Kakashi watched the exams with pride, seeing how his team won their matches. The entire he felt overcome with the feeling that something was slightly off, but he was very focused on his team and enjoyed the matches.
They had all worked hard and were able to utilize what he, and the people he recruited to help, taught them.
Sakura took down Dosu.
Naruto beat Neji.
Of course just when Sasuke tipped the fight in the favor and seemed to put himself in the lead, things went wrong. His senses proved correct and a large scale genjutsu descended over the arena and fighting began.
Worse yet the sand siblings fled clearly by the order of their leader and Sasuke chased after them. He looked at Sakura who looked at each other briefly spoke and apparently decided to follow. They seemed to draft Shino as their tracker and even dragged Shikamaru into it to round out the squad.
The Aburame clan were often skilled in espionage and tracking among other things so when Shino took point, he felt more comfortable and didn't feel the need to make the group larger by sending one of his summons. He would have considered sending at least Pakkun to take the position of tracker alongside Naruto and Sakura otherwise.
Now he needed to try to put them in the back of his mind because he was surrounded by enemies and unconscious people.
Sasuke watched the Sand Siblings flee the stadium and was slightly shocked when things seemed to explode into action. A giant barrier appeared, fighting broke out, when he looked towards the stands almost everyone seemed asleep. But Genma started speaking to him, "Sorry, the exams are over go pursue Gaara and the others," when the confusion appeared on his face his tone was a bit more commanding, "your skills are already on a Chunin level now go make yourself useful to Konoha."
Sasuke still didn't know what was going on, but he knew Gaara still owed him a conclusion to their fight, so he'd happily follow this order. He leapt out of the stadium chasing them down ready for whatever they threw his way.
Naruto saw the stadium descending into madness, if everyone hadn't fallen under a genjutsu then there would certainly be mass hysteria. Thankfully he quickly repelled it and after all his work with Sakura, she had no issue repelling it as well.
Naruto looked down and saw the proctor talking to Sasuke and pointing in the direction the sand Genin were fleeing in. Sasuke gave a sharp nod and started to move in the same direction.
"Sasuke's chasing the Sand ninja," Naruto yelled to Sakura over the noise taking over.
"I see it," she responded clearly concerned and looking for something, possibly Kakashi-sensei.
"We need to follow him; we can't wait for Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said.
"He's following those sand ninja, correct? I heard them talking about plans and being quite suspicious, so I placed a female on the puppet user I was meant to fight." When both Sakura and Naruto just looked confused, "The males can track the female attached to his clothing. I can communicate with them therefore I can lead you to wherever Sasuke is going."
"Perfect and if we wake Shikamaru from the genjutsu we'll have a full team," Sakura said, gesturing to the unconscious boy and quickly moving to do release the genjutsu. Almost immediately she stood up and just kicked him. Naruto was pretty sure that wasn't in their regular training.
"Ow," Shikamaru said blandly standing up showing no signs of having been under any genjutsu.
"You were just faking," she sounded outraged, and Naruto recognized that tone, it was tone Sakura rarely pulled out, but it meant you should do listen to her. "Get up and follow us now," she ordered.
Shikamaru cursed and followed the group as they chased after Sasuke cursing about, he didn't even care about Sasuke.
Sakura spoke to the group as Shino lead them, "This is technically unsanctioned, but I imagine they would have sent a team to back up Sasuke anyway and we have a four-man unit so let's work with what we have."
"Well technically we could have a weaker team, you two a better off than I expected you to be at this point based on when we were younger," Shikamaru said, "if you add Sasuke and put us against the sand Genin with the crazy one injured like he is we might be okay."
"We're being followed," Shino said in a vaguely monotone voice, "I've been leaving bugs behind to let me know if anything is coming and apparently there's a group chasing us."
"Never mind we're screwed," Shikamaru changed his earlier statement.
"How many?" Sakura asked hoping for the best but knowing it couldn't be less than four and expecting them to be Chunin level.
She and the boys listened as Shino counted off according to his bugs ending with, "There's nine
"Are you sure they're right?" Naruto asked suspiciously.
"They aren't wrong," Shino responded.
