Obito-Sensei Chapter 22
Worth Killing
"Uh, Sasuke?" Naruto nudged his friend as Sakura began stalking around Gaara, moving in a steady clockwise motion. "Did she say-?"
"Yeah," Sasuke nodded, his Sharingan active and staring at the two ninja below. Naruto looked back, painfully aware of his heart thumping in his chest. Sakura looked in control; her footwork was perfect, and her long pink hair flowed behind her as she circled her opponent, her watery sword following her like a snake in the dirt.
But, uh…
"You think she snapped?" Naruto asked, and Sasuke nodded again.
"Yeah, maybe," he said. He leaned forward. "But she's not freaking out… I think she's just really mad."
Sakura snarled and flicked with her sword, cracking the water like a whip, and someone in the audience above whooped. Gaara still wouldn't move, or even open his eyes. She was trying to bait him out, and he wasn't falling for it.
"Yeah." Naruto swallowed. Sakura's face was twisted up, her eyes wide, her teeth bared. "She uh… she seems pretty mad." The face should have been scary or weird, but for some reason, Naruto could only think that she looked really cool.
Sakura had always had an air of hesitation and sadness to her, from the very first day they'd met. She never seemed certain about anything, and she had always been a little scared of everything, even him and Sasuke and Obito. Scared that she didn't belong, or that they didn't like her, or some crap like that. Naruto had thought that was a little stupid, but his mom had told him it made sense. And he guessed it did, but he'd never been able to wrap his head around it.
But that didn't matter, because right now, Sakura looked completely sure of herself. There wasn't a lick of hesitation in the way she walked or held her sword; she was one-hundred percent ready to tear Gaara apart.
She looked cool, and prettier than usual. Naruto smiled, leaning forward. At his side, Sasuke gave him an amused look.
"What?" Naruto asked. "What're you looking at?"
"Some dumbass," Sasuke laughed, and Naruto went red with anger and a bit of embarrassment. "Let's hope those seals of yours hold up."
"Hey, I don't wanna brag," Naruto said as Sakura completed the first half of her rotation around Gaara, now at his back. "But those seals are the most badass thing I've ever done."
Sakura did the most ninja thing she could have under the circumstances and chose that moment to attack. If she'd thrown a sword strike that could cut down a tree at anyone else's back while they were sitting down with their eyes closed, Naruto might have been pretty concerned for Sakura's state of mind.
But since it was Gaara, he found himself hoping with all his heart that the hit would land.
'I'm probably meant to kill you, right?'
Sakura's water sword struck out, covering the twenty feet between her and Gaara in an instant, and a thick wall of sand surged out of his gourd. It interspersed itself between Gaara and the blade, and the water smashed into it with a tremendous crack. The sand bent, chunks of grain flying apart and compromising the wall, and Sakura's blade rebounded, leaving behind some of its mass.
Gaara didn't twitch, completely trusting his sand to protect him. Did he even control it himself? Naruto's hand curled into a fist.
But Sakura didn't hesitate, didn't even pause to breathe. Before the recoil from the strike had even reached her, she was swinging again, taking hold of the blade with both hands. The water twisted like a living thing, slamming itself back into the weakened wall, and Gaara's eyes opened. The sword broke through the spot it had struck before, crashing through the sand with a loud smack.
Gaara ducked, and the blade whipped right over his head. The boy from Sand looked back over his shoulder, eyes wide, and Naruto heard Sakura snort.
She pulled her arm back, sheathing the sword for a moment, and Naruto's seals went to work. The water still attached to the blade was rapidly sucked back into the sheathe and replaced by more pushed out of the storage formulas lining the inside. When Sakura's sword emerged a moment later, it was impossible to tell that a third of the extended blade had been left behind when it had shattered Gaara's wall.
It had been hard to work with such a small surface, and to create the whole array in just a week, but Naruto had never questioned it when Obito had asked him for his help. If it was for one of his teammates, he'd do whatever it took to help them win.
(and he'd asked his mom for help as well, but Sasuke in particular didn't need to know that.)
Gaara crossed his arms, and more sand poured out of his gourd, forming a circle around him. He still wasn't standing up.
"Did you even know the name of those ninja you killed?" Sakura asked, and then she swung again, grunting with effort. Her blade whipped out, but she wasn't aiming for Gaara directly; his sand came up to protect him, this time guided by his will. Naruto was sure of it, because Sakura's blade went over him by a couple feet, and the sand didn't move up to block it. She swung again, the blade whickered close to the ground, under the sand that had gone up. "The team from Stone?"
