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Hey everyone! Back with another upload for you guys. This was delayed a bit because I wanted to release it with the next chapter of Naruto Z. Fortunately for you all, they're both done now, so here's the upload! Naruto Z was lagging behind a bit, so I wanted to give it some love. In any case, I would just ask that those interested in that story be a bit patient about it as writing that story requires me mixing a lot of different dynamics and things that I haven't had to before (good for my development as an author), and those things can require a fair deal of thinking as well. That being said, I'm very glad to be able to release this chapter! This story has a nice little following and I know you all want the updates to keep rolling in. NaruSaku vibes and whatnot. That being said, please do enjoy it! :)
P.S. To the guest who wants this to shift to NaruHina, I have another story uploaded already that is NaruHina. It's called Looking Out to the Horizon. If you want a NaruHina story, that's all I can offer. As it relates to this story, I cannot make this story NaruHina as NaruSaku is already the established pairing. Also consider that while you say I should let Hinata have her man, some may say let Naruto have his woman (or any other combination). We all come from different perspectives and favor what we do for a reason. Also, that stuff you said about Sakura hating Naruto and wanting him to die is confirmed non-canon lol. A lot of the other stuff you said is also just your opinion, but you're entitled to that, and I won't take that away from you. That being said, I think it's best if we just agree to disagree. You stick with your pairing, and I'll do the same.
Also, NaruSaku AND NaruHina fans are both Naruto fans. :)
Got Your Back
They had barely had time to enjoy their familiar flow when they got the call – a band of terrorists making trouble in the Sand. Gaara had asked for Konoha's very best, and that meant Team 7. He said he wanted the problem dealt with swiftly to dissuade future idealists; they shared his sentiment and set out the same day. With his status as Kazekage, he couldn't go out and handle the problem himself, but they had no such restriction, so Sakura, Kakashi, and Naruto had packed up and set out in the night.
First it was the forest with its dark greens and muddy browns, a lingering smell of woodsy musk encroaching from all sides as the tree branches carried the weight of fleet footed three. Next it was the sand with its dusty grains and blistering violent winds. Day had broken by the time they got there, and the sun sat halfway to the apex of the sky, the land ahead of them dancing in squiggly waves of heat as the dust and dirt swirled all around. Yet they had come prepared, their usually barren faces clad with plastic goggles and bandana masks. Only Kakashi's looked at home. Naruto had bothered Sakura about hers. It was a dull pink thing with simple white tracings, yet he'd still found a way to throw some dirt around, calling her the Pink Bandit of all things. The nerve… She had, in turn, taken to making fun of his desert garb as well. It wasn't too hard. He wore an orange mask with thin white markings similar to hers, and the frames of his goggles were a dingy green reminiscent of those from his childhood. She called him the Fashionless Dumbdit. Felt pretty proud of it if she was honest, that is until he turned it back around on her and said pink on pink was a crime, and that she should know that as a girl, and blah, blah, blah, blah, freaking blah. The argument that ensued was dumb and much too spirited for either of their tastes, but they had indeed argued it. Kakashi had been silent through the whole thing, an apparent shadow to their mild bickering. Only when they reached the area where the group had been spotted did he raise a hand to signal they stop.
"This is where the group has been active!" he yelled over the rushing wind.
"How do you know?" Naruto asked loudly.
Kakashi looked at him with an overly lazy stare that was visible even through his goggles then let his eyes travel to the desert sand. Naruto picked up on the cue and let his eyes do the same. At the sight of fresh footprints lining the sand, Sakura could sense the sweatdrop beading on his temple.
"Oh!" he yelled, the green goggles darting back up as the corners of his mask stretched upwards on one side. "Guess I didn't notice that!"
She held her peace, unwilling to acknowledge that she hadn't seen them either. Some ninjas they were...
