Welcome back, this chapter things are gonna start getting real, Naruto's seal is out of whack and strange things have started to happen to his chakra because of it and Satsuki has been given the curse mark which (as I'm sure you know) is far from a good thing.

Also with the last chapter we finally broke 100k words! Man, feel good about that ngl.

But anyway please enjoy this new chapter.

Forest of death second day of the exam

Sakura had luckily managed to move both her teammates and find fresh water, she was also thankful that Satsuki's screams of pain hadn't attracted any enemy teams, Satsuki had gone through multiple stages of symptoms, from heavy sweating to moving about in her sleep like she was having a nightmare, Sakura was very worried, she'd inspected the wound and while the snake like bite had started to heal and was seemingly fine, the marking worried her, that strange mark that appeared on her, from her hours of reading texts and other bits of shinobi literature she could guess what it was, some sort of seal, however she had no idea what the seal did but she could guarantee it was nothing good.

Naruto had been completely unresponsive too, she hadn't seen what kind of jutsu that creep Orochimaru had used on Naruto but it knocked him out and knocked him out good, barely made a sound or moved, which seemed odd for someone as hyperactive as Naruto, if one didn't notice the calm rise and fall of his chest you'd think he was dead.

"I really hope *yawn* you're both okay." Sakura spoke, she hadn't slept, she needed to keep watch but she was reaching her limit, she could barely stay awake, let alone fight properly.

"Don't…worry…I'll…zzz." Sakura started to say as her eyes started to close, the blissful rest of sleep seeming like the best idea in the whole world to her sleep deprived brain.

Satsuki's mind

Satsuki 'awoke' with a start and looked around, seeing that she was in her old house, she looked around to see fresh blood on the floor and knew it was that night, she was reliving it again!

She heard the sound of crying and looked to see a younger version of herself rubbing her weeping eyes with her sleeve.

"Why? Why did they all have to die, mother, father, everyone in the clan…why?" The younger her sobbed, Satsuki kneeled down and reached out her hand to try and comfort her younger self, only to pause as the younger Satsuki removed her arm to show an dark smile on her face, black, flame like markings working their way across her face.

"If only I had more power. Power enough to kill Itachi, and anything else that got in my way." The younger her spoke, sounding demented, a sick, almost mad smile across her face.

The scene instantly changed. It was the Uchiha compound alleyway where she had run away in a bawling mess from her brother, but this time it was different. She stood over the body of Itachi Uchiha, a blank, dead look in his eyes as blood pooled around him, Satsuki felt something wet on her hand and she looked down to see both her hand covered in blood, Itachi's blood, it was the scene she'd dedicated her whole life too, she then noticed the same black markings on her younger self covering her whole body and the power, she felt stronger, stronger then anyone, anything! Even her genius older brother, this power, it was magnificent!

"Hahaha." She chuckled creepily only for it to grow.

"Hahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!" She was full blown laughing now, a laugh of pure dark joy as she stood over her brother's corpse, blood on her hands, and a power running through her, unlike anything she'd ever thought possible, she felt like God.

In the dark recesses of Satsuki's mind, the parasite that had just found its most promising host to date, gave a dark smile.

"Oh you show more promise by the second, my dear little Satsuki." The parasite chuckled, a snake-like hiss sounding as it continued to burrow itself in the deep recesses of her mind to further spread its tainted influence.

Back in the forest with Sakura

Sakura jolted awake and looked around in a frantic panic.

"Oh no no no! How could I fall asleep? Satsuki and Naruto do so much for me and I mess up like this?" Sakura felt terrible, what if someone had come and just slit their throats without a care in the world, but for what it's worth, she did feel better after the few short winks, to further help her she reached into her pouch and took out something, a shinobi caffeine pill, not exactly the same as a food pill as that majorly restored your energy and chakra at the cost of major exhaustion after the effects wore off, in the forest she couldn't afford the side effect so these just helped ward off execution, sadly it also had to side effect of causing a major wave of tiredness after about twelve or so hours so she'd just had to hope they'd wake up by then to look over her when she crashed.

She took a quick swig from her canteen to swallow the caffeine pill and after a few minutes felt her tiredness disappear and energy fill her.

After a few hours of checking on her two teammates and the quiet of the forest the group that had been watching the girl decided to make their move.

Sakura looked out to see a squirrel running towards them, while she normally wouldn't care about such a trivial thing the direction in which it was going would be bad for her so she threw a kunai at it, scaring the small animal off, it scurried away in fear. She breathed a sigh of relief.

From his team's hiding place Dosu turned his head in confusion, had she seen the paper bomb they had placed on the small animal? No that wasn't it, that sigh of relief…ahh, so that was it, makes sense she'd set a few traps.

"Hmm, I think she's booby trapped the area, let's wait her out a little longer, best to err on the side of caution." Dosu spoke, Kin just nodded while Zaku gained a dissatisfied look on his face, they had their orders, why couldn't he just blow through the girl and wake Uchiha up, they had their orders.

But he relented. "Fine, but not too much longer, lord Orochimaru gave her our orders, I don't want to keep him waiting." Zaku spoke, his tone showing he wasn't entirely happy with Dosu's call.

"Have a little patience, with any luck someone else will find them too, and trigger all her traps for us. But I do agree this waiting game is getting a bit old." Dosu spoke.

