So I hope you enjoyed the last chapter.
I'd like to address something first and foremost, some people in comments and reviews are asking for Satsuki not to leave the village.
I have the basis of a plan for how the 'Satsuki retrieval arc' is going to end and I won't be deviating from this, that is all I'll say.
So without further ado let us continue.
Forest of death, day four of the exam
Team seven were currently camping by a stream, Satsuki currently near the fire, Sakura was keeping watch and Naruto was currently catching some fish with help from his clones, while they had plenty of field rations to keep them going they tasted like shit and having real good would be better for all of them.
They had rested for two whole days for Sakura and Satsuki to heal, Sakura was fine now but they could tell Satsuki wasn't feeling great still, she was adamant to set off the previous day but Sakura and Naruto were having none of it. However Satsuki seemed to be doing a lot better now, plus they had precious little time to spare, they needed an earth scroll, no more time to mess about.
As Naruto walked back with a bundle of fish his mind wandered to his recent use of his shadow clones, I mean he'd never been that great with his chakra control sure, but ever since he fought that snake guy his chakra had felt…slow? Like it took significantly more effort and time to mold his chakra. Was it something that snake bitch did, he remembered was a hazy memory of getting hit in his…oh shit!
Naruto instantly pulled up his shirt and channeled chakra to his stomach, the initial seal appeared like normal, then more markings that weren't there before, the one thing old man third had asked him to do was look after this thing and make sure nobody messed with it and now somebody has, ok it's not all bad, there was no giant fox currently laying waste to the village so the worst case scenario of the seal being being tampered with hadn't come to pass, Naruto knew next to nothing about seals but he suspected whatever crap that damned snake lady had but on him was what was causing his chakra to be all messed up.
One thing was for sure he needed to talk to the old man about this as soon as possible. He just hoped he could make it through the exam while his chakra was messed up like this.
Naruto made it back to the camp and gutted and descaled the fish and ran some sticks through each, he then planted them in the ground to cook over the fire.
Team seven were then gathered around the fire eagerly awaiting the fish to cook.
"After this. No more resting, every hour there are less and less active scrolls in the field, not to mention half of those will be heaven scrolls, not the earth scroll we need." Satsuki spoke, ideally spinning and moving a kunai around in her hand.
"Yeah, we need to come up with a plan so we can take out a team or two and get their scrolls." Sakura spoke next to Naruto, her wounds healed, only having some fading bruises on her body.
"Well I believe I could help with that!" A voice called out, all members of team seven turned to the voice, weapons drawn and battle ready.
"Woah woah woah. Friendly." The man called, lifting his leaf headband up, it was Kabuto, the guy with the info cards they met before the first part of the exam.
"Kabuto? So you're still here huh?" Naruto spoke, putting away his blades. Relaxing slightly.
"Sorry about that, I just wanted to offer my advice. I'd be careful if I were you, that smell will attract predators, and not just the animal kind." Kabuto said, pointing to the grilling fish.
"Well it's about done anyway." Naruto spoke as he snuffed out the fire and Kabuto sat down with them, Sakura even kindly offered him a fish.
"Oh, thank you. I haven't eaten in a while, anyway as I was saying, I know these exams, I know how people act, best bet if you wanna find another team, get yourselves to the center of the forest, trust me, you aren't the only person with this problem, you'll find quite a few teams laying in wait for someone else to close in, not only that, you've get the collectors, bad sort, they get extras of scrolls, to either trade if they get in a bad spot, give to other teams from their village or just for fun, and with it being this late in the exams, it'll get messy, trust me." Kabuto explained as they all ate.
"So you'll be doing the same?" Satsuki asked, she wondered about Kabuto, was he just being a good samaritan? Or did he have an agenda here?
"No, I've already got my teams set, I'm meeting them at the tower." He said showing off his two scrolls, Satsuki's gaze hardened, she reached for her kunai pouch.
Naruto also had a nagging little voice in the back of his head just to take the earth scroll he had.
