Just when he'd started to think that she had outgrown her more foolish tendencies, she had to obnoxiously prove him wrong. There was still too much dust covering the pit of the crater for him to see exactly what was going on, but he didn't need his eyes to sense her. Whatever comfort he normally felt from her chakra signature was being overwhelmingly overshadowed by a sense of dread and frustration. Teeth grit, Sasuke started to move towards her, but was stopped by a hand to his shoulder. Angrily, Sasuke turned a fierce look onto whoever had dared to try to stop him.

"Sasuke," Jugo started, but Sasuke pulled out of his grasp.

"I already told you that I don't care what you do. Stay out of my way," Sasuke ordered and quickly turned before Jugo could get another word in.

As he was closing in on her chakra signature, Sasuke did his best to avoid taking in the many motionless bodies he passed over. He had underestimated the number of casualties. From what little he gleamed with his sharingan, there was a mix of civilian and shinobi bodies crushed beneath and between the rubble. Sasuke did his best not to seek out any designating marks on the bodies. The last thing he needed on his mind was the image of a bloodied Uchiwa fan or a splash of pink hair.

While he was moving, he could tell that she had already gotten started without him. The largest toads that he had ever seen were busy fending off attacks from the equally large summons. But Sasuke's focus was drawn to where a rusty red colored toad was glaring down at two Akatsuki members. Suddenly, the summons all vanished with white puffs of smoke just as the red toad spat out two bodies. From where he was standing at the lip of the crater, Sasuke could clearly see Naruko's panting form kneeling next to an unmoving Akatsuki body. His feet were moving long before Pain had started rushing towards her.

The loud chirps of his Chidori were less than subtle, giving Pain ample time to dodge and put space between himself, Sasuke and- more importantly- Naruko. Sasuke watched Pain leap back and away to stand to the side of the other Akatsuki member. Immediately, Sasuke picked up on the similarities: the ringed purple eyes, orange hair, and piercings. They even shared similar chakra signatures.

"You're late, 'ttebayo," he heard her huff behind him.

"You shouldn't be here, Dobe," Sasuke scoffed. He heard her shifting behind him until she was standing at his side. From what he could tell, she wasn't hurt. Her new coat already torn slightly and dirtied.

"He killed Ero Sennin and destroyed the village," she replied.

From her voice alone, Sasuke could pick up on her barely restrained rage. From the corner of his eye, he could see the anger harden her features as he fists clenched. He had wanted to chastise her further for putting herself in harm's way. But truthfully, he understood. The pain and hate that he could feel from her was like a reflection of his own heart. With a soft scoff, Sasuke returned his gaze to their opponents. "Just try to keep up, Usuratonkachi."

"Are you kidding? You're my backup, 'ttebayo," she said and pulled the large scroll from behind her back. Not sure what she was planning, Sasuke moved ahead to give her time to put her plan into action.

While he was trading blows with Pain, Sasuke did his best to keep track of the man's moves as well as the other man standing in wait. Just as he was cataloguing Pain's movements to memorize and breakdown the man's fight style, he could tell that Pain was doing the same to him. In an effort to maintain some unpredictability, Sasuke randomly switched between taijutsu styles- Iron Fist that he picked up from Lee, the generic Konoha style, and the Uchiha style. However, despite the randomness, Pain was easily blocking and dodging his strikes.

"Sasuke!"

As if he had been burned, Sasuke pulled away from Pain and leapt in the air. He could hear her Rasenshuriken shrieking away behind him, so he rushed to gain distance. While mid-air, his eyes tracked the second body's movements- a quick rush to defend Pain. Mangekyo swirling, Sasuke watched the second Akatsuki member absorb the Rasenshuriken without any difficulty. As he reclaimed his spot at Naruko's side, she said, "That one absorbs ninjutsu, but I already took care of him, 'ttebayo."

He could sense the change in her, her chakra was now much heavier, and her eyes had shifted like they did when she went into Sage Mode. In his peripheral, Sasuke spotted another cloaked man standing next to a large face with the same ringed, purple eyes.

"That's the one that Jii-chan Sennin said can revive the dead," Naruko explained to him. Sensing his confusion, she went on, "Ero Sennin figured out that the bodies' eye sights are linked, and they each have a different power."

One to revive the dead, one to absorb ninjutsu, and Pain's ability to repel objects and people. "That one should be the main priority," Sasuke said, his eyes focused on the body standing next to the large face with purple flames.

