Author's note: I had wanted to have several updates ready, but unfortunately I'm dealing with a heavy cold, sleep deprivation and life being shitty at this moment, so I didn't get as much done as I would have like to *sighs* I'll do my best to update more next week. In the meantime have the last part of this story!

Thanks to the following reviewers: ankwhat; TheBeauty; solitare1; Nellana; bridgettehairston23; richon; Ellasauras; IamEnVIOUS

Warnings: Drama; time skips; violence; implied character death; established slash; dark characters

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.

I hope you'll like this last part!

Part 3

The stunned silence which fell after the two men disappeared into the mall, on the prowl for the unknown visitors, was only broken by the muted snoring from some of the group. Sasuke looked entirely unbothered by the kiss, indicating that he was … used to it? The Alpha stood next to the door, his arms crossed, and his stare fixated at the small gap he had left between the door and the frame.

Sakura was too speechless with fury to say something; her anger strangling her voice, making her dig her nails into the soft skin of her palms. What the fuck had just happened? Had she really just witnessed that fucker kissing Sasuke? Even acting so casual about it as if nothing was wrong?!

"Well, I guess that explains why you two look so cosy nowadays," Karin remarked, clearing her throat softly. "You been dating for long?"

"What is long nowadays?" was Sasuke's rhetorical reply. He sounded almost absentmindedly, not even looking away from the door.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Sakura demanded; her skin prickling all over. She dug her nails extra hard in her palms, desperately hoping this was just a nasty nightmare, but the sharp sting flaring up informed her that no, no, this was unfortunately actually happening.

Sasuke finally removed his gaze from the door, only to frown at her. "Why would I need to tell you? It's none of your business who I date."

"It is when he's still a stranger to the rest of us!" she insisted, realising too late that her tone was too sharp, too confrontational. She didn't need Karin's warning scowl to tell her that!

The air in the room seemed to drop significantly when Sasuke fully turned around, giving her his fully undivided attention – in a way she had actually never wanted.

"First of all, how much of a stranger can he and Gaara still be when they have been with us for several weeks now?" he began coldly. "Just because you don't make the effort to get to know them better doesn't mean they're still strangers. That's entirely on you. Second of all, even if he's a stranger to all of you, he's been my best friend for years. He's not a bloody stranger to me. Again – and I don't repeating myself – who I date is none of your fucking concern. It's none of your damn business and it never will be! You got a problem with us, feel free to fuck off!"

"I – I didn't mean to - " she stammered upset, but he swiftly turned around, focusing all his attention on the gap between the door and the frame again, dismissing her entirely.

As if she hadn't been part of his group for more than a year already.

She opened her mouth – to plead? To argue her case? To apologise? She wasn't sure – but was roughly tugged away by Karin, who dragged her all the way to one of the back corners. Here it was nearly completely dark; the only slivers of light wriggling their way through the cracks in the ceiling. Sakura nary avoided tripping over somebody when Karin pushed her down just as rough onto the floor, swiftly sitting down next to her.

"You want to find out just how pissed off Sasuke-kun can become, be my fucking guest," she hissed, bending towards Sakura. "You know as well as I do that he doesn't bluff and that he doesn't make idle threats. You want to stay in this group, you'll have to accept that he's out of your reach for good."

"Like you haven't been trying to get with him!" Sakura sneered, recovering from the shock. "Don't act all high and mighty with me when you're - "

"Yeah, I've been trying to get with him but I'm also not a pathetic bitch!" Karin sneered, jabbing her finger into Sakura's arm. "I know when to give up and retain my dignity. I hope for your sake that you know how to do that too."

With that said, she laid down and turned to lie with her back towards Sakura. That move had Sakura seething and grinding her teeth together because Karin turning her back to her right after their argument was basically the bitch telling her she wasn't afraid of what Sakura could do to her. Like Sakura wasn't a credible threat in any way. She was itching to prove just how wrong Karin was to not consider her a threat in any way, but she couldn't. Doing so would at best see her kicked out of the group, at worst killed and neither option was preferable or appealing.