After another two hours the team from the sound saw nobody was going to stumble upon them as they hoped, so they made their move, of course they all watched where they stepped.

Inside Naruto's mind

Naruto was still stuck in odd dreams, dreams that were both memories and new, his head felt so fuzzy, what was his name? Who was he again? What were his brothers doing right now? No wait he was an orphan from the nine tails attack wasn't he?

His skull screamed as his head was a mess of memories, but one was paramount, was she okay, was she safe, these two different yet similar trains of thought blended together better then most.

Naruto…yes he was Naruto. looked around a landscape of pure blackness, as he walked around he saw flashes in the darkness like a bolt of lightning the image was there only for a moment, memories, him on the bridge, standing over a dead Satsuki, him receiving his headband, passing Kakashi-sensei's and the time he spent at that resort with Satsuki.

But also ones he didn't know, but felt like he should. Skipping stones with his best friend, his plans with her to create a village where people wouldn't have to fight and see younger brothers die for pointless conflicts. Burying his brother and how he yelled at his father for letting it happen or even daring to say he died an honorable death.

He remembered fighting with her, begging her to please help him stop the fighting and she only realized too late after she had lost the last sibling she had. How he had put his dream and duty over her, and how it had broken him in mind, body and spirit after he realized his mistake.

Naruto felt the searing pain in his head again, and he tried, tried with all his might to push those images and memories out.

"Get out of my head!" He screamed into the void he collapsed to his knees, the searing pain in his skull was debilitating, he could barely think at all.

Until he saw a figure in the dark space, or was it his reflection?

He walked up to him, no it wasn't a reflection he was too tall, but he knew that face didn't he.

The figure knelt down and turned his head the same way Naruto did, he waved his hand and Naruto did the same, then they both asked the same question.

"Who are you?"

"Who are you?"

They both spoke, blonde haired, orange jumpsuited boy looking at dark haired, red armored man.

"I'm *unintelligible*-rama." The man spoke.

"I'm Naruto." He spoke.

Both just stared at one another.

"What's…happening to me?"

"What's…happening to me?"

They both said at the same time.

As they both looked at one another another figure walked up to them both, neither could see his face, they could however see the white clothing he had on with magatama markings.

"Hmm, it's way too early for this, our chakra has already mixed with yours slightly, I hope it won't cause any problems for you, we'll meet again however. When your mind and spirit can better handle the change." He spoke, he held out his hand and a white light filled the space, and Naruto's memory went fuzzy.

What had happened, he thought he had seen some weird stuff, but he couldn't recall, he could only remember, bits, bits of her, it caused a smile to cross his face as the memories kept getting fuzzier and fuzzier. But she…she made him happy.

"You may have to take command once he wakes up, the seal that man put on him is having disastrous effects." the white robed man said to the one in red armor.

"Right? What's going on anyway? I remember…I don't really know what I remember." The armored one spoke.

The robed man just gave an apologetic smile.

"Yes I'm sorry, please allow me to explain. My name is…"

With Satsuki

As her mind bathed in the dark chakra entering her system the dark emotions it was causing to rise within her caused something that not even the parasite had any awareness of awoke within the deepest part of her mind.

Satsuki remembered a river, a peaceful and quiet riverbank that she loved to visit to get away from it all.

He was late…again. But what else did she expect, he was always an idiot…she was also the best friend she'd ever had next to her sister…wait didn't she hate her brother? She had no sister?

No that wasn't right her younger sister was the most precious person in the world to her, next to that idiot.

No, she had an older brother.

No younger sister.

Her head hurt, maybe she was training too much.

Just then the cause of even more headaches finally decided to show up.

"You're late." She said to him, he just smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head.

"Sorry, got held up by my brother, honestly he's younger then me but he's so serious." The idiot spoke.

He sat down next to her and looked out at the calm stream that was their greatest tool for doing away with their stress.

"You okay." He asked her, he always did that, they never gave the other a straight answer however.

"you always ask that, are you?" She spoke, however even if they never said a truthful answer they could often tell the real answer, she knew he was down about something.

"I'm better now that you're here *unintelligible*." He said, wait, was that her name? She couldn't remember…what was his, he was her best friend so she should know.

Of course, that was it.

"You always say stupid stuff like that Hashirama. But…thanks." She said, she blushed slightly as he admitted her presence cheered him up, she idly played with her hair slightly…would he like it longer?

Wait what was she thinking! She didn't give a crap what her idiot thought about her looks…WAIT WHAT DID SHE MEAN 'HER IDIOT'!

Luckily he hadn't caught on to her internal panic.

Suddenly Satsuki seemingly woke up in a black void, however faint colors of purple were seen around it in a crack-like pattern, then emotions started to come forth, anger, pain, loss, affection, betrayal, hate. They all rushed into her and she wanted to kill something, someone. She wanted to tear Itachi's throat out with her bare hands!

She collapsed on the floor as the memories that she didn't recognize were overwhelmed by the dark emotions associated with them, all she felt was pain and rage.

He killed her, that bastard Senju killed her! She'd destroy his entire clan for what he did! Even Hashirama!

No, what were these memories…these thoughts, were they even hers?

