The fight ended quickly, with Tsunade angrily flicking Naruto in the forehead. He'd practically flown across the town, the sound of his hollering still audible as he flew out of sight.
When he returned, he was bleeding and limping and unhappy. Tsunade refused to look at him.
"You're pathetic. You can't ever be Hokage when you're this weak, brat."
"That may be true, but I'll get strong, you'll see! Then you're gonna have to respect me, got it?"
"Yeah, yeah, brat." Tsunade sighed and looked at him for a long time. "You remind me of someone."
Naruto preened slightly. "Really!? Who? Are they amazing?"
"He's dead."
"Oh…"
They stood there awkwardly, blood still oozing from Naruto's split lip. "Clean him up, would you? Come here, Jiraiya, we need to talk."
Sasuke and Sakura exchanged glances while the dark haired woman cleaned Naruto up and the two adults vanished. It had been a long journey so far, but one of the more exciting journeys they'd ever been on.
That night, they were staying at the hotel. Tsunade had not agreed to come back with them but she hadn't threatened Jiraiya with violence in a promising enough way for him to actually leave her alone.
Jiraiya and Tsunade had spent a fair amount of time in the hot springs together, sipping sake and talking in low whispers. At first, the kids had come around curiously, floating like carrots in soup as they tried to eavesdrop on the two older ninja. Eventually, Tsunade got annoyed and instructed Shizune to take them out to do something else.
Naruto bickered quietly to himself, complaining about the pervertedness of it all. These comments of course went over the heads of Sakura and Sasuke, neither of which had any clue about the more debauched things of adult living for very different reasons. Before long they were laying on their bedrolls. Naruto was snoring loudly, his arm thrown up over his head. Sasuke was sleeping silently, curled up into a ball on his side.
Sakura stared at the ceiling. Discontent pooled in her abdomen as she thought about what Naruto had said earlier that day. She had lost her whole family. Was it worth it? What if she wanted to run away like Tsunade had? Where would she go? If she didn't want to be a ninja anymore, what would she do?
She was trying to imagine wanting to do anything other than being a ninja when a loud rumble shook the hotel. Sakura sat up straight, unsure if she had imagined the tremor.
Sasuke sat up as well, hand already clenched around a kunai. Sakura grabbed Naruto by the shoulder and shook him awake roughly.
He flinched, unused to the contact and pitched forward haphazardly. "My ramen!" His hands scrambled in front of him, trying to catch the bowl of soup he'd just been eating in his dream.
"Something is happening, Naruto," Sakura whispered. Her insides felt like a fraught rubber band, ready to snap.
They sat quietly for a moment. There was another tremor and the sound of someone screaming— obviously a civilian. The shouting grew into a frenzy and there was the sound of people running down the main road away from the inn.
Sakura crept over to the window. She was terrified but her need to know what was happening overrode the fear. She had tasted death and she wasn't sure if her boldness was her desire to live or her lack or a disregard for her own safety. She supposed it didn't matter.
There was a large figure close to the inn, swaying like a dragon. Sakura could see the twin green cloaks of Tsunade and Jiraiya billowing from where they were crouched on the wall. A figure was atop the head of the dragon-shaped shadow.
The dragon lifted its tail and slammed it into a wall. It felt like a vice gripped Sakura's heart and wrung the life out of her. It was no dragon. It was a giant snake. The book-worm side of her could clearly see the page on the history book that detailed the exploits of the Sannin in the Third Great Shinobi War and Orochimaru's giant snake summon Manda.
The wall crashed to the ground and all Sakura could see was the rubble where her parents had been found crushed to death. She could still see the colour of rust on the dirt where her parents' lives had leaked out of their bodies.
"What is it!?" Naruto squawked. At some point she'd crunched herself down into a ball next to the window. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to make him disappear.
"Who."
"What?" Naruto asked, confused. He ran over to the window and shoved his fingers between the blinds to peer out. His leg was touching her shoulder, he was so close.
"It's Orochimaru." She was breathing in sharp, angry spurts.