"Hm!" Kakashi said loudly, looking forward and pressing on as if it weren't a big deal. "You all have been distracted lately!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Sakura could feel her eyelids blinking a bit quicker than usual, and what was that slight discomfort building in her stomach. Ok, fine, she knew what it was! She may have missed the footsteps in the sand, but she was no slouch as it related to picking up on Kakashi's subtle jabs.
"Huh?!" Naruto said. "I don't think so! Just got caught up talking, that's all!"
"About nonsense!" Kakashi yelled back.
"Nooo!" Naruto whined, speedwalking up to his side. "It was important!"
"Oh!" he said simply, casting a glance at Sakura with what she could swear was a tiny smirk stretching one corner of his mask. Her eyes widened immediately at the implication of his actions and she could feel her face heating even amidst the desert wind.
Quickly fidgeting with her backpack straps and keeping her head up as if her lips hadn't gone dry, she answered, "You're always making a big deal out of little things, sensei!"
"Yeah!" he yelled back. "Guess so!" his gaze falling forward as he kept walking.
She could feel the redness and heat covering her despite the drops of sweat and her only consolation was the fact that Naruto was looking ahead, apparently having focused up a bit due to what Kakashi said. He wouldn't be able to see her face flush through the mask anyway, but she would've hated even having him look at her. Either way, he conceded the point before she could think of an appropriate response.
"Ok!" he yelled. "You got us, sensei. Sometimes we talk too much!"
"Sometimes?!" he yelled. "Nowadays, it's more like all the time!"
I could feel myself recurling within my own body as Naruto's pout increased, his bottom lip jutting out as he posed his question. "What are you trying to say, sensei?!"
With a roll of his eyes, he answered, "Well, since I have to be the Captain Obvious to you all's Captain Oblivious, I think all you two are missing is a ring right now!"
The blond brows hovering near the top of his goggles had to have jumped up at least half an inch, and within myself I could hear all the alarms going off as flashing red and yellow filled my panicking soul, the loud ERNHT! of my internal alarm starting to go haywire in very frantic bursts.
"Heyyy!" Naruto drawled.
"Don't hey me!" Kakashi answered. "You two have been orbiting and ogling each other the better part of this trip! And don't think for one second that little argument you two just had is fooling me either! As far as I'm concerned, you all are two steps away from madly in love!...or maybe three steps past old married couple."
"Sensei!" I screeched. "That's not true!"
Somehow I could see Naruto's blush under his mask. It was pretty funny seeing as I knew it was impossible. Quite coolly, he answered, "I'm not really sure what you're talking about!"
"Oho!" Kakashi said, eyeing me from the side as he kept walking. "Yeah! Right!"
As I tried to somehow hide amidst the desert sands, I could hear Naruto tossing out a sneaky jab. "Well, if we're discussing our love lives, why don't you go and give it a shot with Shizune?! I heard she's single and available to date old creaky men with gray hair!"
Quite intentionally, I chuckled, at the same time breathing a silent sigh of relief at the clever deflection.
"Hm!" Kakashi said, eyebrows faintly rising and falling. "If you ever make a joke like that with me again, I promise to A) Tell Shizune so she can beat you up! B) Tell Tsunade so she can beat you up some more! Then C) put my hip back in place and give you a personal butt-whooping myself."
I stifled a mild snicker and Naruto never backed down.
"Ooooh!" Naruto said. "Threatening assault! Lucky we can't see you blush under your mask!"
I could feel my grin stretching at the corners and I reveled in the fact that the shoe was on the other foot. The real kicker though was the slight smirk I could see tickling one side of Sensei's mask.
The sharp whizzing of an object cutting through air was lost on me, though it faintly registered in the back of my mind.
"Sakura!" I heard Naruto yell. I had barely turned when I felt him plowing into me, those familiar arms wrapping me up and refusing to let go as I was tackled to the ground. A series of heavy grunts left his throat as we rolled across the sand, the heated grains feeling like burning iron against our skin, the world spinning into a flurry of violent sands and rushing winds.