She looked up to see someone looking down at her, masses of shaggy black hair hid most of her face but a lone red eye was shown, she couldn't see more then that through her blurry vision. She did see some form fitting red armor however, even with her blurred vision she could tell she was beautiful.

Another woman walked up to the first one, although she couldn't see much of her face, she could see the white robes with black magatama however.

"Can we do anything about that parasite?" The first woman asked the faceless one.

"Not without the possibility of breaking this one's mind, it would require fully giving her our chakra, the flood of memories would crack her psyche like an egg, while it may sicken all of us, we have little choice but to suppress our chakra and wipe her mind of the few memories of yours that have bled through, this damned curse seal is disturbing her chakra so much our chakra is awakening early, she should at least have a Mangekyou before this even has a chance of happening." The one in the robes explained.

Satsuki felt so sleepy, her mind so fuzzy, all she could remember…was him, and she smiled as the one with the robes kneeled down and forced one of her eyes open and looked right into it.

"Now…forget." She spoke as her mind went blank the robed womans red eyes looking into hers, the smiling face of the only person who ever loved her for her was the only thing she had a vague memory of.

.

.

.

Before he betrayed her.

Back in the real world

Sakura was getting worried, while both her teammates seemed to be resting peacefully now, it had been a while, and while they had another three days, the deadline was closing, and the longer the exam went, there would be less and less teams in the field and less and less scrolls by extension.

"Well well well. It seems a little girl got lost in the forest. Wake Uchiha up and the grown ups can talk on your behalf." A smooth yet sinister voice spoke Sakura looked over and saw three ninja standing across from her.

Now in general this would be very, very bad, however it was even worse then that, their headbands bore a musical note, sound ninja and most worryingly that creep Orochimaru's subordinates.

"Well too bad, as you can see she's in no condition to fight any of you thanks to that monster you call a leader!" Sakura yelled back, while she was definitely in a bad spot here, she wasn't going to go quietly, not a chance.

"What the hell did you just say about lord Oroc-" Zaku started to speak, raising his arms and pointing them at her, clearly poised to attack. Dosu held out his arm however, preventing Zaku from firing a sonic wave in anger.

"Just what do you mean? Are you saying lord Orochimaru was here? And he's the reason those two are unconscious?" Dosu asked. Something wasn't adding up, lord Orochimaru's orders were to find Satsuki Uchiha, test her power and report back to him, why would he come himself to apparently do the same thing before they could? Just what was their leader up to?

"That's right. He did these weird jutsu on Naruto and Satsuki and they've been unconscious ever since!" Sakura said back forcefully, just what was their game? Did they not know this?

"What should we do, Dosu? It sounds like lord Orochimaru already completed our task himself?" Kin asked him, Dosu gave no answer, currently deep in thought.

"Hmmm. I supposed we better just carry out our task either way, even if lord Orochimaru has already tested her personally. If we disobey a direct order he'll kill us on the spot, no matter how futile our objective may be." Dosu thought, besides, the pink haired one had dared to insult lord Orochimaru in their presence, nobody got away with such insolence.

"Well, as pointless as it may seem or not if lord Orochimaru put them in this state, orders are orders, we wake Uchiha up and complete our mission, end of story." Dosu spoke darkly, causing his two teammates to gain sadistic looks on their faces and a look of dread to come across Sakura's.

Dosu started to slowly approach her, lifting his sleeve to show an odd looking gauntlet with multiple holes in it, was it some kind of unique ninja tool or for some kind of jutsu?

"You know I really hate ninja like you, just jokes who don't get how this ninja world of ours works, we have data on all three of you, the deadlast idiot with no talent, Naruto Uzumaki, Satsuki Uchiha, rookie of the year and one of, if not the most promising young genin here, then you, while you test scores and books marts are commendable, that is the only thing of merit, you're taijutsu or poor, while you chakra control is decent you show no interest in learning genjutsu, your ninjutsu is confined to just the basics." Dosu spoke as he kept walking, until he was exactly where Sakura wanted him, she cut a thread of ninja wire and smirked.

A large log trap swung down right at Dosu who didn't seem to worry at all, he just thrust his arm out and with an odd ringing sound the log was reduced to splinters, it had no effect whatsoever.

"You're just a joke, riding on Satsuki's coattails, this is a competition for real ninja, not useless deadweight." Dosu spoke, his tone cruel and mocking, the worst thing is, deep down, Sakura knew he wasn't wrong, for every major mission they'd been on she'd done nothing, absolutely nothing, it was either Satsuki, Kakashi-sensei or hell even Naruto, who she used to look down on for being useless just because he got bad test scores, doing all the work and saving her, all that reading material and booksmarts, out here, in the real world it didn't amount to anything, she couldn't block kunai or dodge jutsu with facts about the first great ninja war, she really was a joke.

Dosu continued to advance on her, she couldn't fight him, Satsuki and Naruto were still unconscious, she'd die here, being the absolute opposite of her dream, the utter antithesis of a great and proud kunoichi. Tears started to flow from her eyes.

"Leaf hurricane!" A voice shouted as a kick landed across Dosu's face, sending him flying back.

Sakura looked up through her tears to see a person standing there, taijutsu stance ready, facing down the sound ninja.

"L-lee?" She asked, not believing the sight before her, standing there, awful haircut, stupid green spandex and all, was Rock Lee.

