*
"Sasuke."
It's the first thing she had said to him with her mask off but it is not the same.
It doesn't even sound like her to him.
But just hearing her voice stops him in his tracks, his chidori hovering just above her chest. The wooden mask that had covered her face now hanging over her neck allowing him to see who their enemy truly was. But it wasn't the face of enemy he was looking at, it was the face of a friend.
She looked untidy, a bit bloody, perhaps a little tired too judging from the sunken darkness in her eyes and lack of fight in her. She looked, so unlike herself.
He looked down at her in those old, grey, ragged clothes peaking out from under that familiar black akatsuki cloak, held still under his free palm but barley even struggling to free herself.
Her narrowed eyes are drawn to the burn of the blue light in his hand, unafraid, unreactive like that of the snake she betrayed them for. "Get it over with." she hisses, her shoulder shifting and flexing under his grip.
Sasuke let the chidori fizz out and die in his palm. "It's you Sakura." What a surprise. "What are you doing here?"
He knows what he wants her answer to be, he wants her deny any involvement in the events that had transpired that day. Deny involvement in the attack on the five Kage summit, the murder of the Hokage and the abduction of the eight tails. He wants her to give him a reason to not put a chidori through her chest right then and there.
Her grin curls, her eyes mischievous.
"You know exactly what I'm doing here, Sasuke-kun." She says again her expression then softening into something more familiar to him. More recognisable as the Sakura he knew once, for a moment at least. "You were looking for me weren't you? You changed your mind and decided to come with me and defect from the leaf. I hoped you would-"
"I'm here to kill you." He says bluntly. A lie. He was still unsure if he could. "On orders from Lord Danzo the sixth Hokage."
The name makes her eyes glaze over before snapping to the side, gesturing for him to look over. Lord Danzo lay dead on the rubble, his body guards no where to be seen and Sakura, very much alive, looked smug.
She sniggers and its as good as a conformation that she'd done it.
"Look, I did us all a favour."
"No. You're not strong enough to kill him." Sasuke says desperately. He wants any reason to deny what she implies. Of all her many crimes, he doesn't know any way she could come back from this one.
He should kill her, it'd be easy, quick, she won't resist, won't even feel it and neither would he. The same nothingness from after Itachi, would it be the same? Would killing her leave him just as empty? Perhaps, but perhaps that isn't the thing he should worry about now. Any other decent shinobi would do it, claim a bounty and be a hero to their village. Except maybe two idiot blondes he knows who are probably not to far behind him.
It wasn't like Itachi, her crimes weren't personal to him even if they sometimes felt like they were. He had years to build on his hatred for his brother but with her it still feels all too fresh.
"Danzo underestimated me too." She whispers coyly. Her tired eyes, sunken jade stones that fall closed and she looks blissfully calm. "You lack the subtly of a true shinobi. If you tried to deceive me and lie about your intentions, I would have believed you and you'd have had a chance of actually taking me down."
His frown deepens, palm squeezing her arm tighter. "I still have my chance."
Sakura's expression doesn't change and if she feels any pain in her arm it doesn't register on her face.
But it wasn't her face he should have been paying attention to, it was her arms. White scaled snakes shoot out from her long sleeves, pulling Sasuke backwards and tying him to the tree behind them like ropes, tightening with every movement. Hissing some kind of acknowledgement to their master.
"I wasn't actually planning on killing Danzo. I had a couple questions for him but things got, somewhat out of hand." She tells him standing up and stretching her arms above her head. Signs of fighting were all around them, most evident on her body, carrying fatigue like a weight on her back. Shoulders tight and sunken inwards. Her clothes covered in blood, that he doubted was her own. All the evidence pointed to her killing Danzo, he wondered if she'd kill him next.
Sasuke had his shot and didn't use it, in a morbid kind of way he's intrigued to see if she would use hers.
"I was actually here to regroup with my team after they attacked the summit on my behalf," Sakura explains pacing in front of him, "but they've apparently all been captured which is just typical. I knew I should’t have sent a clone, it's like they say you want something done you do it yourself."
So the summit was her too. Of course it was. And her new team, team 7's replacements- He didn't want to think about that now.
"I know you spoke to Naruto." Sasuke tells her, "He was here in the Land of Iron to beg for your life. Him and Ino both."