Sasuke rushed to the window, Sharingan swirling furiously. He pushed Naruto out of the way. Naruto swore and called Sasuke a bastard before yanking his ninja sandals on.
"That stupid snake killed my parents," she spat, already moving to grab her weapons pouch. She saw the dark-haired boy twist to study her out of the corner of her eye. She resolutely ignored him.
Naruto flapped his hands in dismay, unsure of what to do. "Why are you putting your sandals on Sakura-chan? I want to go help them but that… that doesn't seem like what you're doing."
Sakura stood up defiantly. "I'm going to go kill that man."
Sasuke scoffed loudly. "You can't possibly think that you're—"
"Don't say it!
"Sakura! You aren't strong enough. You will die."
"So be it. I can't live in a world where the man who took everything from me is still breathing the same air," she spat out, grinding her teeth together. She hadn't even been aware of the rage burning inside of her until she'd realized the cause of her parents' death and his annoyingly close proximity. Now it burned inside of her like a wildfire rushing through dry woods. She'd been angry this whole time, but had no direction for that anger.
She yanked the door open and ran towards where the Sannin were gathered. Now she knew what to do with her anger, and ran with all that attitude and intent of someone dead-set on pouring that frustration out like a liquid curse. Naruto and Sasuke were hot on her trail.
Tsunade's former teammate's arms hung limply at his sides, utterly useless. They swayed with his every movement like a terrible scarf.
"You know I'm enjoying this little gathering we're having," he crooned, licking his lips lecherously. "What a beautiful little reunion. It'll be just like old times, Tsunade."
"Oh, you mean like how you would abuse my affections and then run off after you got what you wanted? How refreshing, I missed those days," she ground out, her beautiful blonde hair whipping about her face when the snake's tail whipped through the air again.
Shizune was furiously casting Earth-style Jutsus at Orochimaru. Pillars of earth were stabbing up and out of the ground in the direction of the Otokage. Tsunade was breathing heavily as she recovered.
Jiraiya stood slightly in front of her, giving her cover. "I can't believe you were going to heal this scum's arms, princess." His fingers were twisting through a series of complicated seals.
"I can't believe I'm changing my mind," she snapped, "so don't tempt me into changing it back."
"Perhaps I can help with that," sneered a different voice. Tsunade twisted in time to see Kabuto appear next to Shizune. One of his hands was glowing with medical chakra, poised to cut into her niece's flesh. With the other, he reached into the pouch at his hip and pulled out a vial. He tossed it between him and Tsunade with an ugly chuckle. "I brought you a gift!"
The vial crashed into the ground like a bomb. Deep crimson spread out in a puddle of colour.
Tsunade shrieked and Shizune quickly dodged to the left and away from him. "Wild Lion's Mane!" Jiraiya shouted like the show man that he was.
His long white hair elongated and shot towards Kabuto in an effort to protect Shizune.
"Ah-ah-ah! Jiraiya-kun, I am your opponent. Let the children fight amongst themselves, eh?" Orochimaru crooned, and Manda's tail cast a shadow over Jiraiya as he prepared to crush his old comrade.
"Bastard!" Jiraiya swore, ducking and rolling to the side. He turned to see that Tsunade was still frozen in the same spot. "Tsunade!"
"Grandma Tsunade!" A shrill voice cried out. Relief and dread warred within Jiraiya as the orange blur connected with Tsunade's frozen form.
Manda's tail slammed into the ground and dust plumed up on every side. Jiraiya took that moment to press the advantage and darted toward the snake's head where Orochimaru was perched.
"Jeez, Granny, you really almost got crushed! Why didn't you move?" Naruto demanded.
"Naruto! She's scared of blood. It's a condition— she can't get over it!"
Naruto huffed and squared his shoulders. "Guess I'll have to kick their asses myself then. Get a good look Granny," he laughed, pointing to his behind. "Because you're gonna be kissing this later after I save you!"
"I wouldn't underestimate Orochimaru-sama… or me for that matter," Kabuto said in a dark voice as he adjusted his glasses. They caught the light in a perfectly disgusting way.