"Three ninja ganging up on a beautiful kunoichi girl, you should be ashamed of yourselves." Lee spoke, his eyes not moving from the sound ninja, a fire in his eyes, even more fierce then when he challenged Satsuki.

"Holy shit Dosu how the hell did you let this joke get the drop on you?! Hahaha, man that's pathetic." Zaku said laughing at his teammates' expense.

"Shut it Zaku, he may look like a fool, but that kick was fast, his fashion sense is not an indication of his skill as a ninja, no matter how bad it is." Dosu spoke as he picked himself up, "that really hurt, this one's taijutsu is no joke." Dosu thought as kept his lone eye trained on the oddly dressed leaf ninja, he couldn't drop his guard like that around him again.

"Please do not worry Sakura, keep a watch over Naruto and Satsuki, I shall protect you with my life if I must." Lee spoke, turning to her and giving a thumbs up. She just dumbly nodded.

Lee then let a squirrel who had been resting on his shoulder go, the same one who the sound team had tried to use as an involuntary walking bomb. It seems his discovery of their rather unethical strategy had led him here.

"OK freak show, let's go! Slicing sound waves!" Zaku shouted. He lifted both his arms and shot a compressed sound wave blast at Lee, functioning essentially the same as a potent wind jutsu.

Unfortunately while his jutsu had incredible speed, Zaku's did not outmatched Lee and he had already dodged the blast and had jumped and gave a flying punch right to Zaku's jaw which caused to to fly back his two teammates turned only for Lee to sweep Kin's legs and just barely dodged Dosu's swipe, normally this wouldn't matter as the sound from Dosu's gauntlet would be its own attack, however Lee had used the gauntlet as a springboard to jump away, Lee's feet covered some of the holes in the device and thus the specific sound Dosu needed to attack the leaf ninja's ears was distorted and therefore useless.

Dosu grimaced under his bandages at the disruption of his attack, and Lee just standing there, in the stance of the strong fist, almost mocking with the single outstretched hand and the other behind his back.

"Hmmm, did he nit try and do that invisible attack like he did on that silver haired ninja? I expect it has something to do with that odd gauntlet, was he unable to use his jutsu for some reason?" Lee thought as he looked at Dosu and then other two sound ninja picking themselves up, he wouldn't get a many chances to attack, they would no doubt counter attack when he tried to attack one person in the team, he needed backup, but he didn't know if Sakura was ready for a battle like this, and if she left Naruto and Satsuki's side they could easily be used as hostages, he'd just have to make do.

"Please lend me your strength and wisdom. Guy-sensei." Lee thought, as he looked at the three ninja, all having a much more murderous look aimed at him.

"I have to take them out one by one, I should start with the leader." Lee thought as his gaze leveled on Dosu.

"Lee is…this good?" Sakura thought in shock as she looked at the odd little weirdo who'd out of nowhere declared his love to her, face down three enemy ninja for her sake.

"First we'll kill you to warm up for Uchiha." Zaku spoke as he cracked his neck and lifted both of his arms at Lee, however it seems his strategy had changed as he now started to fire quick bursts with each arm in succession, making it hard for Lee to dodge, but he was just too fast.

"Stand still you tree fucker!" Zaku yelled, clearly getting more and more irritated, Lee was just smiling, he couldn't keep those blasts up forever, and Lee could keep this movement up for hours still.

"Zaku stop, you're just wasting chakra." Dosu spoke, causing Zaku to seeth and drop his hands, Dosu was right, he was already pretty drained, they just need Dosu to get close with his melody gauntlet, it would be all over then.

Dosu looked to Kin who just nodded, tapped him on the arm and started to weave signs.

As it was seemingly a complex jutsu due to the number of signs Lee leaped into action in an attempt to stop it.

However the sound ninja were waiting for him to do that. Lee's flying kick was blocked by Dosu's gauntlet that let out a ring making Kin smirk.

"Melodic maladiction jutsu!" She said as she formed her last sign. Took out a small bell and flicked it. The second the little jingle sounded out Lee's eyes went blank and he just stood there like a zombie. Kin just smirked and attached the bell to her waist and stood up.

"Lee? LEE?!" Sakura shouted out as he wasn't moving, but they didn't hit him with anything unless…Genjutsu!

To Lee he was completely stuck, he was stuck between consciousness and slumber by a soothing melody that he never wanted to wake from, he just needed to rest~.

"LEE!" Sakura tried shouting only for it to do nothing, he was completely trapped in the genjutsu.

They just walked around Lee, by the glare Zaku sent his way and how he rubbed his seemingly sore jaw he definitely wanted to attack him, but it seemed that would wake him up, so he held off for now.

The sound ninja stood around her all smirking down at her, she needed to wake Lee up. Not only was he screwed if she didn't but she'd die right here.

"Time to say goodnight, you joke." Dosu spoke as he lifted up a kunai and brought it down, luckily Sakura was ready and Dosu just stabbed a log as she appeared a distance away and drew her own kunai.

"I won't let you hurt any of them, you're right, in many ways, compared to amazing kunoichi like Satsuki I am a joke, but that version of Sakura, dies, right here!" Sakura yelled with conviction as she threw her kunai. Dosu simply deflected I with his own only to see the paper wrapped around the hilt at the last second.