"Ugh!" he finally cried as we landed in a cloud of dusty beige, my carefully cradled body resting on top of his. From his throat, I could hear a series of hoarse coughs, and they emanated from my core just the same. Quickly shaking my head to awaken my senses, I could feel my heart racing as I jolted up, my mind filling with panic as I spotted an array of heavy gashes lining his left arm and torso, blood pouring out from them like some newfound spring. My breath was quick, short pants, and I could feel my eyes go wide.
"They were shuriken," he groaned to say. Grimacing, he looked down at a particularly bad gash along his arm that appeared a straight line. "Maybe a kunai or two..."
Snapping myself out of my panicked trance, I just about commanded, "Use the Kyubi!"
"Mmm," he groaned, shaking his head back and forth. "I tried to activate it the moment I realized you were in danger. Didn't work. I think they shut off my chakra system somehow. Probably yours too."
Holding my hands over him in a rush, I tried to use my chakra to heal the wounds. When nothing happened, I could feel my heart drop.
"Don't worry, Sakura," he said mildly. I could barely hear him over the rushing winds. "We're gonna be okay," he finished, grimacing as he tried to sit up.
"I'm sorry," I said. "If I had clocked those shuriken-"
"You can beat yourself up later," he said. "Right now, we gotta fight this out."
"But you're hurt," I said, letting my eyes plead for me.
"Not the first time, probably not the last."
"I-I-I-" Looking away and at a loss for words, I finally finished, "I'm just...I'm-I'm sorry," trying to fight the moisture I could feel building behind the goggles I wore.
"Sakura," he said, cupping my face among the twisting winds and turning me to face him. "We've got this, right?"
Through the goggles, I could see the dark blue of his eyes fixing me for a reply, that same care and concern I always saw from him now on full display. With a few blinks and a flurry of resolute nods, I let the passion we shared leak into the greens of my own. "Yeah."
"I've got your back, right?"
I nodded through the desert sands. "And I've got yours."
The corners of his mask turned up slightly. "Good."
All at once, what felt like a wild rushing of wind exploded near our feet and all around. The violent winds and raging sands disappeared in an instant, almost like some great hand from above had blown them away with a single wave of the hand.
When it all cleared, the land was an open dusty plain, two men and a girl clad in mostly black standing some thirty feet away from us, each of them wearing a mask that resembled those of the ANBU. Yet their gear looked much less ninja and much more something else. A light black armor wrapped their bodies, and the black pants suggested a more roguish look. They still had headbands though, yet with no symbol engraved on the face, just a blank silver plate. One man stood out from the rest; I assumed he was the leader. Besides being a bit more built than the other two, his mask featured an array of jagged teeth smiling as its design.
"Well, well, well," the other man said, pulling off his gray mask and pair of dark blue goggles. "Look what the sand dragged in."
The woman scoffed, a distinctly red bandana that loosely wrapped her neck helping her stand out from her male acquaintances. "I don't know how may times I've told you told to stop using those cheesy lines. You're making our operation look like a joke."
"I mean, it's not like they're gonna tell anyone. They're gonna be dead soon. You hear that? D-E-D. DED."
"D-E-A-D," the other man corrected.
"Man, I know what I'm saying!" he retorted.
"So you guys are the ones who've been causing trouble, huh?" Naruto said, somehow already hunching over on his feet and holding me up at his side despite his injuries. I placed a steadying hand on his chest and supported myself as best I could, his weight leaning slightly on me.
"Trouble's for rookies," the more serious man said. "We wreak havoc."
"Heh," Naruto scoffed lightly. "Well, just a heads up that, in our time as ninja, we've wreaked some havoc of our own."
"Tch," the man scoffed. "Please. You're gonna seriously sit there telling me that while standing there cut up like a piece of sushi? You didn't clock a flurry of shuriken because of basic sand coverage. It wasn't even a jutsu. Rookie mistake."