"What's stopping us from just taking your scrolls?" Satsuki asked, her tone sharp, ready to strike if needed.
"Hey, Satsuki, Kabuto's a fellow leaf ninja not to mention he helped us out with that info at the start of the exams." Sakura protested.
"And we don't have time to play nice, we don't even know how many earth scrolls are still in play, he could have one of the last ones for all we know." Satsuki spoke, she didn't have time to play the moral game at this stage of the game, honestly she blamed herself, if she hadn't gotten sick they would have saved a large amount of time, that was on her, so she had to fix things, worst still, that red haired grass ninja she saved earlier today didn't have a scroll in her, just her luck.
"No no, Satsuki has a point, so how about a little quid pro quo, in truth, I'm worried about even making it to the tower on my own, so, I help you guys get an earth scroll, and I go with you guys to the tower, sound fair?" Kabuto spoke diplomatically, he could see Satsuki's heart wasn't set on attacking him and taking the scrolls.
"...fine. but we need to get moving." Satsuki relented, putting her kunai away and standing up.
"Sorry about Satsuki, she's been…well she's been more…that for a few days now." Naruto spoke, he could tell something was off with his friend, she was more agitated then usual, seemingly just one annoyance away from exploding.
"Don't worry about it, exams like this bring out all sorts of behaviors in people, not to mention if you're in a hostile environment, with enemy ninja for this long, starts getting to you, trust me." Kabuto spoke, seemingly fine with Satsuki's prickly exterior.
Inwardly however?
"Hmm, quick to threats, and antisocial behavior? It seems Lord Orochimaru's curse mark is taking nicely to its new host, that's only the start of things to come, withdrawal, violent mood swings, insomnia, not to mention more problems when she can actually sleep, paranoia, she may even hear voices if Lord Orochimaru wishes it and lusting for even greater power, all manner of disorders that will drive your further away from the leaf village, and into the clutches of Lord Orochimaru." Kabuto thought Inwardly, no matter how nefarious and dark the spy's thoughts were, his mask never dropped, he was the best of the best after all.
Naruto got up and went after Satsuki.
"Hey, you okay, Suki?" Naruto asked walking up, she was checking her equipment, even though Naruto had seen her doing it just a few minutes ago.
"Stop calling me that, and I'm fine! What part of me doesn't look fine?!" She said sharply to him, Naruto had seen Satsuki in various states of irritation and anger before, but never like this, she was wound up and definitely agitated.
"All of you, you're not normally like this, let me help. We're friends aren't we?" Naruto said, not wavering in his conviction to support her if she needed it. Over the time they had spent together he had gotten to know her pretty well he'd say, I mean that was slightly subjective as very few people really knew Satsuki Uchiha, they knew of her, just not the actual young kunoichi.
On the surface she was arrogant, proud, and had an ego twice her size, but under that there was someone who struggled to live with the trauma of what happened to her, she had seemingly always lived in her brother's shadow and yet it was now her life goal to slay him, from her whole rant when she was worried she wouldn't properly awaken her Sharingan Naruto knew she may have felt like she would never be good enough to defeat her older brother, that she would be stuck under shadow for the rest of her life. In truth, Naruro knew that underneath and the pride and ego, there was a lonely and very damaged young ninja, Naruto guessed they were quite similar that way.
He was better nowdays, but, deep down, the pain of being alone waited in the dark places of his mind, begging for the opportunity to rear its head once again, he would do whatever he could, to never go back to being that lonely little boy, crying as he envied everyone who had ever known the love of a parent, and similarly, he would do whatever he could to help Satsuki not be swallowed whole by her pain, that's what friends did, right?
"I just…I'm sorry, I haven't…I haven't been sleeping." Satsuki spoke, it was true, even when she needed the little sleep she got between watches she just couldn't, her mind would be filled with darker thoughts as she tried to quite her mind, and the mark, that damned mark would throb in pain, never allowing her comfort, she knew it was starting to get to her.