*boom* the paper bomb went off, Sakura instantly ran towards Lee, she could only create one or maybe two openings like that, she needed Lee awake otherwise all four of them were dead.

"Oh no you don't!" A fierce female voice yelled as three senbon pierced the back of her leg making Sakura fall as she lost, most if not all feeling in her lower right leg.

"*cough cough* that was a nasty little trick, seems you aren't a complete waste as a shinobi, but with what we have endured, countless hours of harsh training under the decibels of lord Orochimaru, your little tricks are child's play." Dosu spoke as his team emerged from the smoke, they had a few marks and some dirt on them but were essentially unscathed from the blast.

All the while Sakura was trying to get to her feat, an extremely difficult task with her dominant leg being dead.

"Come on, Satsuki had so many more senbon in her then this, you can do it, I just need to wake Lee up." Sakura thought as she with great difficulty managed to stand on her feet and with a quick grunt pulled the senbon out, only to realize there is a silver lining being deadend by senbon, you could feel the pain.

"You've got a surprising amount of grit I'll give you that!" Kin spoke as she threw a handful of kunai at her that Sakura deflected with one of her own, oh to yelp as a senbon landed in her left arm, it seems Kin had made a show of throwing the more obvious kunai only to mix in a hidden senbon in her throw, that someone couldn't see until it was too late.

"Ah!" Sakura yelped holding her arm and once again removing the senbon from it, while it did give her some feeling back her limbs still felt numb and the pain was incredible, also while it was mild she still was losing some blood.

"I'd be careful if I were you, I'm targeting nerve clusters, ripping those senbon outust hurt~." Kin said in a sadistic, mocking tone, laughing to herself afterwards.

"I won't stop, me and Lee are going to defeat you." Sakura spoke only to get another jovial laugh out of her fellow kunoichi.

"Are you? Right now every part of his consciousness is in a deep sleep thanks to my genjutsu, he's not waking up, even if you tried to channel your chakra into him to disrupt it." Kin mocked waving the bell she had attached to her person.

"Wait, is that bell linked to her jutsu?" Sakura mused through pain addled thoughts, it's clear the sound kunoichi didn't take her seriously in her arrogance was she revealing the trick to her jutsu or was it just a ploy, try and make her focus on her and that bell instead of actually trying to awaken Lee?

Sakura was really starting to appreciate the difficulties of fighting genjutsu specialist shinobi.

"I won't quit, not until I make sure my teammates are safe, I'm envious you know, because right now I am a pathetic kunoichi, I want to be better, as good as Satsuki, but I know realize I'm years off that, and because I'm so weak, they have to save me all the time, so now I'll show them I'm now that weak, by protecting both of them!" Sakura yelled as she reached into her pouch, she would need this, honestly she once again owed Satsuki, as she had found these when looking through the sealing scroll she had been given.

Sakura had grabbed a small syringe from her pouch and stuck it into her arm. Instantly she felt her pain fade and Sakura felt better and stronger then she ever had.

"What the hell is that supposed to do?" Zqku asked, not really understanding, Dosu just hardened his gaze, Sakura looked better, maybe better then she looked before she showed up, what was that she took?

Instantly she took off, faster then she'd been moving before and made it over to Lee and tried channeling chakra into him to disrupt the genjutsu, only for it to now work, she started to disrupt it, only for the genjutsu to be reinforced.

"Lee?! LEE! Please wake up! I need you, I need you're held, otherwise we are both going to die here." Sakura shouted, tugging on his clothing.

*bell jingle*

Kin just smirked at her, and finally Sakura got it.

"The sound from that bell, it's allowing her to keep reinforcing the genjutsu on Lee, dammit!" Sakura thought as she stood there with the debilitated Lee.

"Zaku, you know what to do." Kin spoke, smirking, they had known she would rush to that weirdos side as soon as she could, a perfect set-up for Zaku.

"don't need to tell me twice. Supersonic slicing wave!." Zaku yelled with pure joy as a massive airwave blast shot towards Sakura and Lee, all she could do was shield him with her back as they were both hit by the blast.

"Heh, they are either too broke to move, or dead, so let's get back to the task at hand." Zaku spoke as they turned to the still unconscious Satsuki and Naruto.

"Indeed, just watch your chakra Zaku." Dosu reminded him.

In the pile of broken foliage and wood Sakura lay there relatively unscathed by the powerful attack.

"Lee? You woke up?" Sakura said in wonder, seeing Lee there, protecting her with his body but not too damaged.

"Of course, your call to me allowed me to come to my senses somewhat and break the genjutsu. Thank you Sakura." Lee spoke, Sakura had seen in the last second that chakra seemed to burst from Lee as he pulled some roots out of the ground to shield them both from the blast, but it still hurt.

"I'm sorry Guy-sensei, I had to open the gate of rest to protect myself and Sakura, even if it was just momentarily." Lee apologized internally, but the recopertive effects of the gate of rest were also welcomed, but with Lee's lack of any ability to mold or manipulate his chakra to any degree more then a civilian could he was admittedly very weak to genjutsu, surging his chakra by opening a gate was pretty much the only thing he could do to break one, he was just lucky that Sakura's words managed to reach him.