"No," Gaara said. He rose to his feet as Sakura continued to lazily whip her sword back and forth, the water blade dancing in a hypnotizing pattern just beyond the range of the sand. "I did not." He was showing interest, Naruto thought. Was that good or bad?
Bad, he decided after a moment. Definitely bad.
"Why did you kill people whose names you didn't even know?" Sakura asked, and the blade struck out, slapping against the sand. It wasn't a full power strike, Naruto thought. Sakura's voice was cold, and she was controlling the water blade like an extra long, super flexible arm. She was in total control of herself, and testing the limits of Gaara's defense.
He grinned.
"I wanted to," Gaara said, and he smiled softly. He looked up into the stands. "I know what you're going to ask. I'm not stupid. Why I wouldn't want to kill you too."
Naruto realized who Gaara was looking for when he locked eyes with him, and he snarled down at the boy from Sand.
"I'm not interested in you," Gaara said. "The one-"
"Sure," Sakura hissed, and stepped forward into her next strike. Her blade hissed through the air, and Gaara's sand came up to block it, far more than before.
Naruto winced, expecting the crack of water on sand again, but instead Sakura grunted, twisting her whole body, and the water spun past the wall of sand, forming into a long sickle. The blade grew thin, stretched to its breaking point: Gaara glanced at it. He had time to take a single step back before it lunged for him, the tip slamming directly into his chest.
Gaara tumbled backwards, and for just a second the whole stadium was dead silent.
He landed on his butt and sat there, stunned. The boy had gone through the whole Forest of Death without getting touched, had trounced Team Eight and Ten in seconds, and Sakura had knocked him on his ass. It had been a weak hit, a fraction of the force her blade could normally bring to bear because of the awkward angle stretching her chakra to its limit.
But it had been a hit.
"You'll happily murder someone who you don't know because you're bored, but because your dad told you you couldn't kill Naruto, you're just going to sit and pout for me," Sakura spat. "You scumbag."
Gaara slowly stood up, a grin spreading over his face.
'Sakura, what are you doing?' Naruto shifted.
"Okay." He laughed, the sound escalating, growing more and more high pitched. Gaara's hands spread like claws, and sand began pouring out of his gourd, an impossible amount. "Okay. Now I'll kill you."
###
Sasuke wasn't sure if Sakura was making a mistake or not.
He was sure he wasn't comfortable, regardless.
Gaara attacked, hundreds of pounds of sand surging out from him and towards Sakura, and Sakura retreated, striking at the sand with her blade as she steadily gave ground. Gaara advanced, never faster than a casual stride, but Sasuke could see the potential for enormous speed in him.
His eyes could see a lot more than the rest of the audience could. Everyone else was only seeing the clash of water and sand, one combatant retreating and the other pursuing. The crowd was going insane, the noise only providing more distractions from the actual fight.
The Sharingan showed him more. To Sasuke, it was clear that Sakura wasn't just retreating; her chakra was only growing sharper and sharper, compressed into a star of fury that burned out of her heart and flared every time she attacked. She was swinging her sword once a second, like clockwork, twisting her whole body with each strike and throwing her all into every one. None of the hits were feints: despite her fancy footwork, every single slash was clearly meant to strike Gaara down.
Gaara was advancing and his chakra was exploding, pouring out of him constantly. It was such a tremendous amount that Sasuke thought he surely had to drop any second, but he wasn't showing any fatigue at all. The ninja from Sand had incredible stamina, to burn that much chakra on defense and walk forward without a single sign of it. His sand darted to and fro like it had a will of its own, smashing down Sakura's attacks time and time again.
But Sakura was just growing more ferocious, every attack angrier than the last, and after ten seconds of retreating and ten deflected attacks she planted her feet and sheathed her sword in a lightning motion. The sun at her heart burst, doubling in intensity, and Sasuke watched with fascination as her sword began glowing so bright with her chakra that he could see it through her sheath with his Sharingan.
For the first time, Sakura spoke the name of her new jutsu, using it as a heartfelt kiai.
"Ryusuiken!"
She unsheathed and swung the sword in the same motion, her body low and flowing with the strike like she was water herself. The blade snapped out, twice as thick as before, and Gaara's sand rose to meet it.