He watched her raise her hands to summon a shadow clone. "I have a plan, 'ttebayo," Naruko said and shot him a wild grin.

Sasuke felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia hit him suddenly, flashes of their mission to the Land of Waves popping into his head. "Hn," he grunted and drew his chokuto. 'Teamwork, huh?' Sasuke thought to himself as he watched her form another Rasenshuriken and drop a smoke bomb with her free hand.

Under the henge of her Rasenshuriken, Sasuke let Naruko's shadow clone throw him towards Pain. Predictably, the body that absorbed ninjutsu met him head on, absorbing his chakra and taking apart his disguise. Once his jutsu was removed, Sasuke quickly swung his sword at the surprised man, slicing through his eyes. 'So much for their visual link,' Sasuke mused as he tackled the man and restrained him. When he looked up at Pain, Sasuke was surprised to see the man was too busy focusing on where Naruko was pummeling the other man into the ground with her Rasengan. 'Now!'

Summoning his lightning release, Sasuke pushed himself up from where he was hovering over the injured man. Despite being much closer to Pain, Sasuke was surprised to see that Naruko had managed to close on Pain before him. Nonetheless, it was over now. They had Pain surrounded on both sides.

"Shinra Tensei," Pain barely whispered before Sasuke felt a familiar force push him away. This attack was far less powerful than the blast that had destroyed the village, but it had still managed to send him flying. Sasuke rolled to a stop after colliding with the ground, feeling several new bruises and cuts all cry out at once.

As he was pushing himself up from the ground, Sasuke could hear Naruko calling out for him. He heard her rapid footsteps coming towards him, but they were cut off by Pain's shout of, "Banshou Ten'in!" Unexpectedly, Sasuke felt his body rise from the ground as if he was being pulled by an invisible force. He had moved only a few meters before dropping back onto the ground. Despite the amount of distance between them, he could hear Naruko's choked voice as clear as day. With newfound urgency, Sasuke pushed himself up from the ground and took off towards where Pain was holding Naruko by the neck.

Sasuke was sure that Pain must have taken advantage of her lapse in attention. The Dobe must have taken her focus off Pain to try and check on him. Sasuke couldn't help but be frustrated with how reckless she could be for his sake. She shouldn't have had to stop or slow down for his sake.

Sasuke couldn't place where this new well of energy was coming from, but he wasn't about to question it. With an unprecedented amount of speed, he had managed to close in on Pain, but stopped cold when the second man suddenly leapt in front of him. Despite having his path to her cut off, Sasuke wasn't about to give up. 'Amaterasu,' he thought as his chakra pooled behind his eyes. Pain's surprise and distraction was enough for her to break free and then continue to engage him in a taijutsu fight.

Refocusing on the other man in front of him, Sasuke had every intention of setting him ablaze as well but stumbled when he felt his eyes throb and burn. Stifling the pained grunt that was trying to escape him, Sasuke cupped a hand around his bleeding eye. His hesitation cost him dearly when he sensed the blinded man close the gap between them and land a harsh kick to his midsection. He heard his ribs crack on impact, and he quickly coughed up a small puddle of blood. Before he could move away from the man, Sasuke felt a hand grip the top of his head.

"Stand aside. We have come for the jinchuuriki. You're only getting in the way," the man warned.

Sasuke had an obscenity for the man ready to go but didn't get a chance to spit it out before he felt his chakra start to seep away from him. Sasuke could have kicked himself. How could he have not predicted that the man that can absorb ninjutsu would be able to absorb chakra as well?

"Sasuke!" he could hear her panicked voice cry out. If she had taken her eyes off Pain again, she would never hear the end of it from him… "Jii-chan Sennin!"

"Okay!" a small, green toad replied and quickly hopped towards her discarded scroll.

Just as Sasuke was finding it difficult to remain on his feet, he felt a heavy presence closing in. Her red cloak blocked his vision for only a second as she landed a kick to the man's head. With a heavy gasp and pant, Sasuke fell to his hands and knees. He tried to slow his breathing as he watched what he could determine was a shadow clone completely pummel the blind man. It took the clone a few, choice strikes to incapacitate the man before it was rushing back over to him. The clone flittered about him for a few seconds, not exactly sure what to do to help him, but his gaze was locked on the man's unmoving body.

Her clone had been able to defeat the man without too much effort. Had she gotten stronger? They had been apart for three days. How much had she grown in just three days?