"Weaknesssss." A voice in the back of her subconscious whispered, her consciousness wasn't aware of it, but the idea reverberated and echoed around in her mind nonetheless.
"Hey, we'll get through this, you, me and Sakura." Naruto said smiling at her, Satsuki smiled a little back, she had to calm down, Naruto had her back, he was always there as her backup.
"Thanks, loser." Satsuki said, her mood seemingly having improved somewhat.
For the next few hours the travel was pretty wordless. Kabuto however did take pleasure in seeing Satsuki rub the spot where her curse mark was located, Naruto saw it himself however he needed to talk to Satsuki about it when he got the chance, the markings he saw, worried him. Eventually they saw a tower in the distance.
"Hold up." Kabuto said, holding up his hand as a signal for them all to stop.
"What's up?" Naruto asked him, Kabuto just turned to them, his face serious.
"We go slow from here, no doubt there'll be all types of traps since we are this close, stealth is the most important thing here." Kabuto spoke, the three nodded, willing to listen to the silver haired ninja's greater experience.
Over the next few hours their progress was slow as all four leaf ninja used various methods of stealth to carefully move forward.
"Guys, am I crazy or is that tower not getting any closer?" Naruto said after a while, that got the other three to notice.
"Shit, genjutsu." Satsuki muttered with Kabuto nodding.
"I think they've been trying to wear us down, just keep us going in an infinite loop until we are too exhausted to fight." Kabuto said, looking around, if they knew about the genjutsu chances are they would strike now before they had time to form a strategy.
It seems Kabuto was right on the money as multiple clones of a masked rain ninja by the outfit and rain marked breathing apparatus, they almost seemed to be made of…ink? Either way they clones formed out of a black liquid and slowly shuffled towards team seven and Kabuto.
"Naruto, you know what to do." Satsuki said smirking, Naruto just smiled back and nodded, this would tax his chakra, but he was what he did best, no question.
"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto spoke as multiple puffs of smoke appeared and now there were as many Naruto clones as there were rain ninja clones.
"Damn, I put more chakra into that jutsu. I should have had more clones then he has, not an equal amount, I really need to get the seal sorted out." Naruto thought as he saw that his jutsu didn't create as many clones as he wanted, well, could be worse, he could be unable to even use jutsu.
On a totally unrelated note as soon as Satsuki tried to activate her Sharingan, to see past the genjutsu being cast and possibly find out if there was an original hidden nearby or even among the clones like Naruto often was, was when entire body seized up, just completely unmoving, and a throbbing pain emanated from her left shoulder region, specifically where the damned mark was, she couldn't move, her Sharingan wouldn't activate and trying to so much as summon or mold any kind of chakra old led to more pain, it was unbearable.
But…that power would work, she could feel it, beneath the surface, if she let the seal run rampant she would have all the power she needed.
"Power enough to tear anyone who gets in your way limb from limb." A dark little voice spoke in the back of her mind, a little devil on her shoulder telling her to indulge in the power of the mark, let it utterly consume her as it had before, and be granted all the power she'd ever dreamed of.
She'd be lying if she said the idea was completely unappealing.
But as Satsuki denied power of tye curse mark she was completely paralyzed, unable to move or even use the most basic of jutsu, she couldn't even clutch her shoulder in pain, only grit her teeth as she tried to move, Although he didn't show it, Kabuto was elated to see his masters mark performing its job perfectly, it would starve a mark individual of there ability to fight on their own merit, so as a last resort, they would give in to the power of the seal, and the move they gave in, the stronger the seals hold on the marked, it was a self perpetuating cycle, Lord Orochimaru's ingenuity truly knew no bounds.
"let's go!" The original Naruto spoke as he pulled out his blades with the clones following suit and they ran at the inky looking clones.