Lee groaned in pain as he and Sakura both saw a significantly sized piece of wood sticking out of Lee's leg, he ripped it out and quickly started to use some of the bandages from his hands to dress the wound.

"Oh my God. Lee, your leg, I'm so sorry. If…if it weren't for me…you wouldn't be in this mess." Sakura spoke as she sobbed, God she was so useless, even when she was preaching she'd be stronger. What was her plan? Have Lee save her, God she was pathetic.

"Untrue, while I would gladly put my life on the line for you Sakura I would also do the same for any leaf ninja, that is the nindo of our village. But…more so then that, you gave me hope, all those years ago." Lee said to Sakura confusing her, she had only met Lee recently hadn't she? Unless he was…?

"No…you couldn't be. That boy from my first year in the academy?" Sakura asked, as the somewhat similar features finally clicked in Sakura's mind.

Flashback

A younger Lee sat on a bench crying round the back of the academy. He lacked his green jumpsuit and had his hair in a braided ponytail and was wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Hey, what's wrong?" A young voice asked as a pink haired girl came up to Lee, worried that he was crying.

"Oh, it's *sniff* it's nothing, please go away." The younger Lee spoke, he didn't want to be laughed at more, especially by a girl.

"Well it doesn't look like nothing, what's wrong?" The girl spoke, who in fact was Sakura, she had on plain civilian clothes and she really only stood out with her pink hair…and larger then average forehead.

"It's…it's just, I can't use chakra, I have no ability to control or mold it at all. So how can I be a ninja like that? What kind of useless ninja cannot use chakra?!" Lee said loudly as he let out all his frustration, he felt so pathetic.

"Well what about taijutsu? You don't need to control chakra for that, and there are ninja tools too right?" Sakura spoke innocently, causing Lee to look at her in wonder.

"Y-you really think I can be a ninja with just taijutsu?" Lee spoke, all the great ninja in history used ninjutsu. The great forest surrounding their village was created by the first Hokage's legendary ninjutsu.

"Sure, why not, prove everyone wrong. I believe in you." Sakura said happily to him, getting Lee to cry more, but in joy more then sadness, he was told by his teachers that he should drop out and given nothing but insults and mockery from his classmates, but this random nice girl…believed in him?

"In truth, people aren't nice to me either, they make fun of me as nobody in my family has ever been a ninja, and they saw stupid stuff like my forehead is too big." Sakura said to him.

"Yeah, my father wasn't a ninja, but he died on the night the nine tails attacked the village, my mother has be so against shinobi since that day, she always hated the fact that I want to be a ninja, but it's what I want, it's all I can think about, but I train so hard, and it never seems to matter." Lee said to her, she smiled softly, almost glad she wasn't the only civilian kid that was struggling.

"Well keep it up, I know you'll be a great ninja one day, I gotta get to class, lunch is almost over." Sakura spoke as she stood up and left, waving as she went.

It was only later that day that the two of them later realized they had never exchanged names.

Flashback end

"Yes, we did forget to introduce ourselves didn't we." Lee chuckled as he finished bandaging his wound and got some painkillers from his pouch and ate them.

"Next to Guy-sensei, you were the first one to ever believe I could be a ninja with only taijutsu, so, for believing in me all those years ago, I swear to you I'll prove your belief to the whole world. And I believe you can prove that even if you are not from a shinobi family or any great clan, you can be a great kunoichi too." Lee spoke as he stood up, holding his hand out to Sakura.

She just looked up at him and felt herself tear up, she grabbed his hand and raised to her feet, still feeling fighting fit thanks to the adrenaline she took.

"We need to save Satsuki and Naruto." Lee spoke as he ran out just as Dosu was kneeling down over Satsuki.

"Huh, she really is out. But why would our lord give us this task if he planned to leave her in this state?" Dosu mused to himself.

"Leaf whirlwind!" Lee shouted out as he launched another surprise attack at the three ninja, all three of them went flying away from the two unconscious leaf ninja.

"You two just don't know when to stay down do you?" Dosu spoke as he picked himself up, glaring at the two of them.

"Correct. Now, I'll finish this battle." Lee spoke stepping forward as the bandages around his arm came loose, showing a bit of his heavily scarred hands, an amalgamation and testament to how hard and how much training he had done.

"The bandages? The jutsu he used on Satsuki?" Sakura wondered, ready to back Lee up and give him and opening if need be.

Lee rushed forward, Dosu believed Lee was aiming for him but instead he grabbed Kin and Zaku who were still picking each other up and tossed them away from Dosu. Then he struck, similar to when he fought with Satsuki Lee, got around Dosu's guard almost instantly and delivered a hard kick to his chin, sending him flying into the air.

Lee jumped after him, mirroring Dosu the dancing leaf shadow, he then wrapped Dosu in the loose bandages, locking them together. Sakura looked on, entranced by the jutsu.

"It's over! PRIMARY LOTUS!" Lee shouted as he began to spin then both eventually becoming a spinning blur and Sakura watched as Dosu was smashed into the ground with deadly force, no wonder Lee's oddball sensei blew up at him for using such a jutsu on a fellow leaf ninja, was that sound ninja even alive?

As the dust cleared a heavily panting Lee landed next to her, it appeared he was incredibly winded by the attack, it must take a lot out of him to perform such an impressive technique.