"Sasuke? You better not be going into shock," the clone warned.

He rolled his eyes and rested glowing, green hand on his ribs. "Dobe," he scoffed. Only two broken ribs. He could work with that.

"Boss is running out of time. She's gonna need the nature energy I gathered," the clone said while eyeing where Naruko was still fighting Pain.

"How many more clones are gathering nature energy?" he asked.

The clone frowned at him. "I'm the last one that she left on Mount Myouboku."

One last chance to defeat Pain then. They had better make it count.

Once Sasuke was sure that his ribs wouldn't bother him too much, he slowly pushed himself back onto his feet. The clone looked ready to help him up but stopped when he shot her a warning glare. She nodded once before disappearing with a poof.

"Sasuke-chan," an elderly voice called out behind him. Looking over his shoulder, Sasuke watched two toads quickly hop over to him. "You don't look good. Naruko-chan would understand if you needed to get to safety."

Sasuke shot the toads a look as if they had said something truly abhorrent. "I'm fine," he stressed. "Shouldn't you get to safety before you keel over?"

The purple toad looked positively scandalized by his words, but the green one only sighed and shook his head. "You're as Naruko-chan described," the toad muttered. Before Sasuke could question him, the toad changed the subject. "How skilled are you at genjutsu? Ma and I casted a genjutsu together to help Jiraiya-chan when he fought Pain, but we can't fight as closely with Naruko-chan. Plus, it would take us time to ready our attack."

His eyes were still burning and throbbing slightly. But he wouldn't need his Mangekyo to cast a genjutsu… As if his eyes were waiting for the perfect moment to falter, Sasuke watched as the two toads started to blur out of focus. Was his vision really deteriorating already?

"Sasuke-chan?" the toad prompted.

"I'll handle it. Don't interfere," Sasuke said and turned back to where Naruko was still fighting. The large toads that were fighting alongside her were doing their best to pin Pain down but weren't having much luck.

He was running low on chakra and the blurriness in his vision hadn't completely subsided. Should he sit this one out? Would he just be more of a hinderance if he couldn't even see properly?

"Shinra Tensei!"

His decision was made for him when he saw Pain send her flying with a well-timed attack. As she was moving through the air, Sasuke watched Pain manifest a black rod out of thin air and chase her down. Reactivating his sharingan, Sasuke took off after them.

Sasuke wasn't one to dwell too much on negative outcomes or shortcomings during battle, but he could feel his frustrations building. Pain was a bit too fast, and he was going to catch up to Naruko before he could get close to them. With a silent curse, Sasuke summoned a few shuriken from the seal on his wristband and quickly tossed them at Pain's back. The minor distraction was enough to momentarily stall the man and gave Sasuke the chance he needed to overtake him with a single bound.

With a monotone voice and expressionless face, Pain said, "I can see the hatred in your eyes. You hate me so deeply without having met me. Were you a student of Jiraiya-sensei as well?"

Was Pain baiting him? Was this just an attempt to provoke an emotional response from him? "I barely knew him," Sasuke responded and gathered lightning in his palm. Sasuke traded blows with Pain, the older man looking unflappable the entire time.

"Orochimaru was right. You have experienced pain. But my pain is greater than yours," Pain said blurred out of sight. Sasuke froze in shock, his eyes glancing around to try to spot where the man had vanished to.

"Sasuke!"

In slow motion, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he registered a presence behind him. He wouldn't be able to move away in time and even if he did, Pain could easily pull him back in. He didn't want to rely on his Mangekyo, but he would use them only once more. 'Susanoo.'

Pain's black rod shattered into pieces when it collided with the purple ribcage of his Susanoo. The man looked genuinely surprised at the sight and his hesitation gave Sasuke the opening he needed. With his Mangekyo sharingan, Sasuke placed Pain under the strongest genjutsu he could. Admittedly, the burn in his eyes and his low chakra levels kept him from casting any high level genjutsu but it shouldn't matter. Sasuke could already see Naruko closing in from above with her Rasengan. A premature sense of relief was starting to fill him, but it quickly left when his eyes gave out on him, and his incomplete Susanoo vanished.

While he was still hunched over, Sasuke sensed Pain's chakra lash out like a wave, as if he had quickly disturbed the flow of it. He could feel a sense of dread take root just before he felt Pain's hand grip his throat. A strangled noise escaped him as he did his best to try to pry Pain's finger's away from his neck, but the man's grip was strong. Face still expressionless, Pain swung Sasuke around and into the path of Naruko's attack. The whole exchange lasted mere seconds, but it felt like time had slowed to a crawl.