With her jaw clenched and her ears ringing, she laid down as well, staring up at the cracked ceiling. If she would lift her head, she could catch the outline of Sasuke still standing near the door, awaiting the arrival of the two other men. She didn't understand. She already hadn't been able to comprehend how the hell Sasuke had ever befriended someone like Naruto, but now they were actually dating? How the fuck had that Omega managed to convince Sasuke to date him? What was his damn appeal? How had that guy succeeded in just a couple of weeks what Sakura and other women hadn't managed in more than a year?

As sunken in her stewing as she was, she didn't hear the other men returning until the door suddenly swung open again, letting some more moonlight pour into the entrance of the room. The unexpected noise made her flinch, her heartbeat quickening, and she carefully lifted up her head.

"You found them?" Even as hushed as Sasuke's voice was, it still rang out clearly from across the room, even with all the muted snoring.

"Yeah, they're gone," Naruto confirmed. "We won't risk running into them when we leave."

"You saw them leave?"

"With our own eyes," Gaara stated flatly, helping Sasuke move the table back in front of the door. "They won't bother us."

"At least something that goes well for us," Sasuke sighed, ignoring Suigetsu's sleepy, "The fuck's going on now?"

"Hey, I'd say we can't really complain so far," Naruto said cheerfully.

Sakura really wanted to punch him.

"We're still alive, got food, weapons and decent shelter; we're not doing so bad now," the Omega continued lightly.

"Somehow I keep forgetting at times how optimistic you are," Sasuke sighed exasperatedly, causing Gaara to snort.

"Well, someone has to be the optimistic one and it's clearly not going to be you," Naruto said teasingly.

Even just hearing his grating voice made Sakura want to stab her own ears.

"Come on, let's catch some sleep; we've still got a while, I think, before we have to get up and get moving," the blond announced.

Even in the darkness of the room Sakura saw two of them meandering towards the back of the room, followed closely by the third man. Just the thought of that bastard cuddling up to Sasuke as if he wasn't doing anything wrong, as if he hadn't overstepped some major boundaries, made Sakura want to punch holes into the floor. She clenched her hands into fists and turned abruptly onto her side, squeezing her eyes shut.

As she listened to the rustling of clothes when the three men got settled again, she laid there stewing; her anger burning hotly within. If that bastard thought he could get away with this …

It took Sakura a while unfortunately before she came up with a way to deal with Naruto.

He was basically constantly hanging around Sasuke, rarely leaving him alone. She didn't understand why his constant presence didn't irritate the Alpha; how didn't he get sick of the Omega's never-ending presence? He wasn't even that nice to look at, so what? Was he using his scent or his pitifulness in order to keep Sasuke with him? That would explain a lot; there was no other way Sasuke would stay with him otherwise. Obviously Naruto was the type to just flit from one Alpha to the other in search of protection most likely. Gaara was an Alpha and Naruto had stayed with him up until they had come across the group; from then on he had latched onto Sasuke.

So clearly Naruto was latching on to the strongest Alpha he knew, using old bonds to tie them to him. It was smart, she had to give him that at least. As an Omega of course he would grab onto a powerful Alpha and not let go. This way he was guaranteed protection the whole time and didn't have to do anything himself. Smart – and so fucking aggravating. As a Beta she couldn't just use the allure that practically every Omega seemed to possess and she definitely wasn't going to play pathetic just to receive some attention; she had her dignity after all!

For days on end, she was forced to watch Sasuke smile and chuckle at whatever that bastard was telling him, stealing kisses whenever they thought nobody was watching to goddamn fussing over him when that idiot managed to somehow trip over a very obvious root, spraining his ankle. As if nobody had ever sprained an ankle or a wrist before! She couldn't decide what was more aggravating: watching Sasuke fuss over the blond or have that bastard acting as if it was annoying to have Sasuke caring for him!

"It's just a mild sprain, I'll be fine in an hour," Naruto had the gall to say dismissively, waving Sasuke off.

"If you keep moving around, it'll take longer than an hour," Sasuke threatened, pushing the blond back down when he made to get up.

"We can't stay here for too long," Naruto argued back. "This is a shithole; it'll do fuck all for us if another group finds us."