"We need to operate with the assumption that our tracker is correct," Shikamaru cut and continued, "and they're probably all beyond the Chunin level, so like I said we're screwed. Plus considering how easily the village was infiltrated and the Anbu was impersonated there's probably at least former leaf villager or current traitor working with them. So, I doubt they'll have much trouble navigating the forest while chasing us."
Sakura listened as Shikamaru laid out basically the worst-case scenario that he also believed was the most likely.
"Does that mean an ambush wouldn't even be effective?" Sakura asked glancing over as they moved.
"I doubt it'd be really effective considering our team and the lack of time to prepare, so somebody is going to need to stay behind to fake an ambush as a delaying tactic, that'd be our best bet," Shikamaru finally concluded.
It looked like Naruto was about to speak up when Shikamaru spoke again, "My family's jutsu was essentially designed for something like this so it makes sense for it to be me. Leave me with a few clones to help me sell it."
Shino sent a bug clone and Naruto provided two shadow clones one of which transformed into Sakura from there Shikamaru stopped and allowed the rest of the team to keep moving.
Sakura was impressed never knowing that Shikamaru was the type of person willing to possibly sacrifice himself. He hid it behind his exterior of exhaustion and nonchalance, but he was a good person, she was hoping she would have a chance to tell him that later.
After a little bit of silence Shino announced, "The pursuers have stopped."
"Let's put this to good use and move as quickly as possible," Sakura said pushing faster.
"We aren't far behind," Shino informed her and after they continued for a bit he finally said, "movement ahead has stopped we'll be on them soon if we continue."
Sasuke finally caught the three siblings who had been forced to move at a slower pace thanks to the fact that they were half carrying Gaara.
"Time for round two," Sasuke said preparing himself to leap into action watching each of them to see who would act first.
"Not a chance," the older boy, Kankuro spoke up, "Temari, take Gaara and keep moving I'll deal with him here."
Sasuke wasn't too surprised that he was being held back, but he wasn't pleased about it. However, he was surprised when he heard Shino's voice come from behind him unexpectedly, "You still owe me a fight, Sasuke feel free to pursue the other two."
"Don't forget your backup," he heard Sakura's voice join in and watched as Naruto jumped past him calling back.
So Kankuro was blocked from following them and his teammates joined him in pursuit of Gaara. "Who sent you?" He asked
"We didn't need anybody to send us," Naruto answered, "we just knew this would end up being dangerous and wanted to help out."
Before they could speak a blast of wind forced them to scatter and hide behind trees. They looked out and saw Temari standing on her own which meant Gaara probably wasn't far away.
"Naruto, you're the only one who has enough chakra to fight her and still have enough chakra to help us fight Gaara when you're done. Sasuke and I will need to sneak by and find Gaara, I'll back Sasuke up and when you join us, we can work together."
"I bet I can take him down before Naruto even gets back to us," Sasuke said trying to sound confident, but if whatever monster he saw inside the sand cocoon appeared it might not be as easy as he was hoping.
"Sasuke don't be overconfident, but I'll make sure to have your back and Naruto be careful. You likely don't need to beat her just exhaust her chakra she's probably low as it is. Let's move," Sakura gave them a game plan and dropped low into the branches, Sasuke allowed himself to follow her while Naruto sent transformed clones that appeared like them in the opposite direction to try and make it seem like they were trying to sneak away.
Apparently Temari was able to see through Naruto's initial plan, but thanks to an overwhelming number of clones coming at her Sasuke was able to sneak by with Sakura on his trail.
Following Gaara wasn't an issue thanks to the fact that they were able to follow the sound of his yells practically reverberating in the forest the moment they moved past Temari and back up into the trees. He was nearby on his knees holding his head with cracks on his skin, obviously made of sand.
Sakura went through some quick motions and used a jutsu which Sasuke couldn't place, but after a moment she flinched and at the same moment Gaara seemed to growl louder and shake around. She looked at Sasuke shocked, "He seems completely distressed and out of his mind putting a genjutsu on someone so unfocused shouldn't be hard, but something else was going wild in his mind throwing chakra around I can't even explain it. Let's stick to the original plan, you head in I'll stay back and cover you, if it looks like there's a problem, I'll come in."