I felt a pang striking my core. It wasn't Naruto who hadn't clocked them...
"No, I actually did," he responded. "It's just that basic sand coverage doesn't quite cover what you all did. You guys also hit our chakra systems. Kinda hard to react right if I can't move like I usually do."
At that, a sly grin stretched onto the man's lips. "Heh," he laughed. "Nice. Not bad. Maybe not so much of a rookie after all."
"He's still sushi boss," the other man said.
The chuckle Naruto gave was one I'd heard many times before, and one I knew meant he knew he had the edge.
"What's so funny?" the girl with the red bandana asked.
"Well," Naruto said as the chuckles died down. "Let's just say this piece of sushi can give you a whole lot more trouble than you realize."
"Uh, remind me, who are you again?" asked the man with a mask of jagged teeth.
"Naruto Uzumaki."
The moment the name left his lips it felt as if the desert scene had somehow fallen even more still, a silent whistle echoing on the plains, and the air around suddenly feeling darker, the only missing piece being a rolling ball of tumbleweed spinning between our two groups. I inwardly reveled at the way their bodies froze ever so slightly. Not so fun when the shoe was on the other foot.
"You're...Naruto Uzumaki?" the one who had said we'd be ded asked.
"The one and only."
"And the girl," the third almost stuttered. "She's got pink hair."
"It's that Sakura chick!" her formerly joking teammate replied.
"The heck are you all doing in the Sand?" the leader said seriously.
"You pissed off the Kazekage," I replied. "Let's just say we're all friends in high places."
"That Sasuke guy," the ded ninja trembled. "He's not here too, is he?"
"Heh," Naruto scoffed. "Nah, if he were here, you all would really be in trouble... Ah, what the heck. You all are in trouble anyway."
"Alright," the leader said. "You've made your point. But the truth is that the both of you still don't have access to your chakra systems, and that just means Sasuke'll get the message nice and clear once we wipe the floor with you."
"I had my name before the fox, and she didn't get her name by being a pushover."
"Well, before you all got here, we were making a bit of a name for ourselves, so we're not backing down because you all have done a little thing here or there."
"You hear that Sakura? A little thing, and here or there."
"Oh, I hear," I replied. "Sounds very similar to what a lot of other people have said before we wiped the floor with them."
"When this is all over," he said, dropping into a battle stance. "We'll see who leaves a stain."
Immediately, I could hear Naruto whispering only loud enough for me to hear. "We go for instant KOs, or lots of damage. We're already at a disadvantage, let's not play around."
"Yeah," I nodded silently.
"Gonna be harder without our chakra systems at a hundred percent, but we'll manage."
"Like always," I grinned.
His grin matched mine for only a moment, then our gazes fell forward, my shoulder leaving his chest as I let him stand on his own. Then came the furrowed brows and the both of us taking our stance for the coming battle.
I couldn't tell if the leader was smiling under that crazy mask, but I could see the furrowed brows even from here. He was focused. No doubt he'd be the main problem if this fight dragged on. I knew instinctively that Naruto had already perceived the same.
"Team," he said suddenly. "Let's show 'em that we rule the sand."
In an explosion of sand and dust, they launched from where they had been, the adrenaline of battle hitting me all at once. But something was already wrong in their camp. The moment they had started rushing us, two hands had shot out from the ground and grabbed the ded man's legs. I couldn't stop the slight grin coming to my lips, and Naruto's lips did just the same. Scoffing a bit, he said, "Great job, old man."
The ded ninja fell to the ground facefirst, eating sand for days, and probably inhaling it too. The other two had to be at least fifty feet away by the time it had happened, the both of them looking back mid-dash to witness the scene. I could see their eyes go wide - me and Naruto capitalized without hesitating.