He'd seen what her attack could do to solid rock and the thickest tree trunk. He wanted to curse himself for overusing his Mangekyo. He could barely find the chakra to use his base sharingan. He could hear her wordless cry as she fell, and he braced himself for the impact. Surprisingly, he could hear the sound of her whirring chakra quickly peter out behind him. When she collided with his back, all he felt was her hard head slamming into the back of his and her front on his back. Just as he felt her slide one arm around his chest and reach around with the other to help him remove Pain's hand from his neck, Sasuke felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. He barely registered Naruko's loud objection despite her being next to his ear. Additionally, he hadn't noticed her pulling him out of Pain's grip and putting distance between them and the orange haired man.

Naruko did her best to gently help him down onto the ground, but he could see the tension lining her face. When he looked down at himself, the sight of Pain's black rod half-buried in his gut met his gaze. Like her clone had done, Naruko was anxiously hovering over him. When he saw her move to pull it out, he quickly slapped her hand away. "You'll make it worse, Dobe. I can heal my injuries myself. Focus on Pain," he chastised her.

She stared at the rod for a few seconds before looking up at him with wide, fearful eyes. "Okay. Don't move. I'll be right back, 'ttebayo," she said and stood. If he didn't know her so well, he would have sworn that she was messing with him. 'Dobe,' he thought with a fond eye roll.

Despite telling her that he would heal his injuries, Sasuke made no attempts to bother doing so. He knew that he didn't have the chakra to fully heal himself. Maybe he would be able to do a decent enough path job to stop any bleeding, but it would drain what little chakra he had left. His best bet would be to sit and wait for Naruko to finish up and have her bring him to a medical ninja. If his mental timer was accurate, she had about two minutes left on her Sage Mode. Two minutes was bearable.

"Sasuke-chan!" Eyes sliding to the side, Sasuke watched the two toads from before hop over to him. "Come with us, Sasuke-chan. You need medical attention," the purple toad said with a worried frown.

"Bunta-chan!" the green toad called out to one of the toads that was currently providing Naruko with back up.

"Don't," Sasuke warned. The green toad shot Sasuke a confused look. "I'll leave when he's dead."

"Stubborn boy," the purple toad chastised.

"Hn." Resigning himself to his place on the sidelines, Sasuke observed the remainder of the fight while keeping track of how much time remained on her clock.

"Sasuke, promise me that you won't do anything reckless."

Of all the times for Itachi's words to come back to him… Sasuke felt his shoulders slump slightly. 'I'm sorry, Nii-san. I was a bit reckless,' Sasuke thought with a frown. As sorry as he felt for how much worry he would inevitably cause Itachi once his elder brother returned home, Sasuke couldn't bring himself to regret his actions. If he did have any regrets from today, it would be that Orochimaru was definitely alive and slithering about on his belly like the coward he was. Sasuke supposed that he would have to accept the bad with the good. He lost his chance at Orochimaru, but as long as Naruko managed to survive this entire ordeal…

Sasuke couldn't hold back a racking cough, wincing slightly at the uncomfortable pain radiating through his torso. Ignoring the toads' matching looks of concern, he spat out the blood that had gathered in his mouth. Maybe he could try to heal some of the damage? He would just be very stringent with his remaining chakra. Placing a glowing hand to his stomach, Sasuke split his focus between himself and watching her fight.

Not even twenty seconds into healing himself, Sasuke watched Naruko summon a shadow clone to help her form the Rasenshuriken. She must have been trying to finish up the fight as quickly as possible. For a second, Sasuke breathed a sigh of relief. Her attack was much less devastating without his aide, but it should be more than enough to wipe Pain out.

"Useless," Pain said and raised a hand to the oncoming attack. Almost too easily, Pain was able to push her attack away and cause it to dissipate into nothing. At the exact moment that her attack failed, Sasuke was ready to try to stand again. But he stopped when he saw Naruko already poised to land a Rasengan on Pain.

Sasuke's eyes widened as several things happened at once. The weighted pressure that he had been feeling on the battlefield had suddenly lifted, signifying the abrupt end to Naruko's Sage Mode. Despite losing her edge, she kept up her attack, her arm stretched as far as she could go. His entire body tensed as the seconds slowly ticked by. He had to stop himself from subconsciously moving forward with her.