Naruto's clones clearly had the advantage, whatever these clones were, they weren't as good as shadow clones, they were slow, almost like zombies then true clones, the issue was that the collection of Naruto's weren't making any progress, as they slashed through the clones they were cut, but the black liquid they were made of just reformed, while the offensive capabilites of these clones were seemingly unless there ability to survive blows was commendable, certainly more so then Shadow clones, which dispelled after a single solid blow, unless Naruto significantly upped the chakra that made up their form.
"Ahh!" The original Naruto yelled out as he was slashed slight across his arm, the only problem was he couldn't see where the attack came from, which clone, or what it the original that cut him?
"You guys see which one did that?!" Naruto cried out to his multiple selves.
"No."
"Nope."
"Nah, sorry boss."
"Is the original here somewhere?"
We're just some of the answers back he got.
"Wait I think it's this one." A Naruto clone yelled as he jumped a brought a kodachi down in a power strike.
Only for the clone to brust into rapidly reforming black liquid and out if nowhere the clone had a kunai in its lower leg which caused it to dispelled.
"Dammit! I couldn't see that again? Just what the hell is this?" The original Naruto mused as he caught something out of the corner of his eye.
Luckily two more versions of himself saw it two and they all got in front of the rest of his team to deflect the hail of shuriken thrown at them, they each deflected their sides worh of the shuriken, only for the number aimed at Satsuki to be much greater then the rest.
A clone took two shuriken, to the chest, turning him into smoke, only for there to be a final four shuriken, no normally Satsuki could defend herself from this with ease, even without Sharingan, however she was still paralyzed by the curse mark and couldn't move a muscle.
"Shit!" The original Naruto yelled, getting in front of this attack, unable to deflect the blows so he just took them to the chest, he felt his mesh shirt take a lot of the blow luckily, but the steel stars did light pierce his flesh.
"N-naruto." Satsuki spoke in shock, seeing him take the attack for her.
"I told you two days ago remember. I got you." Naruto spoke as he pulled the shuriken slightly impeded in his chest, hissing with each one he removed.
Satsuki however was seeing something completely different, maybe it was seeing him take a blow meant for her while having those blade with the Uchiha clan symbol but she saw an image, an awful image from her nightmares.
Naruto, wearing an Uchiha clan outfit, lying in a blood of his own blood, body covered in Shuriken, slumped against one of the walls of the Uchiha compound, his blood smeared over the fan image on one of the walls.
No…NO! Nononononononononononono! Not again! Never again!
She'd do it, she'd let it take over and she'd rip itachi limb from limb for killing him, the parasite in her subconscious smiled as he felt Satsuki's resist to its glorious power start to slip.
"Hey, are you okay?" Naruto spoke, snapping her out of her trance, she looked up to see Naruto there, some blood on his jacket but otherwise completely fine, it had all been in her head? Fuck, was she finally starting to lose it? Maybe she really did need to be medicated, but the idea that there was something so wrong, so broken inside she needed to suppress it with pills sickened her, after all she didn't always feel wrong, all the time, I mean when she was with Naru-...she killed that train of thought, she was Satsuki Uchiha, she didn't need to lean on anybody, she was an avenger.
Either way she felt the paralysis start to dissipate, but she needed the Sharingan, to see through the jutsu.
"I'm …I'm okay, just keep holding them up, I need to focus on my Sharingan." Satsuki told Naruto who just nodded and made another collection of clones, feeling how it drained much more chakra for the desired amount of clones.
Satsuki breathed as she prepared herself for the pain and discomfort.
Will all her willpower she poured chakra into her eyes and tried with everything she had to suppress the mark. She had to see, had to help Naruto out while she was unable to fight properly like this.
"Come in…just…let me…SEE!" Satsuki thought as she powered through the pain and her Sharingan activated, her eyes looking over the battle to see its truths.