"Alright," Sasuke agreed and jumped into the open leaving Sakura to jump higher into the trees and observe from above, out of sight.
Gaara immediately focused on him growling out, "Let me feel it," he stood and Sasuke sand starting to gather around one of his arms.
"Let you feel what?" Sasuke asked crouching, preparing to move the moment Gaara finally started.
"Let me feel alive," he yelled out and his eye transformed from something human to whatever monster Sasuke had seen briefly. This wasn't going to be a simple fight, Sasuke had known that from that from the start, but seeing whatever this thing was just confirmed this was truly going to be life or death for him.
Gaara launched himself at Sasuke moving quickly, Gaara in his normal form barely moved at all so this was clearly some type of power increase. Sasuke swung around and dodged behind a tree avoiding the attack.
"Are you scared?" a raspy distorted voice called out. Sasuke doubted any of his fire jutsu would do anything, even his strongest wasn't much stronger than the Fire Snakes jutsu, that was just useful to approach from various points.
However, when oil poured down from the trees above obviously thanks to Sakura using a jutsu Sasuke decided to add onto it by using his explosive powder jutsu which clung right onto the oil, the two worked well together. Then in a breath he released the great fireball jutsu which launched and exploded.
Despite using two jutsu it cost less chakra than using a chidori which he could only use one more of with his current body. That was the limit Kakashi set for him after using two he had enough chakra to fight a bit longer, but not enough to use another chidori.
Gaara jumped out of the smoke and his arm was torn up which Sasuke would have been happy about if he hadn't grown a tail seemingly out of nowhere. "Don't get in my way," he launched himself upwards towards Sakura who was now visible at a much faster speed than he had previously been moving at. With a quick movement sand swallowed her on all sides and crushed her.
"Sakura!" Sasuke yelled and for a moment all he could see was death, all the dead bodies of his family were lying in front of him, and Sakura was among them drenched in blood. He felt the familiar burn of the curse mark and chose not to block it, he leaned into it and let it increase his strength and chakra.
"I'll kill you," he yelled and before he could think any further, he was flying towards Gaara a chidori singing its song ready to tear apart the wild Sand ninja. With a slice he tore through the arm and half the tail, before Gaara could recover he flipped and kicked him straight down from the trees to the ground below. Dark energy swirled around him and was the only comfort he had.
Before he could chase the sand ninja further, he felt arms grab him, and Sakura looking completely fine. "It was just a clone he killed, please Sasuke don't do this, don't hurt yourself like this," she begged.
Sasuke shook his head and replied, "No, I think I was given this power for a reason. I can be stronger." The image of her death flashed through his mind again and made his chakra flare, "I'm protecting you Sakura don't you see that? Eventually this power will help me kill my brother."
Before they could argue about it Gaara reappeared and almost immediately was smashed away, by Naruto.
Naruto sent out a large group of clones and made a signal for the team to regroup. Sakura sent a few mist clones among the shadow clones and met him among the trees. Sasuke followed them keeping himself slightly out of their sight to hide his curse mark from Naruto.
"Sorry, it took me a bit. Is this really Gaara?" Naruto asked looking at the monstrous form that Gara had taken on. He looked torn up, but he was recovering. He had a tail, a weird sand arm, and a monster eye. His clones were using explosive tags as much as possible to keep Gaara from fully repairing as he protected itself, but his clones were being torn up the moment they got to clone.
"Yes, and we need to stop him as soon as possible he keeps transforming and getting stronger," Sakura informed him.
"Almost nothing has been effective on him, one thing was a collaborative explosion between me and Sasuke, but that required three jutsu and now that we've done it once he might dodge it especially since, he's faster and stronger now. Other than chidori has been even more effective, but he can eventually repair himself. Sasuke is strong enough and has done enough damage that if he couldn't keep recovering, we'd be able to win especially since he was injured before transforming," Sakura gave her rough assessment of the situation.
Sasuke kept himself out of view, but spoke up, "I can push out basically one more chidori so either we need to come up with a plan or I need to go for some kind of kill shot." He almost sounded like he preferred the kill shot almost unless Naruto was misreading him. This whole situation was odd.