"You! You traitor. How could you betray the Leaf Village like that!? Now I'm really gonna kick your ass!" Naruto hiked his sleeves up, branding his fist at Kabuto.
Tsunade was suddenly reminded just how young he really was. Her heart ached terribly as he caused her to feel and to remember the young ones she had once known. She loved him inspire of herself, inspire of him,even.
"The same way people like Tsunade-sama can leave the village. What makes us so different?" Kabuto was bearing down on Naruto, his hands glowing with medical chakra. He caught the blonde boy on the shoulder and cackled in an unhinged shriek when the blood sprang forth. Naruto cried out in pain, clutching at his shoulder with his right hand.
"A-Avoid his hands, Naruto! The medical chakra will cut right through you!" Tsunade cowered behind him, staring at the blood. Damn her brain. She could end this little gray-haired brat in a moment if her body would just move.
Naruto created a large crowd of Kage Bunshins. "Don't have to tell me twice! Let's get you out of the way, Grandma!"
Half of the Naruto-crowd was sent to move her out of the way and the other half converged on Kabuto. Naruto hid himself amongst the multitude and worried. Where had Sakura and Sasuke gone?
"Let me go!" Sakura snarled, her eyes flashing with an expression Sasuke had never seen her wear before. He wondered if this is the way he looked to the others when he talked about Itachi. The thought made him uncomfortable.
"What do you want me to do? He is a Sannin, Sakura!"
"We both know that if it was you, you'd be charging in without a second thought. So let me go!" She heaved again, subconsciously flooding her muscles with chakra.
She yanked with one hand and swatted at him with her free hand. The surprising force behind her hand gained her some ground and she quickly pulled free of his grip. Spinning, she leapt into a tree away from him.
The rumbling caused by the giant snake was intensifying. Sasuke watched after her dumbly for a moment, unsure of what he ought to do. He realized she was right. He would be doing exactly what she was doing.
Half of him was terrified, not wanting to face Orochimaru again after what had happened in the Forest of Death. The other half of him that knew the terror of losing someone fought with the other. He couldn't imagine Sakura dying after all that they'd been through. Not after he realized she could actually be a friend who understood him.
The braver part of him one that internal fight and he found himself sprinting after her, determined to keep her safe even if just from herself. He couldn't sabotage this opportunity for her to pursue what she felt was justice— she simply wouldn't forgive him.
So he followed her, molding his chakra. It didn't take long to catch up to her. She was perched in a tree branch, her eyes critically appraising the fight in front of her. There was a sea of orange in motion down below.
Naruto was engaged in a fight with the gray-haired man (he faintly remembered that his name was Kabuto) with Shizune's help. Jiraiya and a smaller toad were trying to operate in some sort of pincer formation against Orochimaru.
Sasuke hissed, the cursed seal on his neck feeling hot. A sharp pain rippled down his left arm as the seal tried to activate on its own.
Sakura looked at him, sympathy mixed in with her anger. "You're not going to try to stop me are you?"
"No," he grunted. "I get it. I'll do my best to cover you. What's your plan?"
Some semblance of gratitude flickered across her face. She looked back at the field. Her eyes narrowed as she calculated. "You'll see, I guess."
She slipped off the branch gracefully, dropping to the ground below.
"Idiot, that means you have no plan!" Sasuke angrily clutched at his kunai. His hands worked furiously to combine the ninja wire to the loops on the handles of some of them and explosive tags to the flats of others.
She was already darting off to hide behind a wall that was crumbling.
Shizune's legs were burning with exhaustion. She was using high-level manipulation of the earth to skate across the surface and it was taking a toll on her quickly.
It felt like she had balloons in her ears, her heart was pounding so hard. Tsunade was surrounded by a crowd of bunshins, all of them hip to hip in a circular formation as they watched over her.
She was admittedly getting more and more concerned about their projected likelihood of survival. Naruto didn't seem to be tiring, but she could tell that Kabuto was running out of patience.
Shizune pressed in on Kabuto, clipping his right elbow with a blow that blocked his nerves. He didn't cry out in pain but he did swear in annoyance.
