know I can't, and you know why."
"Because you killed the rest of the Uchiha there. It's not like I'd forget that, any more than you would."
"Do you know why it's so simple for you to just say that, Sasuke? Even though I showed you some of my actions that night with Tsukuyomi, even though you lived through it for three days... it's easier for you to talk about it because you didn't see everything."
"There was more?" Sasuke's eyes widened slightly. "You still haven't told me everything?"
"It's not that I haven't told you. You just haven't thought about it." the older brother scanned across the village with his Sharingan active, commiting the glorious view of Konoha at sunset to his memory. "I killed every single Uchiha except you that night. But when I used Tsukuyomi on you, you only saw me killing Uchiha shinobi."
"I killed helpless old men and women, and I killed children. I killed people in their sleep and I killed people who saw me coming... and just stood there wondering why I had blood on my tanto, why my Sharingan was active in the compound... they probably thought I was there to warn them about some threat attacking the Uchiha, enemy shinobi I was fighting off... and they thought so until I killed them."
"That's why I can't stay there, Sasuke. In almost every room of every house in that compound, I killed a member of our family. There's no way I could possibly sleep in the Uchiha compound now, not after what I've seen and done there."
Sasuke remained deathly silent for several seconds, and when Itachi turned to face him once more he saw his younger brother crying. His Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan was active, an eerie red-on-black pair of cold suns shining down on Konoha. Itachi opened his mouth to speak again, likely to apologize, but before he could think of something to say Sasuke had already started.
"I'll burn it all down." Itachi heard the coldness in Sasuke's voice then, and it scared him. The tone didn't quite match Sasuke's Curse of Hatred, but it sounded close enough. "All of it."
"Konoha?" he murmured warily. "You're going to destroy Konoha!?"
"Hn," Sasuke chuckled, his moodiness interrupted by genuine amusement. "No, not Konoha. Just the Uchiha compound, every single brick of it. Then we'll have a new one built from the ground up, and you can come home, niisan." He kept it as quiet as possible, but Sasuke still heard the shaky sigh of relief from Itachi.
"When it's done," he went on, "You'd better come back. We're all that's left of the Uchiha Clan now, but it won't always be that way. One day we'll both have children, and they'll probably live in an Uchiha compound within the village. Your kids will want you to be a part of the household, Itachi."
Itachi blinked, visibly surprised by the concept. "I will," he answered after momentarily picturing the scene. "I can promise that much."
"...I'll see you tomorrow, niisan." Sasuke's wings burst from his back and shoved downward, carrying him off in the direction of the Uchiha compound he alone still called home. Travelling in a straight line at his top speed, it took roughly twenty seconds for him to arrive there.
He landed with enough force to dent the frost-hardened earth with his feet just slightly, then folded and retracted his bladed wings. His Eternal Mangekyou eyes were still active, and with them he cast a glance left at the lake where he'd learned the Great Fireball Jutsu.
He turned to his right then, sizing up the structure that had served as his family's home back when he'd had one. The abode of the Uchiha Clan head was too grand to be called merely a house, but also far too modest to be a mansion or a villa. It was built to look older than it was, using archaic design features like windows and sliding walls made of paper.
This in addition to its mostly wooden frame meant that it would burn easily enough, even if Sasuke decided not to use Amaterasu to hasten his work. He considered his options, staring emptily into the shut windows of the home. It would be so easy to burn it down; it would take mere seconds to reduce it to ash and then he could move on to the next building in the compound. It would be well past nightfall before he finished, but that wasn't much of a problem.
"...Hn," he grumbled and turned away from the house, powering down his doujutsu as he did. It'll take time. Maybe a day or two to get ready... I'll need to collect any important documents and assets and move them outside the compound before I burn it, and I'll need to stay somewhere else for the time it takes to build a new compound...
"Wait a second..." Sasuke turned back to his right and activated his Sharingan again, dimly making out a silhouette of familiar chakra approaching through the compound. "...Sakura." He cracked a smile and took to the sky once more, flying across the compound to meet her. She saw him coming and waved, then waited a few moments for him to land in front of her.
"Yo, Sasuke-kun." Along with her smile, there was an expression of mild confusion on her face. "How'd you know I was coming?"
"I had my Sharingan active. I was considering burning down the Uchiha compound."
She openly gaped at him. "Y-You were gonna what!?"