"Amazing, she powered through the marks influence and was actually able to use Sharingan, it seems our Lord's obsession with you and the Uchiha is not misplaced." Kabuto thought as he saw Satsuki actually be able to use her Dojutsu, the curse mark should paralyze any marked individual trying to use chakra, it wasn't until the seal was at least a month or two old and a budding addiction to the narcotic like power the mark provided would this symptoms lessen, but to power through it, just a day or two after being given the mark, truly remarkable, Kabuto wasn't even sure if Kimmimaro was capable of such a thing when he first received his mark.
"N-naruto! There's no original…or *grunt of pain* clones, it's just another big genjutsu! He strikes from the ground when one of his clones attacks or to counter you destroying a clone!" Satsuki managed to yell out as she clutched the mark, it burnt, she imagined this was what being branded felt like, she could barely speak, her Sharingan faded as she breathed heavily.
"Satsuki!" Naruto yelled out, seeing her in so much pain. Was she still not better? Did it have something to do with the marking he briefly saw, it seems like that snake bitch had left both of them with major issues, and they were still stuck in this damn forest!
"dammit!" Naruto cursed as he and his clones clones threw a collection of smoke bombs. A few clones stayed behind in the most but about seven of them went to the rest of the team.
"Satsuki you aren't okay, you need rest." Naruto said, crouching down next to her in worry.
"I'm, f-fine. You l-loser." We need to draw the originals out, but they would only come out if they believed we couldn't fight." Satsuki spoke, she felt so useless, while Naruto was the one in the forefront, she felt like she did back in the wave, seeing Naruto make progress while she was stuck only somways up the tree and making no progress, she felt embarrassed, embarrassed that she had to rely on him like this, not stand on her own two feet, but Naruto had always offered himself to support her, until she got this dammed mark sorted out she supposed she had no choice but to leave it to him.
"Okay, I got a plan, it a bit risky, but it should work." Naruto spoke as he told them what he was doing, Sakura tried to protest, even Kabuto doubted his ability to pull it off. But Satsuki, well she knew by now if Naruto said he was doing something, no matter how moronic, he was doing it, plus she'd seen him push was the limits of even shinobi endurance a few times now, only Naruto could pull this one off, but even then she did have some doubts.
When the smoke cleared more Naruto's and now the rest of team seven, plus Kabuto rushed into the fight, beating down clones, supporting their losses with more clones.
This went on for hours, until daybreak, in the end it seems whatever plan to hold out or defeat their own exhaustion they had was for naught, clones exhausted the four ninja panted on the ground, completely shattered, they'd be fighting all night with no breaks, it was impossible to stave off the effects of such an undertaking the fact that they hadn't passed out was impressive in and of itself.
"Heh, I've been waiting for this, I'll cut you up way worse then you did me." A voice sounded as the team of rain ninja they had encountered on the first day appeared, the one Satsuki at hurt wearing multiple bandages, seemingly he held a grudge.
"Nice job, Naruto." Satsuki spoke, honestly she was impressed, she'd seen Naruto fight for a significant amount of time sure, he had done so in the week before they undertook these exams, but never like this, she knew he could ago for much longer then anyone else, but this was just insane.
The rain ninja turned seeing the other three leaf ninja standing there, but…no. No! Could couldn't have?!
Their fears were confirmed when they saw the three exhausted versions of the leaf ninja next to Naruto turn into shadow clones, which then poofed away, one thing was clear, they'd been thoroughly had.
"Now then, Naruto, just take a rest, we got this." Satsuki spoke, cracking her knuckles, she wouldn't need any jutsu for these clowns.
"I *pant* didn't *pant* say, I was done!" Naruto yelled as he ran at the rain ninja and delivered a powerful punch into one of the rain ninja, sending him flying into his teammates, Naruto then drew his Kodachi, holding one blade to two of the rain ninja's throats and Satsuki holding a kunai to the third one's jugular.
Satsuki just looked at Naruto, seeing him still going on fighting.
"When did…just when did he get this good?" She wondered, she'd learnt that Naruto had more to him then meets the eye already but she'd always know she was better then him, that no matter what a real fight between the two of them would go the way it always had, with her victory, but now? She didn't know if her victory would be such a sure thing. And that possibility excited her.