"Did that finish him, even though I just opened it for a second, opening the gate of rest and performing the lotus…I don't know if I can fight much longer without being a burden to Neji and Tenten for the rest of the exam. But the safety of Sakura and her team comes first!" Lee thought as he caught his breath, his nerves were shot and his bones felt brittle, he would power through via sheer will. But sheer will can only go so far.

"*cough cough* thank you Zaku, I would have been a goner if not for you." Dosu's raspy voice spoke from what should have been his mangled body.

"Yeah yeah I know I'm amazing, you owe me one Dosu." Zaku's voice rang out, the dust cleared to see instead of hard solid ground that Dosu should be implanted in, there was in fact soft almost sand like dirt.

A trail of the soft dirt lead to Zaku who, while looking slightly beaten up from Lee's attacks, was ultimately still fighting fit and had seemingly used his unique Soundwave jutsu to soften the ground and thus negate much of the damage of the lotus. Long story short, very very bad news for the present leaf ninja.

Speaking of currently present leaf ninja.

In the bushes, watching the fight unfold

"Oh shit! that guy is still alive after an amazing jutsu like that?!" One Shikamaru Nara spoke to his hiding teammates, Ino Yamanaka and Choji Akimichi.

"This isn't looking good for them, that jutsu seemed to take a lot out of that Lee guy." Shikamaru muttered, the hundred different ways this could go flying through his brain all at once.

"What do you wanna do Shikamaru?" Choji asked him, luckily having the sense to stash away his bag of potato chips at the current moment in order to stay hidden, besides he did need to make the fifteen bags he had on his person last the next few days, man this part of the task was brutal.

"I don't know, personally I'd rather not tangle with these sound guys. But no matter how much of a drag each and every one of them are, they are still fellow leaf ninja, I say we wait for things to go really bad before we commit, sneak attack them." Shikamaru mused, holding his hand to his chin in thought, man he could only come up with twenty five possible ambush plans, the lack of sleep this whole keeping watch survival thing was really affecting him.

Ino however was off in her own little world.

"Sakura…" Ino thought as she looked at the kunoichi who at one time was her best friend in the whole world.

Flashback

When Sakura and Ino had been children in the academy they met once Ino put down some bullies who were picking on Sakura due to her large forehead and they instantly became fast friends, with Sakura looking up to Ino as the heir to the prosedious Yamanaka clan.

Until Ino's aunt died.

Anna Ishiki had been the kid sister of her mother, so while they were related technically she was not a member of the Yamanaka clan. She was always more of a big sister to Ino however.

She had been a bright eyed girl of civilian birth who had always wanted to be a kunoichi since she was a little girl. After she had passed she had overheard her father telling her mother that overconfidence and idealistic and not realistic view of shinobi life had lead to her death.

Ino loved Anna, out of all her family besides her loving mother and father Anna had been her favorite, always coming by the flower shop, asking her dad for advice about being a ninja, telling her stories about being a ninja, even though Ino could tell they were exaggerated.

But all that had been snuffed out because she was a civilian playing at being a ninja, and hadn't taken it seriously.

Ino had never cried as much as she cried at her funeral.

So when she saw so many of those same traits in her best friend, in her grief Ino made one of the biggest regrets of her life.

"So I was reading about the lady Tsun-." Sakura started to speak only to be cut off by Ino.

"I think you should drop out of the academy, Sakura." Ino said to her, her eyes downcast, she would never normally say something like this but Ino was in a dark place right now, and the thought of Sakura growing up, becoming a ninja and dying just like her weighed heavily on her mind.

"Wha? What are you saying Ino?" Sakura wondered, this wasn't like her, she didn't know why but her best friend had been different lately.

"I don't think you can be a kunoichi, after all you're just a civilian, being a kunoichi is serious." Ino continued to say.

"This is for her own good. This is for her own good." Ino just repeated in her head.

"Why are you saying that? It's…it's been my dream to be a great kunoichi for as long as I can remember!" Sakura spoke loudly, Ino had always expressed happiness about the fact that they would become kunoichi together, so how could…how could she say such awful things?!

"Well get a new dream! It doesn't matter what your dream is if you just get yourself killed!" Ino yelled at her, tears in both their eyes now, Sakura just slapped Ino and ran off, the red strip of cloth Ino had gifted her in order to tie her hair up falling off as she ran.

Ino just cried herself, the two young girls' relationship forever damaged.

After talking with her father about what happened did Ino realize her mistake, as he told her Anna died the way she lived, and that death was better then never having lived her life as she wanted, that's what it meant to be a ninja, living every second to the fullest as you don't know how many you had, and her big sis had done exactly that, as her sacrifice had saved the lives of both her teammates and innocent civilians. Ino just cried and apologized to her father and then apologized more at Anna's grave.

However the damage was done, Ino and Sakura's relationship had mutated from a close friendship into a bitter dislike, Ino never had the heart to explain and apologize, she was too ashamed.

Years later her and Sakura had a bitter rivalry, always insulting one another and while Ino didn't take much pleasure in jabbing at her old friend she knew that their rivalry pushed Sakura to be better, the first step on her journey to become a great kunoichi was to surpass her and Satsuki, so she pushed Sakura, thinking, if their rivalry pushed Sakura to be better, it would be best if she fanned the flames as much as possible.