"Hn. You're right; it's a good thing I stopped. If I just did it so suddenly, anyone in or near the compound could be hurt. And of course the rest of the village would freak out anyway, seeing the Uchiha district burning down with black flames... Maybe I'll do it tomorrow..."
"Have you lost your damn mind!?" Sakura exploded. "What the hell, Sasuke?"
"Horrible things have happened here, Sakura. This whole compound is just a huge mausoleum and now it's in the way. Itachi can't come back to live in this place, and I'm tired of living here alone." He paused to look for a few more words, and shrugged when he failed to find any.
Sakura remained silent as well, somewhat regretting her initial outburst. She knew that her reaction hadn't been unreasonable given Sasuke's nonchalance about annihilating an entire district of the village, but that didn't stop her from hesitantly murmuring, "I'm sorry."
"Hn," he chuckled dismissively. "Never mind it." he glanced around at the surrounding ghost town and mused idly, "It'll be one hell of a bonfire. I wonder if it'd be possible to roast marshmallows over it... Probably not if I used Amaterasu, but maybe with a normal fire jutsu..."
She blinked. "Sasuke-kun, are you feeling okay? You've been swinging between cheery and moody really fast."
"I... I feel fine," he noted. "It's just... the history of the Uchiha Clan is tragic. I'm trying to stay optimistic and look to our brighter future, but it's hard because I know I'll never forget what I've lost. On the other hand, I could just be going insane again, but it really doesn't feel that way." He shrugged once more, then fell still as a thought occured to him. "But what brought you out here so late, Sakura?"
"...Um." She peered intently down at the ground, hesitating. "Look, this is gonna sound a little weird but..."
"Hn?"
"...I wanna spar with you." Sasuke blinked, and in the time it took him to do so she hastily added, "I'm not asking to go all-out with chakra-enhanced strength and black flames everywhere! Just a bit of taijutsu, that's all. When we strip away all of our over-the-top jutsu, I wanna see for myself if I can really keep up with you."
"Okay. Let's do it."
She quickly did a double-take. "Wait, just like that?"
"I don't care if one of us can keep up with the other in a taijutsu match," Sasuke admitted. "I just love watching you fight." he shrugged. "It's that simple... anyway, if you're not going to use chakra-enhanced strength then I shouldn't use the Sharingan. It wouldn't be fair any other way." He glanced past Sakura's stunned expression to where the sun was touching the horizon. "And like I said, it's getting late. We should keep the match short... best two out of three hits wins?"
"Y-You mean right now?"
"We could do it tomorrow, if you want."
After a moment of thought, Sakura shook her head. "No, we can do it now." She took a few steps back and untied her forehead protector, placing it instead in the traditional position over her forehead for the spar. "I'm ready whenever you are." he nodded and settled into a simple taijutsu stance. "So on three..."
Sasuke consciously reminded himself not to activate his Sharingan, while Sakura took up her usual stance and made the same effort not to prepare her chakra-enhanced strength.
"Two..."
The two raised their left hands in the Seal of Confrontation, with their main hands still balled into fists and their eyes locked.
"One..."
Sasuke's feet shifted slightly, scraping along the dirt as he widened his stance a bit. Sakura leaned forward, preparing to lunge in time with him.
"Now!"
They blurred, slamming together at the exact midway point between their starting positions. Sasuke caught Sakura's opening punch on his left arm and winced slightly at the force of the impact. She's this strong even without chakra control!? He gritted his teeth and caught her left punch with his palm, sliding it past his left shoulder and twisting her slightly off-balance.
She followed her momentum through by bringing up her left foot in a swinging kick toward his belly. Sasuke retreated backward, slipping just past the reach of her boot before lunging in and aiming a punch while she was off-balance and on one foot.
She blocked his first one-two combo of attacks, but when he followed through with a third attack she made the mistake of dodging. She stepped aside allowing Sasuke's punch to carry a breeze past her jacket, but he surprised her by dashing completely past her and turning into a high spinning kick as he faced her once more.
She brought up both forearms to catch the blow, slipping backward an inch with the force of it. Not bad, Sasuke-kun! She smirked wickedly and took hold of his shinguard, gripping it to swing him through the air away from her. He cried out in open shock, but landed fairly well once she let him go.
He bounced to his feet and grinned at her, not bothering to ask whether she was still suppressing her enhanced strength. He dashed in again and aimed another body blow, a telegraphed punch she could easily counter. When she moved to do so, however, his punch stopped short of her block and he bounded upward, flipping completely over her head and landing behind her.
