A/N: Chapter 21 here we are! MY LEAST FAVORITE THING TO WRITE.
FIGHT SCENES.
UGH.
Coherent battles are NOT my strong suit. At least not fast-paced ninja style battles. Give me strategic headgame battles any day.
The last time I had to write a hectic fast paced battle I killed one of my main characters. It was an original fic (that I STILL need to get edited), but still. I LIKE PLANS. I'M A PLAN GUY. I'M SOKKA NOT TOPH I DO NOT JUST DO THE FITES I PREFER SLOWER STUFF AAAAAAAAAA-
Good news tho, my sister thinks me talking about her in my author notes is cute. Yee~
But anyway, thanks for reading! Sorry again for the delay on chapter 20! And seriously, thanks to everyone who keeps reading this ridiculous fic of mine, you guys are all awesome.
"Maa, I'm afraid I can't do that." Kakashi chides idly as he pulls up his headband, revealing a blood-red eye with black markings spinning slowly. Sasuke stiffens sharply by Natsu's side, and the pinkette smells pain coming from his teammate.
Vaguely, Natsu remembers a conversation about Kakashi having a transplanted eye unique to Sasuke's family.
He wonders what it would be like, to look at a stranger and see a relative's eye staring back at him, one they clearly weren't born with.
"Ohoh, being taken seriously from the start? I'm honored." Sword-guy says, voice thick with amusement. He disappears in a blur then, sword and all, and Kakashi falls into a ready stance without hesitation.
Regrettably, Natsu joins the rest of Team 7 in a defensive position around Tazuna as a thick mist springs up from nothing, smothering the battlefield.
Natsu doesn't have dragon scales, not in this body, and even when he could coat his skin in them Erza's swords could still slice him up if he wasn't careful, so he pulls a kunai out of his pouch, even as he closes his eyes.
Visibility is next to nothing in the fog, and sound echoes oddly as a thick bloodlust rolls over them like a choking wave, but Natsu has other senses he can rely on.
The bloodlust isn't as bad as the old Hokage-guy's, but it's still there, a thick, cloying promise of death to anything that moves. Behind him, he feels the client trembling, and wonders if the man's sensitive, or if the Zabu-guy is just that powerful.
Kakashi's voice rings through the fog, reassuring.
"Sasuke. It's alright. He won't touch you."
To his side, Natsu hears Sasuke gasp, and wonders why he was affected. But then everything explodes into action, a faint whisper of wind, a barely-there scent, and he pushes himself backwards into Tazuna, feels a blade scrape along the edge of his quickly-raised kunai before water explodes across his face and the pressure disappears, and then Naruto cries out Kakashi's name and water explodes again - no scent of blood, just water and mist and something unidentifiable that might just be chakra, sword-guy's chakra, anyway. The man lets out a chuckle, but Natsu can only smell Kakashi and water and that odd scent from that direction, none of the there-and-gone smell of iron and blood and sweat that clung faintly to the man when he and his sword leapt overhead to introduce themselves.
He takes a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth. The scent of the mist and the chakra coats the battlefield, but beneath it there's still earth and grass and an impressively weak thread of iron-and-blood-
The dialogue between Kakashi and the enemy are practically background noise as he follows that scent to behind Kakashi and getting closer, the mist holding traces of it even as it smothers it and Natsu knows he isn't fast, despite all his training Sakura-chan's body is still so much slower than he's used to, but he leaps forward, sweeps under a whistling blade of what smells like water that explodes above him, slips just around Kakashi's side, and his elbow impacts with what feels like a knee-
Sword-guy grunts, and a flesh-and-blood arm backhands him across the face too fast for him to dodge, but he digs the loose kunai still in his hand into the dirt, stops himself from flying too far, hears the sound of Kakashi engaging with a vengeance-
He hears the two disengage, a break in the fighting, and Zabu laughs.
"Little girl of yours has some fire in her," he says, and Natsu finds that being called a girl is a lot more irritating when it's said like an insult, and not just the idle comments of someone who doesn't know better.