Sakura stops pacing to turn away from him. "That's not on me. I never asked them to confront the Raikage. I never asked them for any of that."
"You never had too, they would do anything for you." Sasuke snarls struggling against the muscled snakes holding him against the wood so tightly he could hardly breathe. But he doesn't care, he hates her flippancy. If anyone would understand what she was going through it'd be Naruto and (especially) Sasuke but she was so unwilling to extend to same courtesy back. He knows what she lost, knows her desire for revenge but never understood why she felt she had to chase it all alone.
No. Of course he understood.
That's was how he killed Itachi, all alone. He made Naruto promises to stay back no matter what he heard or what happened that was his fight. His alone.
There was no difference for the vengeance she sought for the family she lost during the attack on the Leaf village. Events that contorted Sakura Haruno into a unrecognisable being. A missing nin, without remorse or regret, a shinobi with no rules, no creed but vengeance.
It's not difficult to picture himself in her position, if that curse mark had actually landed on his neck instead of hers, but she was always smarter than this. She knew how to trust and rely on others before Naruto and Sasuke ever did.
She never had to do this alone.
"You wouldn't.
She stares at him almost studiously, almost confused for a moment.
"You'd never beg."
But the her gaze breaks, away. Her confusion replaced with understanding but to Sasuke it only looked like mania.
"Funny, how much people appreciate you once you're gone." She muses, more to herself than to him relaxing her smile into a somewhat nostalgic curve.
They should've made sure she knew that.
"You're here to kill me." She states, "on orders from Lord Danzo? Former Sixth Hokage?" She laughs and it such a bright fluttering sound he can't quite help but be astounded watching her. It's more shocking that she was still capable of that innocent, pretty laugh them anything else he'd learned about her so far that day.
"So Naruto and Ino didn't tell you what we talked about at that Inn? Nor Kakashi-sensei and that cute new captain wood release? That's funny."
"I don't care about how you tried to justify yourself to them."
A hand comes up to cover her eyes as her laugh subsides into a knowing grin. Pink hair, shorter now than last time he saw her, falling over her face with no red ribbon or headband to keep it back.
It's a short moment but he uses that lack of focus to use his substitution to escape from the bindings of the white snakes and land behind her before she was quick enough to realise he was gone.
His blade was free in seconds, ready to rectify his mistake and ensure that wouldn't miss his opportunity again but before if could make contact her snakes had rushes to respond clamping their jaws down on the metal and shattering it causing Sasuke to jump back. Sakura didn't move, her laughter still ringing.
"It'd be fitting if you did kill me. Almost romantic." She teases, "Unable to save me so you had no other choice. Hope the two blonde idiots see it that way too. You know how sensitive they can be"
Sasuke grits his teeth, his words tight and exasperated. "Just shut up."
They would not see it that way. He doesn't know if Naruto would ever forgive him, he knows Ino never would. It's something he could probably live with but that doesn't mean he wants to.
Her defence was good but he knows she's tired from her last fight and his strength was more than enough to take her down but parts of him still hesitate as he wonders what Naruto might say. He'd know what to say to stop her, to convince her to give up. He'd want to save her, he'd say she still could be saved. Naruto would defend her against the world if he had to, give up on his dream to redeem her.
Both Sasuke and Sakura know she does not deserve that.
"I'll take you back to the leaf. You'll stand trial, for abandoning your village, allying with terrorists, kidnapping the eight tails, attacking the five kage summit and killing the sixth Hokage." Thats what Naruto would want, that's what he'd want him to do - offer her a chance to explain. And if she doesn't want it then what happens next is on her, not him. Weather they believe that or not.
"The entire shinobi world wants me dead. If I go back my team and I are finished and I'd rather not go with you anyway."
"We'd find a way to save you, you're real team. If you repented sincerely-" he attempts to get closer but she backs up with every step he takes. "If you come home we can figure something out-"
"Home." She sniggers, "What is home, last Uchiha?'
Sasuke tenses. "Now that you've killed Itachi, you're really are the last Uchiha standing. Where is your home now hm?"
"Don't you dare."
"Why is it you are the only person allowed your vengeance? Tell me!" The kind of desperation in her voice that tells him he was right in thinking she isn't as stable as she is fighting to appear. "Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, Lady Tsunade, Lord Jiraiya and all our old classmates helped you train and prepare to track down your brother and kill him. Just look at your eyes," she begs circling round. He hadn't even noticed how her words had triggered the mangekyo. Green into red. The sharingan saves the memory without even thinking about it. "They're so different it's terrifying."