"Assumed the two people talking to you were the only two here?!" Naruto screamed, already dashing forward with one fist cocked back. "ROOKIE!" he finished, slamming said fist into the leader's face. Despite the punch lacking its usual overflow of chakra, I could hear the sharp crack of it slamming into the man's face, and split seconds later, mine had done the same, the girl with the red bandana sent into a tumbling spin along the sandy plain. The mounds of beige sand were soon stained with blood, the red drops staining the ground beneath their bruising faces.
The leader had an open slit near his jaw where Naruto had punched, drops of blood oozing forth as the purple area started to swell and hang. Bandana girl was a little worse, her nose caved in awkwardly and mostly a bruising, bloody mess. The third guy who'd had his ankles grabbed by Kakashi was laid out on the floor some distance away. I didn't even see when he had taken him out.
None of it mattered. Me and Naruto were still rushing, and Kakashi lay somewhere beneath the sand, a lurking poison to the enemy side.
A guttural growl left the leader's throat, and he spun to look at Bandana Girl who stood at his side. "We need a heatwave! Now!"
Before we knew what was happening, one of her hands had fallen into the trademark jutsu sign.
"Dang it!" Naruto screamed, a kunai already spun out and flung towards her midsection where her hand lay. But the leader had a jutsu of his own.
With a quick raise of the hand, the sand right in front of her shot up into a wall, the kunai clanging against the surface and falling to the ground.
"Heh, heh, heh," the leader chuckled, his grin now wide, crazed, and apparent even under his mask. "Remember what I said about you all getting beat by basic sand coverage that wasn't a jutsu...I LIED!"
His hands fell into a flurry of hand signs too fast to perceive, and ending on a tiger, he grinned like mad. "Go, Living Sand!"
From his right side shot a flurry of sand, the storm of whirling chaos headed straight for me and Naruto.
"Split up!" he yelled.
He backflipped his way and I darted mine; I watched the leader well to see what happened next. There was a slight squint in his eyes, then it disappeared. The whirling of sand made a sharp right and started to follow Naruto. So he can't track two targets at once and he has to maintain focus while he tracks the one...
But suddenly my thoughts started to get away from me, a headache striking me from out of nowhere as the land started to dance in squiggly waves. The heat... It was unbearable... Looking down at myself, I noted that my clothes were a darker color as they clung to me, the red a damp burgundy and the gray a darker shade, almost every fiber of them drenched in sweat. It was then that it hit me, and I spun around in a frenzy, pink bangs jostling everywhere. That girl with the red bandana. The leader had told her they needed a heatwave. She had been standing there with her hands in a rat sign since that very moment.
"UGH!" I grunted, stumbling into a run after her. "Got me sweatin' in this 1,000-degree heat!"
Her eyes widened immediately, and I knew exactly why. She was about to deal with an angry Sakura Haruno, and it was even worse than she thought. Yet I shouldn't have been so naive...
I had only made my way halfway to her when my reflexes kicked in, a sudden backflip the only reason the whirling of sand hadn't slammed me to Suna. With a sharp gaze, I eyed the whirling storm. It hadn't gone ten feet past me when it cut back at a sharp angle, a rolling jump to the side the only reason I hadn't been bodied.
I shot a glance at the leader and saw he was now looking at me. Great...
In the short span of time between my jumping roll, staring down the leader, and the sand's next angled attack, I found Naruto, the distance making him appear a statue of orange with his head of blond hair.
"The girl!" I yelled. "The heat is a jutsu from the girl!"
I fell into a forwards roll avoiding another swipe, then checked to see if he had heard. He faced forward, and his eyes fixed the girl through his furrowed brows. Like a dog released from his leash, he darted off in her direction, small puffs of dirt under his shoes as he ran with quickness, arms flared out behind him as he sped the desert plain.
"GUESS I'LL JUST HAVE TO MULTITASK!" the leader screamed. Going through another flurry of handsigns, he ended in a ram. "Heh, heh, heh..." he chuckled lowly.