Sakura made a ram handsign while maintaining her grip on the sword, grunting with effort a heartbeat before impact, and the water became hard as steel. Sasuke couldn't look away; the amount of control she was exerting, sending her energy from her core, down her arm, through the sword and into the water itself, was hard to fathom. It was like an extension of the Rasengan; the water was spinning like a saw, helping keep it together.
The technique, Sasuke thought with a grin, was terrifying. He'd known that the second he'd seen it in the training ground, but it was something else to see it brought to bear against someone like Gaara.
The steel-strong water, spinning violently and whipping through the air so fast that it produced a small sonic boom, cut right through the shield of sand Gaara had raised. The boy didn't even have time to look surprised. The water blade slammed right into his chest.
Sasuke had honestly expected the attack to cut Gaara in half, or at least tear his torso open. But instead, he was sent flying backwards like before. There wasn't any blood. Just more sand.
"What?" Naruto asked, leaning so far forward he was liable to fall over the railing. Sasuke put his hand on his shoulder, keeping him back. "What?!"
Gaara refused to tumble and stayed on his feet, sliding backwards like a heavy statue. The boy's head snapped up with a mad smile, and Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
"His whole body is covered in sand," he said. Now that he could see the damage, the rest was obvious. "Like armor, an inch or two thick. It's coating him."
Incredibly hard and dense sand too, if it could stand up to that strike and only crack. Sakura's attack could have cut through a concrete block, but Gaara was just winded. He had two layers of incredible defenses.
"Better~!" Gaara called out, and Sasuke saw Sakura bristle at the word. She started to step forward, and Sasuke shouted.
"Sakura-!"
"No." Sasuke's mouth froze, the words trapped in his throat, and he found the rest of his body was similarly paralyzed. A second later, the paralysis vanished: he spun around and found Shikaku Nara standing there with a grim expression.
"Assistance is against the rules," the proctor said. "She has to stand on her own." He stepped forward with a dour glare. "Unless you'd like to disqualify her."
Sasuke frowned. "She needs-"
"She'll figure it out," Shikaku said. "And if she doesn't, I'll keep her from dying." He had nothing more to say, and disappeared back to whatever shadow he'd crawled out of.
"Jerk," Naruto muttered, and Sasuke suppressed a growl. He looked back to the fight. Sakura and Gaara were maintaining their detente about twenty five feet apart. For the first time since the fight had started, Sakura didn't look sure of herself. She stood in a low posture, her blade extended before her, eyes narrowed.
She looked up, past Gaara and at them. At him and Naruto. Sasuke nudged his friend, and they both locked eyes with Sakura.
There wasn't anything to say. They both just nodded; Naruto smiled, and gave a thumbs-up. A smile flitted across Sakura's face, and then her eyes went hard.
She sheathed her sword, storing all her water once more, and kept one hand on the blade's hilt. The other, she kept free, loose and ready at her side.
Then, she started walking forward.
"Uh…" Naruto muttered, and then Gaara's sand came up, dancing like dozens of wispy snakes as Sakura slowly but surely advanced directly into it. "Uhhhh."
"She knows what she's doing," Sasuke said, watching Sakura knead more and more chakra in her core and steadily amass it in both her legs, her right hand, and her sword. She picked up her pace, approaching Gaara with small quick movements, always ready to evade in any direction.
'I think,' he amended. Naruto was already twitching with sympathetic adrenaline; he didn't need to know just how fast Sakura's heart was beating, while Gaara's was as steady as a metronome.
Gaara raised one hand, and his sand attacked in a vicious wave. He wasn't trying to be clever, just to crush Sakura with a single attack. She didn't let him, darting sideways around the sand. She was fast: much faster than she'd been even a month ago. Obito training her chakra control so stringently had increased her speed, even if she hadn't done nearly as much physical training.
However, that speed just put her on par with the sand. It was enough to keep her out of danger, but the closer she got to Gaara, the less margin for error she had.
And yet, that was exactly what she was doing. Sasuke leaned back, crossing his arms.
"Why's she getting so close?" Naruto asked as Sakura pressed in, avoiding more and more sand every second. Gaara refused to back up; he just conducted his sand with more energy, tossing it around like a mallet and trying to crush their teammate.
"The armor," Sasuke said. His eyes burned; they'd been burning since his fight with Naruto, when everything had become so clear. "She wants to break through it. Her jutsu gets weaker with range."