"Mm." Kakashi doesn't really answer, and Natsu gets the impression of a still battlefield, just waiting for a trigger to explode back into action.
"You leave Natsu-kun alone!"
"Naruto-!" Kakashi's attempt at a reprimand is cut off with a grunt, even as the smell of water thickens around Natsu.
The Dragon Slayer throws himself to the side, and whatever crashed to the ground where he'd been standing sounds a hell of a lot more solid than water, but whether you're calling it chakra or magic - unusual fighting styles are unusual fighting styles, and he's dealt with his fair share.
He hears Naruto cry out in pain, Kakashi and the sword guy exchanging blows, Sasuke lighting something on fire and man he tries not to be jealous, he needs to get the Uchiha to teach him how to light stuff on fire with chakra dammit-!
He dodges again, shoves incoming water aside with his kunai and realizes in a startling instant, with an oddly-echoed clang of metal-on-metal that he's fighting a clone made of water. Like Naruto's weird clones made of nothing but raw power shoved into physical form. He shoves the kunai into the pouch, slips under a wide swing of the sword, twists and grabs the back of the weapon cause blades with only one edge are blades with half a weakness, grips, and throws.
He feels, the moment the blade is released, and throws himself all the way onto the muddy ground, and this clone is definitely slower than the real one was, because he pushes up into a flip to dodge a kick and makes it, close enough he feels the foot catch briefly against his hair-
He hears Sasuke grunt, smells blood he's pretty sure is Kakashi's splatter into the mist, as his feet come down and he lurches to the side, trying to take the back of the clone-
It turns with him, reaches for his head, and Natsu knows he can't dodge so he turns into it, sinks his teeth into the flesh of the hand even as it closes on his hair, and then he drags chakra up through his throat, as though he could still use his dragon's breath, and bites harder.
Apparently, it was the right thing to do, because water explodes above him, drenching him, and his hair falls limply over his shoulder, a small splat accompanying its stillness.
He doesn't take time to relax, turning to dart back toward his teammates whose fight is still audible even through the echoing mist - he knows where they were, and their scents haven't moved far, but suddenly there's a whoosh of air accompanied by iron-and-blood and Natsu twists, throwing himself down, but he's nowhere near fast enough, and a vice-like grip catches him by the arm.
He gets the feeling biting won't work so well on a real person as it did on a clone, but lunges in closer regardless because it's the most unexpected move he can make - the guy's sword is nowhere close enough for Natsu to scent in the heat of the moment, and by the time he realizes the tang of metal on the other hand isn't scent-residue but a kunai, it's already scraping across his shoulder and down his left arm, only barely missing his throat as he throws his weight against his still-restrained right arm to escape it.
Sword-guy drops him, and Natsu catches a whiff of fire-sparks-metal that tends to accompany any weapon Sasuke keeps on his person for longer than an hour - his left arm burns, and he's pretty sure he pulled something in his right with the way he threw his weight against it to avoid having his throat slit, but he braces it against the ground anyway and goes for a leg-sweep.
Zabu dodges easily, but then Kakashi's scent is there with a burst of wind, and Natsu turns his failed leg-sweep into a flip to get back on his feet, and retreats back towards Naruto and Sasuke as Kakashi reenters the fight with vigor. The blood-scent on him is weak enough that Natsu relaxes, glad to know the wound was either not critical or easy to heal, even as he settles in front of Tazuna.
"Thanks," he grunts towards Sasuke, surprisingly out of breath for such a rapid exchange, and damn if Natsu doesn't hate it-
He snarls quietly, but endurance is one of the slowest things to train and he's just going to have to live with that.
"Y-you're bleeding so much…" Naruto mutters from his left, sounding utterly distressed.
"He missed everything important," the Dragon Slayer mumbles, pushing his senses as much as he can, both to track Kakashi's fight and keep a lookout for any other water clones. "Those shuriken were perfectly timed though. Seriously, can't you be that good in actual team training?" he grouches in Sasuke's direction. The Uchiha only huffs.
"I think I woke up my Sharingan." He mutters back, quiet enough Natsu might have missed it in the dampening mist if he weren't straining all his senses.