"Ha, take that four-eyes!" Naruto screeched. "Good idea, Shizune!"
Naruto threw himself forward, hands glowing. Wind chakra shot forward from his palms, cutting like razor blades into Kabuto's arm. A chunk of flesh flew off with a horrible sound.
Kabuto readjusted his arm sliced into Naruto's chest with medical chakra. Blood and smoke burst forth as the close popped.
"Careful, Naruto! He can sever your nerves with a strike like that!" Tsunade called out from the side. All the Naruto clones looked at her for a moment before nodding and brandishing a fist.
"You got it, Granny!"
Shizune rolled her eyes and pushed chakra into her legs again. If she could just get behind Kabuto, she could internally decapitate him with chakra.
Sakura palmed one of the kunai she'd prepared. It had taken her some time and a lot of supplies to set up the traps but she done it. As long as Jiraiya didn't get turned around, he'd be fine. Keeping her chakra completely suppressed while she was moving had proven especially difficult but her rage was a good teacher.
She signaled as best as she could to Sasuke and then charged forward with all of her spite. Orochimaru didn't even pay attention to her as he engaged with Jiraiya. If she could just get him in the occipital lobe….
She waited for an angle. Then she started throwing. When a kunai whizzed past his face, Orochimaru turned to her with an amused look.
"Normally it is the snake who plays with the mouse. What hope do you have against me, sneaky little kunoichi?"
Sakura didn't say anything, just kept throwing her kunai. He opened his mouth, probably to say something that he thought was funny. Sakura didn't wait to hear it, using her chakra to blow up the tags on the kunai. She dropped the hiding technique now that she'd been seen.
Orochimaru laughed and leapt backwards, away from them. Sakura threw a smoke bomb after him and substituted herself with a log close to him. She threw another kunai at him, missing him on purpose.
Jiraiya barfed out some kind of oil in Orochimaru's direction. Some of the oil landed on smoldering leftovers from her last explosion and the oil began to burn. Orochimaru's smile stayed put.
"Tell me, little one, where does your rage come from? Is this because of what I did to your little friend Sasuke in the Forest of Death? Where is he? I want to see him!" Orochimaru licked his ugly lips.
Sasuke shrieked from the tree line. Sakura resisted the urge to look at him, already certain that the cursed seal was hurting him. She wondered if Orochimaru could control that or if it just happened.
"You killed my parents! So now I'm going to kill you," Sakura said simply. Her eyes were wild but her voice was steady.
Orochimaru paused, tilting his head to the side. He looked thoughtful. "Pity. I didn't even know their names."
Sakura screamed and catapulted herself towards him, forgetting her plan in her rage. She was forced to stop when a ball of fire plumed up in front of her. Sasuke was leaning on his knees, taking a ragged breath.
He looked up at her with an expression she didn't understand. She had no time to waste, though. She darted towards Orochimaru, funneling chakra into her petite fists.
"I'd love to play with you more, but I'm afraid I don't find you interesting enough," said Orochimaru .
A long arm of hair yanked her away from Orochimaru. Sakura scowled, annoyed when she saw that Jiraiya had used that distraction to get in close. He assaulted Orochimaru with a barrage of kicks and punches unlike anything the Genin had ever seen in person.
The snake Sannin expertly dodged every hit, his body twisting and contorting like liquid. He leapt high into the air and practically unhinged his jaw. A snake emerged from the recesses of his mouth and fired down at Sakura.
She screeched and tried to get away from the offending snake. Jiraiya swore and lurched toward her, grabbing the snake by the tail and pumping it full of wind chakra. It immediately ribboned into strips of flesh and viscera. Sakura vomited.
Sasuke shouted in pain as his seal twanged again. Orochimaru was suddenly upon him, swinging his feet in a furious battery of blows. "Where is your passion today, Sasuke-kun. You're the one I'm interested in. Why aren't you interested in fighting today?"
Sasuke's fingers whirled and he breathed out fire, leaping away. Jiraiya spat bullets at Orochimaru and he was forced to deal with his old comrade once again.