"So… she's going to hit him point blank?" Naruto blinked and looked back. There was only fifteen feet between Gaara and Sakura now: she dove forward over a swell of sand, her feet just barely clearing it. Her right hand never left her sword's hilt.
"Looks like," Sasuke muttered, trying to slow his heart down. She'd be fine. Shikaku had promised.
But still…
Gaara was smiling. All teeth, eyes wide. He looked like a wild animal.
Ten feet now.
"C'mon," Sasuke said under his breath, and Naruto nodded in silent agreement. "Just hit him, Sakura."
With seven feet left, Sakura was snagged by the sand. It wrapped around her ankle crawling up her leg and stopping her dead in her tracks as she leapt to the left. Gaara's face split open in a smile, but before she could be crushed, Sakura lashed out with her blade and severed the sand. Then, she jumped. As she did, she sheathed the blade once more.
The sand still on her leg didn't fall away; it constricted, and Sasuke saw in unfortunate detail how Sakura's foot deformed as her ankle shattered. Spikes of sand pushed into her skin, soaking the grains in blood. But Sakura didn't scream: she just closed her eyes and drew her sword again.
Gaara gestured one more time, sending another wave of sand up at her. Sakura was about six feet in the air, five feet away from Gaara. The sand would envelope her in less than a second. Sakura cocked her sword back, up and behind her shoulder, preparing for a huge thrust. The water around it rotated faster, like a drill, so fast even Sasuke could barely distinguish the motion.
Sakura thrust at a downward diagonal angle, directly at Gaara, and for the first time ever the boy showed something like wariness. He started to jump back: his sand spread out in a huge shield, wide and deep and separating him and Sakura like a canvas that was harder than steel.
Sakura spoke. Maybe it was just so quiet that Sasuke couldn't hear it, or maybe she didn't bother to vocalize at all, but Sasuke had to read her lips to understand her.
Ryusuiso.
The water exploded off her blade in a thin spear, compressed beyond all reason and spinning so violently that it immediately began shedding mass. It was like a bolt of blue lightning, and it pierced right through Gaara's sand shield as if it wasn't there. Sakura had aimed for Gaara's chest, but the boy had evaded the blow thanks to his instincts.
That meant that instead of cutting out his heart, Sakura's water spear shot right through Gaara's side, leaving a hole the size of a grown man's thumb.
There was an audible gasp in the audience; Sakura flew over Gaara's head, his sand not reaching for her, and landed behind him, tumbling to her knees as her broken ankle gave out. The sand on her leg fell away in bloody clumps. She glared over her shoulder, burning green eyes framed by pink hair, as he collapsed to one knee, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
"Aahhh…" A gasp escaped him, and Sakura dragged herself up, sheathing her sword again. All the water she'd used for the spear had fallen out of her control the moment it had landed; that jutsu had been too much for even her impossible chakra control. Gaara looked back at her, his mouth opening wider, his eyes bloodshot. Sand was crumbling off the hole in his side, his armor mixing with his blood. "Aaaaaahhhhhhhh-!"
"Not worth killing, huh?!" she screamed back, and swung again. Gaara fell back, his sand coming up to a degree Sasuke had never seen before to shield him from the strike. Sakura was relentless, swinging again and again, twice, three times a second, and her brutal attacks eventually pierced through the sand, falling on Gaara's back and shoulders and further cracking his armor. The boy from Sand curled up in the fetal position as Sakura screamed and beat on him, her blade producing a bloodcurdling crack every time it rebounded off his armor. "You were right, you piece of shit! You're the only one worth killing around here!"
Sakura slipped on her broken ankle, her form failing, and she collapsed to one side, swinging even as she went down. Gaaara took the half-second respite and sand began piling on top of him, more and more until his form was completely obscured, and then more after that. Sakura kept attacking, but the sand formed into a pyramid, and then a dome. Gaara was gone: where he'd lain, there was just an orb of impregnable sand.
"Okay, that's gotta be a forfeit, right?" Naruto said, and Sasuke shook his head.
"It's a defensive technique," he said. "If Sakura can't break through…"
"Oh," Naruto said, looking back at the orb. Sakura was still probing at it with her sword, but it was becoming obvious she couldn't penetrate it. It was just too thick: any scratches she made repaired immediately.
"Crap."
###
After nearly a minute of swinging at the dome without any effect, the haze of red receded, and Sakura found herself taking stock of the situation.