"No one ever explained to me what that thing did, but if it suddenly gives you a case of the decent-teammate juices, I'll take it."
Sasuke chokes on something that might almost be a laugh, except Sasuke never laughs so clearly he just screwed up a scoff.
Any comment he might have made gets cut off as Natsu drops down, sweeping Tazuna's legs out from under him as he goes, and he hears shattering porcelain and an overpowering smell of sake which is not what he needs right now dammit-!
He hears the thuds as Naruto and Sasuke throw themselves down as well, and the soft whistling of Sasuke's shuriken as he tosses them out - the clone lunges back to avoid them, Natsu tracks it by the sound of water, because mist is water and clones are water and maybe it's not super cohesive, or maybe when both jutsu are done by the same person they just blend together, but he can't smell anything but sake and his own blood right now so he focuses on sound, tracks the clone by the way its water moves through the water of the mist, and makes an unerring lunge to wholesale tackle into the clone's legs, making it stumble, and Sasuke's following kunai land with a solid thud into the mass of the clone, dispersing it into yet-more water that splashes over Natsu.
He gets the feeling that being dry is a luxury he's not going to have much, here in Wave. Especially if every. single. clone keeps exploding on him like this! He rolls back to his feet, biting back a grimace of pain as mud presses into his wounded shoulder mid-roll, but stumbles back into guard formation by Tazuna without making a sound.
Then there's the solid thud of a body hitting the ground, echoing indiscernibly through the mist, and for a heart-stopping moment Natsu doesn't know if it's Kakashi or the Zabu-guy who fell.
A gentle voice speaks after a moment.
"Thank you for your help, Konoha-san. I apologize for taking your kill from you, but after his crimes against our illustrious village, I desired to take his life for myself."
"Ah, a Kiri hunter-nin, ne? That's alright, I appreciate the help. I have business to take care of, so I'll leave the corpse to you."
"Many thanks, Konoha-san."
There's a shff of displaced air, and a moment later Natsu blinks as Kakashi appears in front of him. Dizziness slams into him almost faster than he can process, as though the fading adrenaline is enough to remind his body that Sakura-chan just isn't used to bloodloss the way he is, and Natsu stumbles forwards into Kakashi's chest as everything spins sharply around him, the world fading to unsteady darkness as he hears all three members of Team 7 call out his name.
It happens almost slow-motion to Sasuke's eyes. Kakashi appears in a flurry of leaves, headband pulled down, blood sliding across his cheek, the fabric of one arm wet with something darker than water, blood staining the bandages wrapped around his left ankle, and Natsu looks up at him, blinking in apparent confusion, before stumbling forward and weakly collapsing into the man's arms.
Only the rapidly-fluttering pulse in his neck proves he's still alive, as Kakashi brings his arms fully around the pink-haired boy and keeps him from hitting the dirt. Naruto's already leaping forward, stumbling over the client in his haste, but Kakashi quickly pulls Natsu onto his back.
"Not now, Naruto-kun." He mutters, dragging the client to his feet harshly with one hand, the other bracing Natsu as he bends over.
Sasuke watches it all, moving so slowly it feels almost unreal, as Kakashi hustles them away quickly talking the dobe through how to make a shadow clone bigger than he normally is, to carry Tazuna so they can get to relative safety quicker.
He tells Sasuke to take point, to not bother warning them if he finds danger, just react and trust them to follow because they can't afford to waste time, and he nods curtly.
Everything is crystal-clear in a way it's never been before, and he rushes soundlessly ahead of his team, trying not to think of a knife in Naruto's stomach before the blond puffed into smoke, tries not to think of glancing over to check on Natsu's fight only to see blood spray out and he could count every drop as it sprayed and for a moment he thought it was arterial but it wasn't, it wasn't-
Gritting his teeth, he casts a glance back to check the pace of the team, Naruto and his clone are the slowest but they're keeping up, he can see every line of determined terror on the blond's face, can see the flutter of Natsu's pulse and every drop of blood that slides down his naked arm-
He jerks his gaze forward, ahead for danger and not behind to -his team- useless distractions, and listens as Tazuna begins hesitantly offering directions.