W-What the hell!?
She turned, but she wasn't fast enough. Sasuke caught her with a low kick that swept her from her feet, knocking her to the dirt while he stood and aimed an axe kick down toward her abdomen. She rolled out from under the blow before it landed, but only barely. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, just in time to block three rapid punches and a kick from Sasuke.
She pushed her right wrist away, taking Sasuke's kick with it and spinning him aside. He caught his balance and promptly found himself pacing backward away from a flurry of punches from Sakura. He picked up the pace, jumping backward and flipping over to land in a crouch several paces away from the pinkette.
"Stop bouncing around, dammit!"
"Hn...!"
She lunged, aiming a high roundhouse kick toward his chest. He suprised her by bringing up his left knee to catch the attack, and surprised her even further by using chakra control to momentarily stick to the surface of her boot. His right foot left the ground and planted itself into her sternum, shoving her back while he too hit the dirt.
"D-Damn," she grumbled and stood, dusting herself off. "Well, that's one hit. Unless we count that low kick, I mean." Sasuke shrugged dismissively, and she tightened her glove against her knuckles and cracked them for good measure. "No? Then it's not over yet!"
She darted forward again, pressuring him backward with an array of punches and kicks. His eyes went wide at her renewed ferocity and he frantically blocked and backpedaled away from all of her attacks. When he tried to flip past her this time, she was ready. She reached out and snatched the three-foot mane of black hair that trailed behind him as he flipped over her, hauling him roughly downward with it into her knee.
He slumped into the dirt at her feet, out cold. She blinked in surprise and thought of landing a second blow to win the match while he was out, but decided that it would be a thoroughly unsatisfying end to the match. She stepped back and heard his stunned, pained groan when he woke a few long moments later. He picked himself up and spat blood, then looked up at her in total disbelief.
"...The hell was that? How did you even..." he stopped and blinked, wiping blood from his nose with one hand while reaching back to touch his hair with the other. "Ow."
"Long hair is a liability in battle," she explained a bit sheepishly. "That's why I cut mine three years ago and didn't grow it back."
"...Hn..." he reached back and produced a kunai from his pouch, twirling it into a proper grip. Sakura blinked in surprise, but made no move until after he hacked off the majority of his excessive hair with a single swipe of the blade.
He tossed aside the kunai, leaving it with its tip embedded in the dirt a fair distance away from them. Before he could discard his fistful of black hair however, Sakura was upon him and chasing him back with more punches and kicks. This time he stood his ground, blocking all of her attacks rather than stepping back past her reach.
Then he had an idea.
His next punch forward was hastily aimed and fired, a sloppy attack on all counts. Sakura easily saw it coming and leaned her head to the side of his fist, but then her vision went black. She cried out and stumbled back, reaching up to pull Sasuke's hair from her face while simultaneously holding up her arms as a clumsy block.
Sasuke aimed his kick below her defense, striking her lower belly. She lessened the force of the blow by using chakra control to lessen her traction over the earth, skidding back with Sasuke's kick. Even so, she wheezed in pain and bent forward, tossing aside Sasuke's cut hair to reach for her belly with glowing green hands.
"Damn..." She groaned and stood back up, still holding her hands over her belly despite having healed away the pain of the blow. "You got me, Sasuke-kun. I was close though, right?"
"Close? You broke my nose and knocked me out with one hit," The Uchiha pointed out, his choice of words at odds with his broad smile. To her surprise and confusion, he looked nothing short of delighted. "...Let's call it a tie."
"Heh," she laughed breathlessly. "Yeah. A tie works for me." after a moment, she straightened and glanced momentarily at the setting sun. "It's getting late... but I think we might still have time for dinner, don't you?"
"Definitely," Sasuke nodded. "I'll just need a minute to fix up my busted nose and wash the blood off my face," he added with his smile still firmly in place.
X
Two days after a team of five shinobi left Konoha, a team of six arrived.
Clad in black robes with red clouds plastered evenly across them, the pale odd-eyed figures stopped just short of the village's towering walls and stared at them.
As one, the near-lifeless bodies spoke with a unified voice resonating with chakra, a jutsu meant to enhance their volume. It would be more than sufficient to hold the attention of the entire village.
"Shinobi of Konoha. You have one minute to send forth Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha, or you will all know Pain."
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