"Scroll *pant* now!" Naruto demanded through labored breaths, it was an empty threat to be fair, he wouldn't just cut their throats for not handing over their scroll.
"J-just take it." One of them spoke, taking out a scroll, team seven breathed a sigh of relief seeing that it was an earth scroll, just what they needed.
"Y-you're not human, nobody can fight that long, make so many clones." The rain ninja said as Satsuki snatched the scroll from him, looking it over and not seeing anything odd with it.
"heh, well I just have a lot of chakra is all, nighty night." Naruto said smiling, he flipped his blades around and gave a harsh pommel strike to two of the rain ninja with Satsuki doing the same with the one she was holding down.
"And I'm as human as they come, bastard." Naruto muttered under his breath, only Satsuki barely heard it, she didn't think he was talking to the rain ninja exactly.
"Oh man, I'm beat, I really need a nap." Naruto spoke flopping back, he was utter exhausted.
"Well we don't have time to take a rest, we have a few hours for the deadline." Kabuto spoke as he picked Naruto up and slung him over his back, seemingly intending to carry him the rest of the way.
"Really? Thanks Kabuto." Naruto mumbled as he to quickly drifted off.
"No problem, that plan of yours really saved us all, plus you got my past one the teams laying in wait, least I can do." Kabuto said in a friendly tone.
After about half an hour of movement they finally reached the tower, Kabuto woke Naruto up who seemed to be doing better after a small power nap.
"Oh man I needed that, thanks Kabuto, you're team here?" Naruro asked getting off the man's back
As if on cue, two masked ninja with leaf village headbands appear.
"Ah. You made it then Kabuto?" One of them spoke, to which the silver haired man nodded.
"Yeah, with help from our fellow leaf ninja, speaking of, as another reward I'll let you guys in on a final piece of info. The third stage of the exams is always a tournament of one on one battles, the team part of the exam is over now, you may have to fight another member of your team, just a heads up." Kabuto informed then, Satsuki just smirked this is exactly what she had been waiting for, the entire reason she'd wanted to partake in these exams in the first place, the chance to fight the best of her skill group and come out on top, and hey, if she got promoted to chunin on top of it, that was good too.
"Thanks for the heads up Kabuto, we better head in before we run out a time you two." Sakura said, both of her teammates nodded and Sakura and Naruto waved to Kabuto as they entered the tower.
As the three entered the tower they were met with an empty room along with a large sign with some sort of phrase written out.
Sakura read it outloud, it seemed to be some sort of clue, she suggested opening both scrolls at the same time, seeing no other course of action Naruto and Satsuki each opened a scroll.
Satsuki however, recognized what was written on it.
"Naruto, toss it, it's a reverse summoning formula!" Satsuki spoke, Naruto just did as she said as smoke started pouring from the scroll, they landed on top of one another and in a poof as smoke Kakashi appeared before them.
"Yo, seems like you all made it." He spoke lazily to his team.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto cheered, happy to see the man after five days.
"Honestly I'm quite impressed with each of you, you all did amazing getting this far, however you were running low on time. You were almost late." Kakashi spoke, getting all three to deadpan at his words
"Like your one to talk." all three thought collectively, not believing the hypocrisy in THE Kakashi Hatake chastising someone for being late.
"Now, I'm meant to tell you some physiological lesson about how that riddles true answer is chakra and about gaining strength via training these two things, but I'm not good at all that, so I'm going a instead debrief you three about the man who attacked you in the forest." Kakashi spoke, his tone becoming deadly serious.
"Man?" Naruto questioned, they were attacked by a woman?
"Oh, right, you got knocked out when that creepy snake guy peeled off that fake grass ninja ladies face, he said he was in charge of the new sound village too, you know about him Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura explained, if anything that just made the snake man even more creepy to Naruto.