"He's still fast enough to keep up with Gaara, but after another transformation I don't know if that'll be true. Our clones can still distract Gaara for the time being, but none of this will win us the fight," Sakura pointed out.
"Okay, so I do have one plan," Naruto said a bit out of nowhere, "and I'll admit if this doesn't work, we're done for because Sakura and I will be placing ourselves in danger and we'll be using up the last of Sasuke's chakra."
"Well, what's this plan?" Sasuke asked sounding a bit off, Naruto wondered if it was just from exhaustion.
"I was told I have a second type of chakra inside me, it's why I have a seal on my body. The same place where Orochimaru placed his seal and screwed with my chakra. Someone I trained with wanted to train me in that aspect, so I'd have access to that chakra, Kakashi was against it he said he didn't want to do it until I had a better understanding of what was sealed inside me. So, he said we'd discuss everything after the exams," Naruto gave a run through.
"Are you saying you think Gaara has the same thing sealed in him?" Sakura asked.
"Well, no, but I think he has something sealed inside and right now it' taking over his body and he's using its chakra," Naruto explained.
"I did tell Sasuke earlier, it was like there were two minds inside him when I tried to cast a genjutsu so this kind of makes sense," Sakura admitted.
"I can't use the same seal as Orochimaru, but I've reached the level where I can cast the four-symbol seal. It's half of the seal used on me. Mine is that seal duplicated and fused together, it's complex and powerful. I've studied the four-symbol seal for a long time and it's the strongest single seal I can place, it'll be enough to screw up his seal and maybe ruin the transformation. That's all assuming his seal is odd numbered, if it's even numbered, I'll use the strongest three-pronged seal I know to disturb his chakra and hope that still holds."
"So how do we do this," Sakura asked, "almost all our clones are destroyed, so we need to get this plan straight now."
"Sasuke gets him in place, Sakura locks him in there with a gel, and Sasuke, I need you to break his sand shield over his stomach and chest area. The seal should be somewhere around there I need to place it before he takes me out or gets one of you," Naruto pointed to the area where he wanted to lock Gaara as he set out the steps.
"Alright let's do it I guess," Sakura said, "we don't have anything in our back pocket." Before they started, she asked in shock, "Wait, has he transformed even further?"
His whole upper body was now that of a sand monster Naruto just spoke up, "This just means we need to move quicker."
Sasuke launched himself forward dodging an attack from Gaara and kicked him straight into a thick tree where he was immediately doused with a never-ending spray of slowly hardening gel. Gaara fought to get out of it, but Sakura kept pouring more down. She only stopped when Sasuke launched forward again with his arm covered in lighting and Naruto followed hot on his heels.
Sasuke slashed a wild tear straight from Gaara's stomach up to his chest his arm moving like he was carving through mud before his lightning started to fade. The sand ultimately broke apart and Sasuke started to fall to his knees in front of the monster who managed to get an arm free. Sakura jumped from the branches and grabbed him pulling him out of the way and leaping back up. An arm followed her, but before it could reach the two Naruto struck.
Naruto saw his opening, five unique marks that all focused around one large circle and a symbol. In his opinion it was stronger than Orochimaru's five elements seal, but far weaker than the eight trigrams seal on his own body. Naruto smashed his hand on the seal allowing his seal to disturb the seal on Gaara, it had an almost immediate effect. Gaara grabbed his head and collapsed and started screaming.
Sakura saw Naruto make his move and heard Gaara scream and fall even after the gel broke, when she was sure Naruto seemed to be on the positive side of that confrontation, she turned her attention back to Sasuke.
"Sasuke, we've won you need to seal the curse mark before it does any more damage to you. You're almost entirely drained, and we both know your mind isn't entirely normal," Sakura warned him stepping over to place a hand on the side of his face covered in marks.
He seemed to be in an internal argument for a small amount of time, before the marks painfully receded leaving him laying down on a branch breathing heavily.
"Don't tell anyone Sakura, please. I don't know how much Naruto saw, but please don't tell anyone," Sasuke begged her, "they'll stop me."