Sasuke could say the same for her, quickly shutting off the sharingan once he realised what he'd done. Once upon a time, Sakura had eyes that rose and fell like the sun with every emotion she felt. So bright, so expressive that they revealed every inch of her heart plainly. If the eyes were windows to the soul then Sakura's were open doors. Nothing to hide.
Now they were were closed, opaque glass, moving only to tease and mislead. Forbidden diamonds, an endless trap with depth he hadn't thought Sakura Haruno capable of. Almost unrecognisable. Almost.
"We would have helped you too if you had just stayed. You didn’t need to infiltrate the Sound village alone and the after join the Akatsuki." He says as they start to circle one another. "Besides, I never betrayed my comrades and became a missing nin."
Sakura shrugs, "Fair enough."
She watches him, hungry like a predator, it's unnerving. He can't tell if she's preparing to run or to pounce. Then suddenly her guard drops, too suddenly and she pounces: "You know, I knew Itachi."
He stops, his own defence crashing to his feet at her words. Standing opposite her with his mouth fallen open.
"He came and spoke to me once." Sakura continued, ignoring how Sasuke stills in shock. "Asked me all sorts of questions about my intentions once I'd betrayed and killed Orochimaru. I told him I wanted to know who in the Leaf helped the attack during the chunin exams that stole my parents from me."
"Stop being coy." Sasuke says finding his voice again. "Itachi and Orochimaru and dead and gone. That part of our lives is over."
Sakura smiles, "If only you knew what I've done Sasuke. They will always be a part of us."
His eyes fall to the patch of skin on her neck where he know her curse mark lies and wonders if it still burns her how it used to. Wonders if the skin is smooth now, wonders if she can still feel it, wonders if he can feel- no. No he can't.
Back then it terrified her, the mark on her neck intended for him, she immediately dropped out of the chunin exams out of fear of hurting herself or worse someone else. That was only months before she fully embraced it.
"Did you know you're just like your brother, with some differences."
"I am nothing like him-"
"A little move naive and trusting then he was and much more arrogant."
He feels the anger boiling his mangekyo threatening to spin awake in response again but he keeps it cool for the moment, awaiting another opening.
"He asked me all kinds of things like if I loved you and what I'd do if you ever got in my way."
He sighs. Sakura was still so childish and annoying, but he'll relent because it's a familiar side of her that she's showing. A side he'd rather stuck around. "What did you say."
"I said of course I still love you. I adore you Sasuke. Always." She grins, "Couldn't turn it off I tried and believe me I have."
Sasuke roles his eyes, she was being difficult on purpose but the longer they could put of the inevitable fight between them the better for them both. He didn't want to have to hurt her, let alone kill her.
"Did you at least ask Naruto and the others what we talked about at that Inn? Wasn't it suspicious that they didn't tell you?"
Yes.
"It was obviously unimportant, like all this nonsense you've been spewing."
This time it's her who gets closer, no weapon or jutsu readied but she was most definitely still armed. "It was Lord Danzo who had helped Orochimaru attack the Leaf. It was Lord Danzo who manipulated Orochimaru against the third Hokage in the first place."
"So that's why you killed him? Petty vengeance."
"I resent calling it petty. But those were my personal reasons yeah, my parents and so many more needed justice but like I said, I did us both a favour."
She doesn't get so close that she's exposed to an attack but she's close enough that he can smell her hair with the wind that blows against her back. It's closer than they'd been without fighting in years.
"It was Madara who told me. I didn't believe him at first, didn't believe anything he said but he had proof and Lord Danzo didn't deny it when I asked him."
"About Orochimaru?"
She shakes her head and for a split second he see's her eyes rise in pity before falling back into stone. "About what really happened to the Uchiha."
That was that, the mangekyo sharingan spins to life, pulsing hot and Sasuke feels his anger boiling once more but this time it doesn't stop. He doesn't stop. She steps back fear flashing across her face and disappearing just as quick, a shield of indifference rising. What Madara and Itachi could do with their eyes was horrifying as it was, unforgettable. There had never been a genjutsu Sakura couldn't break until she met the outcast Uchiha's, she dreads to think what Sasuke's could do to her with all of that rage and power.