That was the only part Sakura was in agreement with him over: the building they were currently resting in could be described as nothing else but a complete shithole. Parts of the ceilings had long since caved in, letting daylight pour through the various holes; both the front and back door were missing, dumped in pieces outside; the walls were cracked to the point it was a miracle the entire structure hadn't collapsed yet and the windows were more shattered than whole. The carpet – if there was any – had been eaten away by moths or something else and the air was stale, almost rotting in some places. She was pretty sure she had even come across a couple of bullet holes in the wall near the first staircase. The majority of the furniture was no more: shattered a while ago, the pieces spread all over the building. Suspicious dark red stains could occasionally be seen on certain walls and in the bathroom upstairs.

No, this wasn't exactly a safe place to hunker down in for a while. If one were truly optimistic, one could claim that at least the walls standing up would provide some protection but where would you find someone that optimistic? They would never have entered a downtrodden place like this if it hadn't been for Naruto being an idiot and spraining his ankle, forcing Sasuke to drag their whole group into this building.

Sakura was starting to understand why other people in the past hadn't been fond of letting Omega become part of their groups; too much fussing that had to be done all because they weren't as tough.

"We haven't come across others for a couple of days now," Gaara remarked from where he was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. He stood right next to a broken window; his gaze occasionally flickering outside to check their surroundings. "I think we can risk a couple of hours before we need to leave and look for a more decent place."

"Don't blame me if shit does hit the fan within the next couple of hours," Naruto muttered darkly, releasing a very put out sigh when Sasuke snatched a mostly intact pillow from an armchair, placing it carefully underneath the blond's sprained ankle.

Sakura left the room then, unable to stand the continued fussing of Sasuke over that idiot. So he had tripped over a root like the idiot he was, big deal! Now their whole group had to wait here all for his sake? That little shit better hoped another group with bad intentions wouldn't come across them now!

"How's Blondie doing?" Suigetsu asked lazily from his spot on a kitchen table which had seen better days.

"Just a sprained ankle; he's not going to keel over," Sakura muttered, making her way to the garden.

Most of their group was inside, sprawled all over the various rooms. The building was a tad too big to have been a simple home, but it obviously hadn't operated as an office either. Maybe some sort of hotel?

The garden was overgrown naturally; weeds and wild flowers growing all over the place. Some branches on the ground had moss completely covering them from view and the small fountain looked rather pathetic with its base cracked and the jar missing from the mermaid's hands. If there had ever been a pathway in this garden, it had long since been hidden from sight by grass and weeds.

Tayuya looked up from her place underneath a tree. She brought her hand right above her eyes, shielding them from the sun. "Your medical knowledge no longer required?" she smirked, raising one leg.

Sakura rolled her eyes and huffed. "I doubt Sasuke-kun even remembers I'm the one with the most medical knowledge," she answered sourly.

She was far from a doctor, let alone a nurse, but it had been a dream of hers to become a famous doctor one day. She had been reading medical books and articles since she was fourteen, making her arguably the most equipped to deal with any medical emergencies that might pop up in their group.

Well, the most equipped one for everybody in the group – except for Naruto it seemed. Normally when somebody in their group was injured, people – even Sasuke – looked to Sakura for aid; that was how it had been ever since she had been accepted by the group. This was the first time her aid had been snubbed before she could even offer it. It wasn't as if she had wanted to help that fucker but the distinction that Sasuke obviously placed between the Omega and the rest of them rankled her. He wasn't in any way better than the rest of them so why was he clearly receiving preferential treatment? This was utter bullshit!

"Well, what did you expect?" Tayuya snorted, stroking a piece of her hair behind her ear. "It'd have been one thing if the Omega was only his best friend, but now they're fucking - "

Sakura grimaced.

"And so the rest of us have now been reduced to a mere afterthought," she continued and shrugged, stretching out her legs with a quiet groan. "Get used to it, Haruno. As long as the Omega is here, you'll be lucky if our dear leader will even look at you twice."

That was the thing, wasn't it? As long as the bastard was here, their group dynamics would be fucked forever. There was only one thing to do then: teach the fucker his rightful place.

It actually took another group trying to gain on them in order to steal their belongings for Sakura to get a chance to finally deal with Naruto.

In an attempt to disorient their new enemies, everyone scattered in different directions, forcing the other group to separate as well. In their haste to break apart, Sakura soon noticed that Sasuke had got separated from Naruto. Not only that, but Gaara was nowhere to be seen either and she grinned for a moment. They might be rather deep in the shit right now but this was also an opportunity she couldn't let slip through her fingers.