Sakura knew she should immediately report to Kakashi sensei it was the responsible thing to do. "Sasuke what am I supposed to do? I don't know everything about that mark, but I know what it does to you. It causes damage to you, and I see how you act while it's active, you aren't yourself," she felt like she was absolutely lost in the situation.
"That's why I only use it during emergencies, just please don't report me," Sasuke asked her.
"I'll keep this between us, if you promise to listen to me. If I think, there's something wrong with you and I say we need to talk then we talk. More importantly if I see you getting out of control, I will say something do you understand?" Sakura flat out told him it wasn't really a question.
"Thank you, Sakura," Sasuke replied sighing in relief and closing his eyes to relax probably in exhaustion. When his breath evened out, she thought he likely fell asleep, and she chose not to wake him instead she focused on keeping watch on Naruto and Gaara while caring for him.
With the toss of a kunai, she cut a branch and was able to see them from a hidden position, she was ready to move if necessary.
Sasuke was relieved that for the time being Sakura was willing to keep his secret. Now that he was fully lucid, he was trying to prevent himself from slipping back toward the curse mark or seeing any of the images the curse mark tended to bring out in his mind. Focusing on Sakura helped he took deep breaths and focused on the warmth of her hands on his face, the tears that had dripped out of her eyes onto him, and her voice when she had whispered, "Oh Sasuke."
Naruto watched as the sand-form of Gaara broke and he was left standing in front of him back in his normal form looking exhausted and mentally broken. "Stay back, stay away from me!" he yelled trying to back up, but only hitting a tree trunk and collapsing.
"If you're acting like this because you're alone, incomplete, and empty then I can understand you," Naruto looked at him with empathy, "I've been there, I've felt that pain."
Gaara watched him with wide eyes and seemed to be ready to speak, but he was cut off by Naruto continuing, "However, now I have people I care about and they're too precious for me to let you hurt to try to resolve that pain. So, I have to stop you, that's why I came here in the first place because Sasuke was here and in danger."
Gaara looked floored, "This entire fight, has been for the sake of others?"
"Those two played a major part in freeing me from the shackles you're still locked in, we all were fighting for the same thing. To defeat you and to protect each other," Naruto spoke in an absolute tone.
Sakura appeared by his side a kunai drawn. "Are you alright? You two have been in a standoff, do you need help?" She sounded a bit confused. Sasuke was in a branch above them also with weapons at the ready.
"No, if anything you guys might have helped proved my point," Naruto sounded a bit happy.
"What point?" Sakura asked.
"That we work to protect each other because we care," Naruto said.
"Well, we did chase Sasuke without any orders, so I guess that goes without saying," Sakura pointed out extremely relaxed in front of Gaara now that he no longer seemed a threat. He wasn't even leaking killing intent he just seemed lost, and his chakra was nonexistent.
Of course, it was at that moment his siblings dropped onto the scene looking like they were considering the possibility of starting a battle.
"That's enough, stop it," Gaara spoke up first and in surprise his siblings both dropped their stances.
"I understand," Kankuro answered agreeing with Gaara and leaping away from the team with Temari joining her siblings in leaving.
"Temari, Kankuro, I'm sorry," was the last thing Naruto managed to catch before they were out of hearing range.
"What was your actual mission?" He asked Sasuke
"Basically, hunt down Gaara. They fled because they abandoned the mission, but it seemed like they were going to use him as some kind of weapon, probably because he can transform. Now that he's too weak they can't do anything with him. I'm guessing we stopped him before he reached his final form," Sasuke explained.
"Shino and Shikamaru aren't too far we should check on them, and then take a break. We aren't strong enough to fight the high-level ninja in the village, but if either of our teammates are injured, we should administer care. Naruto do you have enough chakra to send just a few clones to scout ahead?" Sakura asked
"Yes, but after that I'll probably need that rest as well, I went through plenty of chakra during these fights," Naruto gave an assessment.
Sasuke leaned on Sakura as they jumped and followed the spread of clones, and it didn't take long for Naruto to report something. "I found two area that looked like battle areas, but one of them has no bodies and the other only has the bodies of sound ninjas."