She was low on chakra, feeling the all-too familiar exhaustion creeping in. Her ankle was killing her, constantly radiating pain up through her leg and making her heart skip a beat every couple seconds. Her sword was getting heavier and heavier.
And yet, all she could think about doing was to keep on attacking. Keep swinging, until Gaara couldn't get back up, couldn't protect himself. She glared at the dome of sand.
Gaara was bleeding in there. She'd pierced his side. He'd screamed; he wasn't used to getting injured. He was used to bullying people. Killing them. Not to them fighting back, hurting them. Had he even bled before?
If she waited, he'd have to come out. She could kill him, like Tenten had said. She was sure of it. But if she waited, she might drop first. She was already so tired.
'There are some fights you can't win.'
Sakura snarled, her fists clenching. She looked around, keeping her eyes on the orb but searching for something else.
"Hey!" she called, and she felt and watched the audience shift at her call. "Proctor!"
"Yes?" Shikaku asked from behind her, and Sakura resisted the urge to jump. She glanced back over her shoulder, letting her sword fall limp.
"Does he have to come out of there?" she asked, and Shikaku shook his head.
"There are no time limits," he said, and Sakura bit her lip, feeling her head grow clearer as the reality of the situation became apparent. Gaara wasn't an idiot, just murderous. He had to know that if Sakura couldn't reach him, she'd tire herself out trying. He was just going to sit in there until she dropped, and then he'd come out and kill her. It's what she would do, in his position.
"Then… I'm done," she said, and the Nara cocked an eyebrow.
"You're forfeiting?" he said, and Sakura grimaced.
"If you want to call it that. I'm done. I can't reach him in there." Sakura looked back, and despite the situation, she smiled. "I proved my point."
Shikaku laughed. "Without a doubt," he grinned, and raised his hand. Sakura steeled herself, ready for a feeling of shame or disgust, but nothing came.
She'd given it her all. She'd made Gaara bleed. She had nothing to be ashamed of. That thought kept her standing tall and proud as Shikaku declared her the loser.
The crowd screamed, cheered, boo'd, laughed; Sakura ignored all of it, the cries for and against her, and sheathed her sword, limping for the exit. She looked for Naruto and Sasuke, and found them in the spectator box; Naruto was grinning at her, and Sasuke just nodded. They both thought she'd done the right thing.
Sakura smiled back at them.
"Nooooooooooo…"
Sakura stopped; the voice was just a whisper, but she turned around nonetheless. It was coming from the dome; there was a small hole in it, like an eye peering at her. She perceived something golden inside, like a gleaming cross.
Something too heavy to believe slammed down on Sakura's shoulders, an invisible force that sent every hair on her body standing on end. She retched; malice itself wrapped its hands around her heart and squeezed, and Sakura was suddenly paralyzed. A part of her so primitive that it didn't have words started screaming, but on the outside, she was dead silent. She could not speak: she could barely breathe.
"Nooooooooooo…" The whisper came again. It was coming from where Gaara had been, but it sounded nothing like him. "You don't get to just leave."
Something exploded out of the hole.
At the very beginning of the match, fresh and angry, Sakura could have dodged it. But right now, she was slipping into exhaustion, her anger was replaced by satisfaction, and she had a broken ankle.
She saw a blur as Shikaku tried to intersperse himself between her and the thing coming out of the dome, but it wasn't enough. On pure instinct, Sakura brought up her sword, raising it in her right hand in a vain attempt to block the attack she couldn't even see.
Something, a huge hand made of sand, slammed into her with a sonic boom. It crushed her arm against her chest, and Sakura felt blood hit the back of her teeth. Her sword flew out of her hand.
'I let go of my sword,' she thought as she was thrown backwards. 'Shit, Tenten's gonna kill me.'
She hit the wall of the arena, and everything went fuzzy and black.
Sakura was aware of hitting the ground next, and after that, very little made sense. There was screaming all around her, and a roaring too, a sound that shook her like an earthquake. The ground shook, convulsing under her, and her leg and arm were on fire. She wished they would just fall off, they hurt so much.
She rolled over, looking up at the blue sky as a rolling darkness overtook her vision.
Oh, hey. Her sword was stuck in the wall of the arena. Neato.
There was more screaming, more roaring, more shaking, like an endless nightmare. The dreadful hateful heavy chakra pressed down on her like a building, crushing her into the earth. The earth had teeth, tearing at her back. Someone was screaming her name. Maybe it was Naruto.
The darkness drowned out everything, and Sakura passed out.