But did she have the courage to step in and save her now? After she had been such a shitty friend for all these years.

End flashback

Back with Lee and Sakura they were both in a bad spot, Lee was still breathing heavily and couldn't move well, the only saving grace they had was that the sound team had taken multiple blows and while Dosu had narrowly avoided death thanks to Zaku's help he still took damage from the lotus, it wasn't much but it was something, and by how hard Zaku was panting he had expected a large portion of his chakra with his attacks, but Dosu and Kin seemed fine on chakra, Dosu had barely used any jutsu and Kin had only used that one genjutsu.

"I've got to buy Lee some time to recover, he can't fight all three of them like this." Sakura thought as she dug into her pouch and threw a handful of kunai with a string of paper bombs attached.

"That won't work this time. Melodic disruption jutsu." Dosu spoke as the holes in his gauntlet seemed to shift and he deflected the kunai, causing a ring to sound out, the paper bombs should have blown them all into a bloody stain on the forest floor but nothing happened.

"What the?!" Sakura yelled out, not understanding what went wrong.

"You see, we ninja of the sound village use a different type of jutsu, new jutsu for a new age, ment to leave the old as a dusty relic of shinobi wars past. My gauntlet has many settings for many different sounds, that sound I just made is infused with chakra and disrupts sealing jutsu, fuinjutsu is like a sentence, one wrong word or messy punctuation and everything falls apart, that soundwave is that wrong word, so basic seals, such as the ones on paper bombs, rendering them duds." Dosu spoke, she wasn't sure, but she could definitely imagine the sickly smug smirk he had under his bandages.

Luckily for everyone in the forest and leaf village it only effected low level fuinjutsu, Naruto's eight tetragram seal was on a level only a handful of people in the world could even begin to properly understand the inner workings of, such jutsu would need to be supplied with a tailed beasts worth of chakra to even make a scratch on the cage of the nine tailed fox.

Unluckily however it also didn't affect Orochimaru's curse mark, it's corruption still seeping into Satsuki, a malevolent chakra starting to form within her.

But for any combat based seals it rendered them all useless.

"Shit!" Sakura muttered under her breath, things just kept getting worse and worse, and they still had to worry about the attack of that gauntlet too. The swipe that Kabuto seemed to avoid yet resulted in him shaking on the floor as he bled from his ears and throwing up.

"Don't worry Sakura, my youth will continue to burn brightly and defend you." Lee spoke, rising to his feet, second wind seemingly caught.

"thank you…Lee." Sakura said smiling as she got ready to back him up.

Dosu was seemingly having none of it as he rushed them, his gauntlet shifting again, he swiped at Lee but he dodged, only to smirk, but Lee was ready and smashed his fist into the earth, the sound ringing out through the forest.

Lee just stood there smug as Dosu's own smug look faded.

"It seems my hypothesis was correct. The hidden attack you used before the exam started is also a sound attack, one that attacks the body I'd say, but what if I made a second sound, one to cancel out yours." Lee said smirking as it seemed his hypothesis was correct.

Dosu just glared, these leaf ninja were starting to really get under his skin. He was spot on, when he manipulated the very precise and delicate soundwave to assault his target's inner ear it was very easy to make a louder sound and disrupt the attack.

"Well then, it seems I just have to make sure you can't even scream." Doau spoke as he pulled out what looked like a paper bomb and threw it, Lee moved instantly, trying to shield Sakura with his body, however it wasn't a paper bomb, Sakura and Lee were debilitated as a bright flash along with a quick bang, both clutched their ears as they rang and they could only see white as their vision was impaired. These 'flashbomb tags' had been given to them by lord Orochimaru to field test, luckily Dosu knew to shut his eyes and use his chakra to temporarily cut off his own hearing, meaning he was not stunned by it. Even team ten hiding in the bushes shielded their eyes and had a dull ring in their ears.

As Sakura and Lee were unable to defend themselves Dosu struck swiping his gauntlet near Lee and channeling the sound wave into his ear, so as soon as the green jumpsuited genin started to regain his senses he instantly lost them again, dropping to his knees as he vomited and bled from his ears, he was out of the fight, no question, and now Sakura was all alone.

As Lee lay there, Sakura just barley being able to see or hear, team ten not knowing to either run or interfere and with Naruto and Satsuki still unconscious, things looked beyond bleak.

But was a dark sinister chakra started to infest Satsuki like a parasite.

A much brighter chakra sparked within Naruto, and the whole forest seemed to surge with vitality at its presence.

And that's where we'll end it for now, personally I wanted to go until Naruto and Satsuki awoke but we are at 8.8k words rn so this chapter is already meaty enough.

So Sakura got some major canon changes with the split in her and Ino's friendship caused by Ino not wanting her to face the danger of shinobi life as a civilian born ninja, and her and Lee talking when they were younger (as Lee infatuation with Sakura is completely unwarranted in canon so now it's a bit more understandable.

I'm sorry if the start of this chapter didn't make much sense it really wasn't meant too in a way I geuss?

Basically due to the cure mark and 5 pronged seal both their chakra is seriously fucked up, which is causing things that should not awaken to awaken, luckily certain residents of that chakra have stopped the process from cracking their minds wide open.

But I hope you all enjoyed.