"Well, we saw Kankuro, but if he was only incapacitated not killed, he could have recovered which is why it took him so long to catch up. Shino could have been rescued if he was injured or poisoned after taking down Kankuro so his body wasn't there. Obviously, someone needed to take down all the trackers because we know Shikamaru couldn't. They were clearly the one who saved him that's no question," Sakura offered her opinion.
"Makes sense," Sasuke agreed, "now we need to rest for a little bit and head back unless someone picks us up."
Kakashi was not pleased he was initially very proud of the initiative Sakura and Naruto took to go after Sasuke, though he couldn't admit it in front of any official. Puppies protecting puppies was a great thing, it was a pack initiative, but then he saw Asuma bring back Shikamaru and Shino come back with his father which meant half the initial team was gone.
He was confident in his own team, but it did worry him so when he found the opportunity, he summoned a few dogs and sent them after the team. Partially to drag them back if they were in over their head, help them, or let him know where they were if he needed to go after them. It all depended on the situation.
With a quick summon Akino, Shiba and Urushi leapt off and now feeling better about that he was able to better focus on his surroundings. With another flip of his kunai, he slit the throat of an enemy and lamented the fact that his mask was ruined. This much blood would not wash out easily.
Sasuke watched as Naruto unsealed a scroll and pulled out a water which he drank from before he tossed to Sakura, "Drink some then I guess we get to take a quick break, but not too long we probably need to hurry."
"Yeah, you better hurry," a somewhat familiar voice cut in and Sasuke saw Sakura nearly choke on the water she was drinking.
Three of Kakashi's ninken were standing among the trees near them and the one with light brown fur and extremely sharp teeth had spoken up.
"Take your drink we can wait a minute," the one that oddly had sunglasses seemed to correct him, but did add, "still we were sent to check on you."
Sakura drank quickly and tossed it to him; he did the same and gave it back to Naruto who sealed the water again. He managed to get to his feet and after stretching he cracked his body, and they followed the dogs who apparently took care to move a bit slowly when they noticed the team's general state.
After carefully following them, they finally reached the village and the dogs managed to lead them around avoiding the fighting into the arena and after one bark Kakashi leapt over seemingly pleased that they had arrived.
Before they could discuss anything, the giant purple shield stopping anyone from approaching that area finally broke apart.
"Stay down and stay here," Kakashi ordered and leapt away without any further orders. Sasuke watched as most of the invaders, at least those who were still alive seemed to flee at once and nobody was really chasing them. They all seemed to be gathering in the previously shielded area.
"Do you know what's going on," Sasuke asked the other two who looked just as confused as him.
Naruto responded first, "We went straight after you so I couldn't tell you anything about what happened here. I should have left a clone behind to watch." Sasuke could practically see him mentally smacking his forehead about not leaving some way to view the whole fight.
"Clearly it's too important for the information not to come out so I don't think we have to worry," Sakura said as more high-level ninja gathered, "we'll find out soon."
A?N
Look at that two chapters basically a week apart, I hope you enjoyed this one as well and that it turned out alright. Please let me know what you thought. Also I timeline was slightly off, but I get to do that, I'm the writer.
So basically as you may have noticed through this story Naruto has not yet tapped into the 9-tails power, doesn't mean it'll never happen I just didn't want that to be a cure all thing.
Sasuke basically wants to keep using his curse mark and wants Sakura to keep his secret, the ninken didn't arrive until after the fight and Naruto arrived later into the fight and Sasuke tried to keep out of sight plus Naruto had never really seen it active before or really heard about it. So his mental state is going to be on a balancing act for the time being. Will he hold it together, will he get caught, or will Sakura just need to flat out say something before he becomes a danger to himself.
I ignored things in the village because that's all fine, the Hokage died and the normal people are fine-ish, the only major change is a secret I'm keeping from you guys that hopefully some of you will enjoy when it comes up if you can guess it based on what's different from the original story in the comments I'll be really pleased.
I still need another Hokage and since I won't be making it Kakashi, we still need Tsunade. I plan to totally revamp that arc and then finally I can do whatever I want with the team and canon doesn't matter any more.