Suddenly, another whirling of sand shot out of the plain a short distance behind Naruto. With a sharp whistling of wind it launched right towards where he was about to be. With a sharp grunt, he sidestepped and fell into a roll, losing his footing for a bit then recovering and falling into a run. Only problem was he was now going in the wrong direction, and my current backflip was a not so easy to miss reminder that I was busy as well. The leader was defending her, and without our chakra systems, we weren't getting anywhere near her.
"Oh, yeahhhh!" the leader screeched. "Floor's getting wiped, pretty boy!"
We only had one option – Kakashi. Where was he? As I dodged the violent rush and horrid swipe, I tried to sense him beneath the plains. When I did, I felt a small wave of relief. He was closing in. Underground. Silent and swift. Like the poison I knew he'd be. He had almost reached her when I heard the leader speak again, his words filling me with an uncanny dread.
"OH, I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TOO, OLD MAN!"
For a split second, the sand chasing us stopped and on the field near the girl came a giant rushing of sand from the ground, the front of it forming a spike that hardened like solid rock.
"OLD MAN KABOB, COMIN' UP!"
The spike swirled into the ground like a violent rage, crashing in at the exact spot I sensed Kakashi had been.
"Sensei!" me and Naruto screamed.
Among the rushing of wind and violent sands, I made out a log flying through the air, splinters of wood darting out at various angles as the sand wave raged. Only then could I breathe my sigh of relief.
In a flicker, said sensei appeared at my side, a large gash running down his left arm as he heaved in breath after breath, one eye almost closed, the other squinting in the heat and wind.
"I thought he may sense me coming, so I planned for a substitution jutsu," he said through breaths. "Still got clipped though."
"Yeah," I said silently, eyeing the gash that I could usually so easily repair.
Naruto appeared at my side in a flicker and looked Kakashi over. "You ok?"
"Been better," Kakashi said.
"We've got a serious problem," Naruto said, looking forward.
"Yeah," Kakashi answered, eyes looking across the field. "The girl is using a jutsu that's cooking us alive."
"It's gotta be at least 150!" I said.
"We can't keep going like this," Naruto said. "Eventually, we're gonna pass out and this fight is over."
"Nobody's passing out," Kakashi said.
"Ever heard of heatstroke?" I asked sarcastically.
Naruto sighed. "I don't know what to do. Without my chakra, I don't think I can get to this guy."
"You can't use any at all?" Kakashi asked.
"Not enough," he said. "Maybe, like, five percent."
"Is any of that Kurama's?"
"Nah, whatever they did put him to sleep."
"So just five percent Naruto Uzumaki..."
"Exactly."
"Hey!" the leader yelled out, a wide smile evident even under his mask. "What's wrong with y'all over there?! Y'all look like y'all are melting!"
"And we're not gonna waste any breath talking to you!" Kakashi yelled back.
"Heh, heh, heh," he chuckled. "That's nice! I like it! But y'all are going down whether you talk to me or not!"
Neither of us said a word.
"Ok!" he yelled. "If that's how y'all wanna play it!" That annoyingly cocky grin returned and then the hand signs took hold.
This time, three whirling mounds of sand emerged from the desert floor and we braced ourselves as they headed our way. But it was then that the puzzle became clear in my mind.
"I have good chakra control."
Naruto and Kakashi both looked at me, the puzzle still a jumble in their minds. "What's that got to do with anything?" Naruto asked.
"Maybe five percent isn't enough for you, but it might be for me..."
The whirling of sand grew closer and the sounds of dust mingling with wind in a violent swirl drew close. Through it all the blue eyes fixed me and wouldn't look away. "Whatever you do, if you use all your chakra, you're gonna pass out."
I responded with a quick nod. "I trust you."
Looking over to Kakashi, he nodded once and said simply, "My chidori will be ready."
"Five percent Chidori?" Naruto asked.
"Like Sakura, it will be enough."
"Then I'll have five percent Rasengan as a backup."