She followed Naruto all the way to a half finished office building. Rusted scaffolding still bracketed the place actually; a pallet of bricks left unattended for what might be eternity at this point. Naruto rushed inside the building, ducking underneath some ratty looking cloth. Shouting erupted somewhere behind Sakura and she pursed her lips, entering the building as well. Nobody had closely followed them, so it would be a little while still before anybody might encounter them.

The Omega apparently had no idea Sakura had been right behind him – which really, again just proved that he had latched onto Sasuke for protection, expecting the Alpha to keep him safe – because he jumped and whirled around when a floorboard groaned underneath her weight. He had a knife raised before he realised who she was and he sighed, lowering the weapon again.

"Sorry, didn't know you were right behind me," he apologised, treading over to an empty window frame to peer outside.

"No, I suppose if you expected Sasuke-kun to always protect you, you wouldn't know how to pay attention to your surroundings," she replied coolly, bringing her hand behind her back to retrieve her own knife.

That made him turn his head away from the window, frowning heavily at her. "Excuse me?" he said warily.

"You heard me; I know you're not deaf," she sneered and started walking towards him. "You think none of us can see what you're doing? Latching onto Sasuke-kun like that, bothering him constantly, you're really one big walking Omega stereotype. I'd say I'm surprised you managed to survive for this long but you did arrive with your friend in tow," she scoffed.

He narrowed his eyes, turning around completely now. "You're really going to start that bullshit?" he said unimpressed. "If you know Sasuke as well as you believe you do, you'd know there's no way I would be able to keep 'bothering' him if he didn't want it." He smirked then, leaning forwards slightly. "And trust me, he definitely likes me bothering him – every day, every night. Not my fault you're just one of the many, many women he has rejected so far. As for latching onto him – I don't need his protection. I don't need Gaara's protection; I'm doing fine on my own, thank you very much. Now fuck off while I'm still in a decent mood."

Then he had the balls to turn his back to her, going back to peering out of the window.

Big mistake.

With everybody separated, trying to throw off their pursuers, it would take a while before anyone would realise where she and Naruto were. Some of them – Sasuke, Gaara probably, maybe Karin or Suigetsu – would try to track them down by scent. After having been separated, though, and having to deal with a new set of enemies – who knew what could have happened? Everybody was carrying weapons nowadays; the only way to keep oneself safe. Nobody knew where they had gone to, nobody knew how many people had chased after her and Naruto. A lot could happen in the meantime.

A lot would happen.

In just a couple of big steps she was right behind him, raising her knife in a flash. She wouldn't even need to directly kill him. This close to the window, all she had to do was stab him with enough force to throw him out of the window completely. There was no scaffolding here to break his fall and they were on the third floor. He really had made a poor choice when he had fled into this building.

From her position behind him, she spotted some people rushing from underneath the cover of the trees, shouting angrily at each other. None of them belonged to her group, meaning she had five, ten minutes tops before she would no longer have a way out. She needed to act fast.

She brought her knife down at the same moment she thrusted her free hand forwards to push the fucker out of the window.

Sharp pain instantly blossomed when something hard connected violently with her face. Blood started pouring out of her nose, which felt broken, fuck, but before she could do so much as jump away, hands closed in an iron grip around her wrists, twisting both of them until she was forced to drop her knife with a painful gasp. The next second she was slammed against the wall; all the air driven out of her lungs when her back connected painfully with the rough wall.

"Motherfucker!" she raged, kicking out but missing him when he sidestepped her. "What the fuck do you think - "

"Sixty-one. You want to become sixty-two?" Naruto asked coldly; his blue eyes as hard as diamonds now.

She froze, the numbers mentioned distracting her from the throbbing pain in her nose. "What."

He brought his face closer to her and the grip around her wrists tightened to the point that she couldn't supress a wince when she felt her tendons protesting underneath the never-relenting pressure.

"I warned you, I don't need an Alpha to protect me," he hissed; his lips drawn back in a snarl. "I killed sixty-one people so far, all fuckers who thought they could take me on simply because I'm an Omega. Gaara? Oh, he's chomping at the bits because he's behind with three people now."

His empty grin turned his face almost skull like when he continued, "So I ask you again: you want to be the sixty-second person on my list? Because from where I stand, it really looks like you're begging for that, doesn't it."