"Orochimaru-sama!" Kabuto shouted in alarm. They all looked over to see that a cloud of smoke, deep purple in color, had formed in the area. Shizune was still churning it out, her fingers flying through hand-seals.
Sakura rose to her feet. Kabuto abandoned the fight he was in and lurched towards Orochimaru. "Your body won't be able to withstand this if you come into contact with it."
"Grab the boy," Orochimaru hissed. He cackled when Sasuke doubled over as pain radiated from the seal. Jiraiya's hair whipped out faster than the others could move and grabbed Sasuke, pulling him to himself. He tucked the boy under his arm like a sack of potatoes.
"You're out of your mind. Flee if you must, but you will not take him with you today," Jiraiya snarled. Sasuke was rigid with pain, curled backwards like a leaf.
"Kukuku, guess we'll just have to schedule another play date, Sasuke-kun!"
Orochimaru and Kabuto began to make their getaway, fleeing through the trees that Sakura had rather thoroughly booby-trapped.
There were some loud bangs as wires were tripped and bombs went off.
Sakura watched them go, body poised to chase after them. She knew it would be useless though. She was distracted by thoughts of revenge when suddenly she found herself yanked into the air.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Jiraiya demanded. His cheeks were red with anger, the lines on his cheek blurring into his skin. His right hand was fainted into the front of her qipao and she anxiously grabbed onto it with her own hands, trying to prevent the shirt from tearing.
"I—I wasn't… I realized when he attacked that he's the reason my parents are dead. I just— I didn't really—"
"Stupid girl!" She was crushed in a hug that left her toes barely scraping the ground.
Sakura didn't say anything. She just let him hug her.
Eventually he put her down. She purposefully avoided his gaze.
"Look at me." She did. His eyes were full of too many emotions for her to decipher how he felt about her right now. "You can't do this again. I know you think you've lost everything, but you have two teammates who just risked their lives for you because you needed to play revenge-hero."
Sakura nodded, looking away quickly. Tears welled up in her eyes and she tried to hold them in. Jiraiya hugged her again and she leaned against him as she cried, the tears making silent tracks through the dirt and grime on her face.
"I have to go check on Tsunade-hime, but then we'll talk as a team, okay?" Jiraiya pulled back and studied her face for a moment before patting her on the head. He smiled cheekily and she wondered if half of his pomp and ridiculosity was just a diversion. She wiped off her cheeks with the back of her hands and nodded at him before awkwardly clearing her throat.
Jiraiya wandered off to check on Tsunade and Sakura looked at her feet. Naruto was having a very loud and animated conversation with Shizune but exactly what he was saying was unintelligible.
"Hey." Sasuke looked at her shyly— God, she would have killed to see him with that expression a few months ago— and then rubbed at his neck. That's right, he was in a lot of pain. "I'm—"
"No, I'm sorry, Sasuke…" She refused to cry again. "I didn't think at all about the fact that he… I wasn't thinking at all about what he did to you."
She could almost swear he was blushing. He puffed out his lower lip and rolled his eyes. "I'm fine."
"I don't want to be like that. I don't want… I could have gotten you killed, Sasuke." Guilt rippled off of her like steam. "My revenge cannot get in the way of our team. This is the only family I have."
Sasuke looked at her for a long time. He didn't say anything; he mostly just looked a little confused and very thoughtful. "Let's go check on the idiot. Can't believe he lasted as long as he did against that gray-haired freak."
"Sasuke-kun, you know it's only because of Orochimaru's stupid seal that you weren't able to do a whole lot. We really gotta see if we can get that thing… What?"
Sasuke was staring at her like she'd grown another head. "What did I say?"
"You haven't called me that in a while." He gave her a dark look before walking away. She scampered after him, her voice coming out in a high squawk.
"Oh! I'm sorry, it's just an old habit, I'll won't do it again—"
"I missed it."
A/N: I am posting this from an airport in Qatar. I somehow don't think I'll fall off the face of the Earth again this season. I'm going to try, anyway.
I'm trying really hard to keep everyone in character as the plot departs from canon into AU.