The two stared at each other for less than a moment before Naruto turned away to the whirling storm. "Ok, team," he said, the wild rush of sand now in front of us. "Let's do this."
With a sound like a whirlwind within a tornado, the first whirling of sand slammed down on where we had been standing and we split into three, each of us making our way towards the leader through a series of dodges and sidesteps and tricky rolls, but he was never the aim...
I was almost in range. It was a technique I had used many times before and one so startlingly simple, yet it was just what we needed in this clever ambush of theirs, and if I maximized that five percent of chakra I had left, it would be just enough to do the trick.
The three of us kept on pushing, but making progress was the name of the game. Kakashi and Naruto had already been pushed back a bit, and the wild rushing in front of me had just made me lose ground, on top of it, it felt like the world wanted to start spinning again at any moment. "Ugh," I groaned, the heat all around nearly making me collapse to my knees. With a violent shake of my head, I tried to chase the spinning away.
"Keep going, Sakura!" Kakashi yelled.
"Yeah," I groaned lightly, trying to set my gaze forward to continue on, but the whirling of sand was imposing, and only when it had reached me did I realize I didn't have the strength to carry on. I could feel the blast hitting me full-on before it ever did. A mildly loud thud echoed all around, and I knew I'd been hit.
"Ugh!" I groaned, a faceful of sand the first signal that I had lost the progress of at least thirty feet. Spitting out the small grains that had gotten to my mouth, I tried to look at the bright side of things. At least with the faceful of sand, I was awake now. Yeah, most definitely awake.
With another grunt, I ran forward, ready to dodge the rushing of wind coming so fast, but then came a familiar yell, and that modded orange jumpsuit I knew too well.
"Hyahhh!" he screamed, one leg extended as the kick dissipated the rushing of sand into nothing, the sun curling around his twisting form and forming the familiar visual of a nin mid-kick. In the rushing and swirling and torrid heat, dark blue met shaded jade and a single nod was shared.
Falling into a slide anyway, I used the momentum to pop up and cover more ground than I had lost. With a groan of pain, I pressed on, my run more crazed than anything. The leader seemed to notice and did exactly what I'd wanted, a swirling of sand sent my way from some distance in front of me. I waited til the very last second, then with a deft tumble, rolled under the swirl and dashed to the right. Where I ended up was exactly where I wanted to be, around fifty feet from our little living toaster.
"CHAAAAAAAAAAAA!" came the crazed yell from my mouth as I lifted one foot high, the pink bangs wild as the frenzy of my attack took hold. The leader seemed to realize my plan then; I could sense his cocky grin fading to nothing. Without remorse, I let my foot come slamming back into the ground, a sound like twisted thunder sounding all around as the earth beneath split in two, a twisting crack traveling along the ground until it had reached the girl in question, her eyes wide and watching it the whole time. Then came the visual of resounding success, her lithe form popping out of the ground like a cork on one of Tsunade's very many Sake bottles, and that stubborn hand sign coming undone.
With a faint grin and chuckle, I said, "We did it..." Then the world started to shake and spin, the overhead sun seeming to beam brighter and brighter as a brilliant white lulled me asleep. Before I fell unconscious I felt a pair of strong arms grabbing me, and heard the familiar sound of a whistle of flickering electricity winding up.
Author's Note:
Another chapter down! And a pretty fat one this time. The chapters have been shorter so far while carrying a level of depth based on what's happening within the story. Glad this longer chapter came along though. With Naruto and Sakura facing something together, things take a more serious turn, and we get to see some of the things lingering between them that make them the powerhouse duo they are. We also see some of what has been built over the years (a nice little reference to the fic title). Hope you all liked it! I'm a bit of an action junkie so I enjoy writing fights like this. Writing in the little nuances of the relationship between them and Kakashi was just icing on the cake. Hopefully, you all enjoyed reading this just the same! If so, please leave a review! It would make me very happy. :) Alright, until next time. Peace.