"Every higher rank experience ninja does, him being the leader of the hidden sound is news to us but originally he was a ninja of this village. His name is Orochimaru and he's probably the most vile missing-nin in the history of our village." Kakashi explained his tone deadly serious, what got Satsuki listening even closer was the statement that he was the worst criminal from the village, meaning, even more so then Itachi, but she was beyond bias.
"He is among the legendary 'sannin' or 'three ninja' named so by the infamous leader of the rain village Hanzo the salamander when they faced off against him during the second great ninja war. Meaning he was on the genin team overseen by the third Hokage, he's incredibly powerful, the only reason any of you are still alive is because he wanted you alive." Kakashi explained, now that got their attention, the most reviled criminal in the history of their village was a student of the current Hokage?!
"He was even a candidate for fourth Hokage, although he never received the position, it was later found out that he had been conducting all manner of inhuman scientific experiments, including those involving humans and even children, he is a very dangerous man, ranked as an S-class shinobi with a kill, capture or flee order in almost every country, all of you cannot speak a word of what happened involving him to anyone not briefed to know and you'll all have to give written statements, is that perfectly clear?" Kakashi finished, it was clear from his tone that the mere existence of this Orochimaru was very bad news, Satsuki hoped his presence wouldn't get the chunin exams canceled.
"Is he really that bad Kakashi-sensei?" Naruro asked, honestly quite freaked out that they had fought with an S-ranked criminal and lived to tell about it.
"He is, just hearing about some of the things he's done would make all of you throw up, multiple times. You are all lucky to be alive or not stuffed into a test tube." Kakashi spoke to them, why did this have to happen? For someone like Orochimaru to be targeting these kids, it wasn't fair on them, but Kakashi knew reality was anything but fair.
"Anyway, enough about that for now, you and the rest of the teams that passed have a ceremony to get to, to mark the end of the second stage of the exams.
All three wordlessly followed Kakashi, their mood collectively brought down by the knowledge that they had been targeted by an infamous criminal.
Kakashi stopped Satsuki by placing his hand on her shoulder, right on top of the mark, the area was sensitive, she winced slightly.
"Whatever he said, whatever he offered you, it is and will never be worth it, I hope you understand that, Satsuki." Kakashi said to her softly, honestly he was very worried about his student, he'd only heard stories from Anko when she'd had a bit too much to drink but the curse mark on someone like Satsuki, it truly worried him, he would do everything he could, to avoid losing someone else, he never wanted to see another name he recognized on that damned stone.
Satsuki just nodded.
But as she walked she thought about the mark this Orochimaru had given her, it had it downsides, she'd experience them firsthand in the last battle, but the power she'd had against those sound ninja, the sound of that cocky ones arms being torn from their sockets, the look of fear on Dosu's face, the feeling of the kunoichi's ribs buckling and fracturing from the force of her singular blow, she'd be lying if she said it didn't feel amazing.
Could she perhaps learn to control such a power? To aim it solely at Itachi? Could it let her see a look of fear on his face, and his screams of pain as she didn't just pull his arms from their sockets but pull them from his body and beat him to death with them!
.
.
.
The thought…wasn't entirely unappealing.
Going to end this one here bit of a shorter one but 5k+ words ain't small I'd say, I hope you liked seeing Satsuki dealing with the curse mark, as I've stated before this fic is definitely inspired by some of the all time female Sasuke greats, 'into the abyss' being one of them, one thing that happens in that fic is a rapid decline in Satsuki's mental health due to the curse marks influence, the same shall has started happening here (not exactly the same mind you), it brings out all the darker emotions and imbalances the user, not to mention the corrupted chakra is like a drug, so there's obviously, addiction, effects of usage, and going cold turkey is also incredibly dangerous. But more on that in future chapters.
Also got a question, would you all like to see Satsuki watching the prelims and should I write out all the Canon fights or just gloss over them?
I hope you all enjoyed please, follow,fav, kudo, comment and review. I read all of them and enjoy doing so. See you in the next one.