'No!' Sasuke's thoughts screamed at the same time that Pain exclaimed, "Shinra Tensei!"

He had no more chakra for his Susanoo, and he wasn't sure that he could get to her in time. But he could already see Pain forming another one of those black rods. His body was already moving on its own before she had even hit the ground. Despite it clearly not being the time nor place for a flashback, Sasuke was hit with déjà vu. When her wide, blue eyes stared up at him in pure shock, he felt oddly grateful that his sharingan wasn't on. He didn't want her teary expression to be imprinted on his brain.

"Sasuke!" she screamed and scrambled to push herself up from the ground. He let her ease him to the ground while she blubbered in his ears about how stupid he was. "Why do you keep doing this!?"

"Dobe," Sasuke chastised. "Don't tell me you're this thick."

"Bastard," she whispered and laid him on his side. "I didn't want you to… I never asked you to…"

"If you die, then it's all pointless," Sasuke said, his eyes slightly unfocused. From where he was laying, he could see where his blood was starting to dampen the bottom of her cloak and pants. As much as he hated to admit it, he really didn't have anything left to offer her in this fight. With a slow exhale, Sasuke closed his eyes.

~:~

While he didn't have a death wish, Sasuke couldn't bring himself to regret his decision. It had been spur of the moment, but Sasuke wouldn't change a thing if he could. He had already watched her bleed out and die once. He had no intention of ever doing it again. Unfortunately, his actions meant that he had exposed her to the same torment that had plagued him for months. He would apologize to her if he could. But at least she was still alive. That's all that mattered to him. Armed with knowledge that his sacrifice had bought her another chance to fight and survive, he could move on.

"Bastard!"

Usuratonkachi…

The first thing he felt was confusion and a dead weight throughout his body. He couldn't even open his eyes. He desperately wanted to ask what had happened, but he couldn't get the words to form.

"I'll kill you!"

He could pinpoint her voice anywhere. What was she yelling about this time? He tried to call out to her, but he was sure that it he'd only voiced her name in his thoughts. Suddenly, he felt a cold, dark feeling grip him as if he was just been dropped into an ocean of malevolence. Killing Intent more potent than any he had ever felt was rising. What little he had felt of her chakra was gone now, completely overshadowed by this new, demonic chakra. The name "kyuubi" rose up from his deepest subconscious.

Was this Naruko? It couldn't be. It felt nothing like her. Oddly enough, he could remember feeling something similar on a much smaller scale- the corrosive chakra that had leaked from her body and brought her back to life after Orochimaru had tried to kill her. What had leaked from her then had been miniscule compared to what he was feeling from her now. He could barely breathe in her presence.

And then he heard an inhuman roar.

By the time he'd managed to pry his eyes open, his vision was blurrier and unfocused than before. The confusion that he had felt wasn't leaving. If anything, it was compounding. Just what the hell had happened to him? Where was Naruko? Another loud roar filled his ears, making him cringe at the headache that was brewing.

Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, Sasuke took in his surroundings. The ground was absolutely demolished, both raised and sunken in. He tried to move but could barely move his arm. When he spotted the black rod half plunged in his gut, everything came flooding back to him. A gust of wind blew past him as another loud roar filled the air. That corrosive chakra was getting worse.

Sasuke tried to push himself up from the ground again but struggled to get his limbs to cooperate. The most he could manage was to push himself up onto his elbow and even that left him panting in exhaustion. Doing his best not to jostle the rods and aggravate his wounds further, Sasuke did his best to look around him. It didn't take much time at all for him to locate the red, six-tailed beast that was pummeling Pain's body into the ground. The body was barely holding together, but the beast continued to slam it into the crater that had formed. Sasuke's eyes widened slowly in shock. It couldn't be…

"N-Naruko," he tried to call out, but it came out as a broken whisper. Still, the chakra beast stopped its attack and looked over its shoulder at him with a low growl. He supposed if he squinted really hard, he could make out her shape underneath the chakra, elongated ears and swaying tails.

Sasuke knew that removing a tailed beast killed the jinchuuriki. But what if the beast broke free on its own? He tried to say something else to her, but his own hacking cough cut him off. Just like that, what little energy he had left was dwindling far too quickly. He needed to act fast. There wasn't much he could do for her, but there was still one thing. Gathering the last of his chakra, Sasuke activated his Mangekyo Sharingan and met the beast's gaze.