He knows exactly how long it takes to get to Tazuna's house -twenty-three minutes- and yet somehow it feels like a year, or twenty, or a hundred, far too long as Kakashi rushes in ahead of the client without bothering to knock, and Natsu is spread out on the dining table by the time he and the dobe make it in.
Natsu always seems larger than Sakura. Even though they're the same body, he just has a presence that fills the area in a way she never did, always so shy and irritating, like if she took up less space they'd forget about her and it always annoyed him that someone so weak and pathetic would even want to be a shinobi, but laid on a table, the top of his dress pulled away and wound on full display, he somehow looks tinier than Sakura ever did.
It disgusts Sasuke just as much, but there's something else there too, and he tries not to wonder what it is because teammates just hold you back, he knows that, that man didn't need them and he doesn't either-
"W-will Natsu be okay…?"
Sasuke scoffs at the dobe's hesitant question, leans against the wall and crosses his arms.
He's not interested in the answer, he's just guarding the door in case they were followed.
The dobe doesn't even respond to him.
"It's not a pretty injury, but Natsu-kun won't die from it, Naruto-kun."
Kakashi-sensei's voice is thick with exhaustion, and Sasuke gets the feeling the only reason the man hasn't crashed himself is because he's got an injury to deal with first.
Tch.
He'll be stuck on guard duty all night, won't he? Dobe'll be useless…
He lets the wall take a little more of his weight, relaxes into it and finally figures out how to cut off the chakra feeding into his eyes.
They'll have a little while until full night-fall, he doesn't need to be on high-alert until then-
There's just something so viscerally horrifying about being able to count every single drop of blood, about knowing to the last millimeter exactly how large and deep that wound is, about the calculatious he can't seem to turn off about exactly how much blood is being lost, how fast, and what the numbers add up to when he factors in time-
He deactivates the sharingan, and relaxes a bit more against the wall. Some woman is there now, handing sensei a bowl of water as he cleans and bandages the wound as best he can - it's an awful angle for an injury, and he fully strips Natsu's outfit down to his hips to get enough access to wrap the bandages around everything.
Even without the sharingan, Sasuke can see the slightest scratch against Natsu's throat and the reality of just how close that was to a kill-shot-
He shakes off the thoughts, looks away and towards the civilians as the woman lets out a gasp.
"Wha-It's-I know how to bandage wounds, sir, I'm sure the young lady wouldn't want-"
Sasuke narrows his eyes, but Kakashi's firm words beat him to any response.
"Natsu-kun is my student and I will tend the injuries myself. Your concern is appreciated, but shinobi don't have the luxury of worrying over such incidental things as gender. If you will excuse me…"
"B-but that's-!"
"Tsunami-chan…" their client shakes his head, looking at her, and Sasuke rolls his eyes.
Ridiculous civilian nonsense, apparently.
Even if Natsu were a girl, Sasuke doesn't get the feeling he'd care. He's just not that sort of person.
Sensei pulls the dress back up once the wound is bandaged to his satisfaction, and scoops Natsu into his arms.
"Do you have a room?" he asks, eye narrowed and daring either of them to protest. Naruto rushes over to his side, peering worriedly at Natsu's face, and Sasuke scoffs.
"I'll take first watch." he offers, already walking out just to get away from the ridiculous sappiness.
He swings himself onto the roof easily, finding a good perch with open sightlines all the way around the house, and settles himself in for a long watch.
Those idiots can fuss over each other all they want, he'd rather be far away from that.
Would rather keep watch, make sure no one else comes back to take away everything he was never meant to build for himself-
Sasuke glares out at the surroundings, activating his sharingan again and watching the night-tinted world explode into perfect clarity.
He shoves aside thoughts of too-clear wounds, and all the numbers he doesn't want to know, and just goes on lookout.
Either one of his… teammates will come to relieve him, or they won't. He'll keep watch all night, he doesn't want to sleep anyway-
Doesn't want to dream of blood that's too-clear-too-red-too-much-