She started shaking her head rapidly; a sliver of fear rising its ugly head for the first time in a long while.

"No? But here you were, oh so confidently about to push me out of the window, were you not?" he crooned, grinning coldly. "I have to give it to you: you're definitely one of the most rabid fans of Sasuke I have had the displeasure of dealing with in a long time. Used to be that they tried to bully me once they figured out how close I am to their precious Sasuke-kun but that was too lame for you apparently. Guess it's true what baa-chan said: morals truly went to shit after the world went to hell."

"I wasn't – I didn't - " she stuttered; her brain flatlining as she started to realise just how much danger she was in now.

She had made a big mistake.

"Yeah, that bullshit would have been more believable if you hadn't gone off at me and if I didn't just disarm you," he said unimpressed. "My patience really isn't what it used to be nowadays, my apologies for that, but I really do need an answer. You want to be the sixty-second one on my list? I'm sure Gaara won't mind being one more person behind."

"You can't – you can't – they'll know - " she stammered fearfully, shutting up when that only made him laugh.

His eyes shining with mirth, he grinned at her. "What will they know? That your luck ran out here when you got confronted by those fuckers? I'm guessing that's how you would have explained my disappearance, no?"

She kept quiet, too afraid to speak up, but something in her face must have given her away because he chuckled, smirking when she groaned in pain when he dug his nails deep into her wrists.

"Smart, but you really should have been faster," he told her patronisingly. "Or well, you really should have just accepted that you were never going to have Sasuke. It's nothing personal, I promise. I just really, really get annoyed when people try to kill me, you know?"

Abruptly he released her wrists but before she could make a dive for her knife, he swiftly bent down and –

Sliced through her Achilles tendons.

She fell over before the searing pain could fully register, shock dousing her like a bucket of ice water when she watched a pool of blood – her blood – rapidly expand around her. Then pain exploded, far worse than the throbbing in her nose, making her scream and cry as every nerve in her body was set on fire, turning her vision blurry with tears.

The last thing she heard before a stampede of footsteps started nearing the room she was in was, "Sixty-two; at least the list is even again."

Naruto was dragged into Sasuke's embrace before he could even fully register that the dark haired man was right in front of him. At once the scent of a relieved Alpha flooded the area, still tinged with fear and worry, and Naruto swallowed, hugging his Alpha back as tightly as he could.

"I'm okay," he said soothingly. "I'm okay; I didn't get hurt."

"Fuck, I lost sight of you. I've been trying to track you down but I couldn't find you," Sasuke said roughly, pressing a harsh kiss against Naruto's lips.

"I was hiding for a little while in an abandoned office," Naruto explained, rubbing Sasuke's back. "Had to wait for the ones following me to pass by before I could retrace my steps. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back."

"It's fine," Sasuke sighed, pressing his face briefly in Naruto's neck, inhaling deeply. "You're back; that's all that matters."

"Think we got rid of most of those arseholes," Gaara announced, cleaning his knife with a rag. "I don't recommend lingering here too long, though."

"We'll wait for one more hour to see if more people from our group show up," Sasuke decided as others settled down on the forest floor, looking exhausted. Still holding on to Naruto, he looked down at the blond and asked, "Was anybody with you when you got separated?"

Naruto thought about the pink haired woman he had left behind in the office building, incapacitated while her loud screams had attracted the attention of their pursuers. His bag felt a bit heavier with the stuff he had pilfered from her bag. He thought about how close she had come to killing him before meeting her own demise.

He rose up on his tiptoes to kiss Sasuke. "No, sorry, I didn't see anybody."

Nobody of importance anyways. He would feel some remorse if she hadn't tried to kill him first. As it was, it had become fairly easy for him: out of sight, out of mind. The group was better off without backstabbers like her anyways.

"I'm glad I got you back," Sasuke murmured later in their secluded spot underneath an old willow tree. He still held Naruto within his arms, between his legs, as if he was afraid that the moment he would loosen his hold, the blond would disappear.

Naruto smiled and twisted around to peck his mouth, surrounding them with his sweet Omega scent. "Don't worry, I'm a tough cookie. You're not going to get rid of me that easily."

And the ones who tried, well … He would have no problems extending his list past number sixty-two.

The End

AN2: Tough cookie indeed.

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in my future stories! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

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