"Choose your next words carefully Sakura." He says slow and clear.
Her hands go up in surrender, an ernest look upon her face. "You know my suffering, I know yours. Of all the things I would lie about, you know it wouldn't be this. Never this."
His irrationality wants to kill her on the spot just for that but she is right, she wouldn't lie about this. No matter how much she changed, her integrity was as clear to him as it always had been.
"I thought Naruto or Ino would tell you. They probably wanted to."
Sasuke listened, impatient but quiet as she explained the truth of what had happened to the Uchiha. What happened to Itachi, the terrible choice he was forced into and those who were responsible.
Sasuke stumbled back, knocked of balance by seemingly nothing at all.
The axis of the world seemed to shift as everything he knew turned on it head. Only him and Sakura still hanging on.
It would be so easy to call it lies.
Dismissing it as a fairytale, made up nonsense, calling it a bastardisation of his clans plight would have been so easy but it was too contrived a tale.
Too many details. The Uchiha's fate. Itachi's truth.
It all lined up with everything he'd learned these last few years, quietly investigating from within the village.
The elders knew something, Danzo knew something. They who had pitied him and yet looked at him with contempt making abundantly clear that despite his loyalty, the last Uchiha was not home in the Leaf village.
Maybe she hadn't lied but he didn't think he could trust what she said.
Sasuke considered that she was just trying to turn him against the village, turning the fears of the village elders that Sasuke thought irrational into truth.
He considered what she would gain from telling him this, what she could make him do and believe but even so, some sincerity cannot be faked so easily.
He knew her, once. That was enough.
"Itachi never wanted you to know about his sacrifice. But I think we all deserve more than that."
The slowly, more vulnerable now she says, "He didn't need to be kind when we met, but he was. Could've let his partner kill me and I-" Her gaze is distantly thoughtful, running through the memory she'd examined so many time before with newer eyes. "I am eternally grateful."
Sasuke had known for a little while now about the tensions between between his father and the village. There were problems, political turmoil, but Sasuke was never politically driven. It felt like problems of a far of time that never had anything to do with him and yet it was what destroyed everything he held dear. And now he's told that some of those responsible still live inside the village without guilt, without shame, while Itachi lies dead?
Sakura's own rage and pain carried her away from everything she ever knew or cared about in pursuit of power and vengeance. Living in the darkness for years, but Sasuke, it was like he was the darkness, like he was made out of it. Such a wrath and resentment just radiated off him like jaded purple flames.
He, last Uchiha, victim to the great curse of hatred and what a sight to behold it was.
If he joined them, they'd be unstoppable.
"Now that Danzo is dead, there are two more who knew about this still in the leaf." Sasuke says, his voice dangerously level, a complete absence of warmth or feeling in his tone that Sakura never wanted to be on the receiving end of ever again.
"The two elders yes, they are the last involved. But they aren't the only guilty ones, everyone else in the village enjoys the peace Itachi died for, all while cursing his name." It's a plays on his rage just like he thought she might try, hoping that his mind could still be changed.
Itachi had called Sasuke a blank canvas when she met him, waiting to be turned this way or that. Well then, allow Sakura to be his ink.
"They curse his name, they curse yours too and deep down they are glad to be rid of you. So afraid of the Uchiha power, of claiming what they deserved, what you deserve." Like the temptress, once again she circles him like the snake who squeezes in on its pray, her alluring words, that alluring voice.
He once called it annoying yet missed it more than he will ever cared to admit.
"Whatever you choose, it's up to you, it's always been your choice. But if you join me, i'll help you. I promise, I'll help you with whatever it is you want. Whatever you desire, I'll make it yours" All logic told him to flee, to fight, to kill her now and end this but hers was the red apple, temptation, petal pink and sweet as sugar and logic had little sway here. She extends her hand and he can tell it is no simple feat for her either to extend herself in trust to someone she closed the door on so long ago.
"You'll come home?" It's strange to them both that he asks that but he finds the question has left him before his answer even formulated in his mind.
'What is home, last Uchiha?'
If he does this, with her, it will not be the leaf village anymore. Not for either of them. Home. It'd be something else, something new.
The snake released its grip, it had won its pray. The bitten apple falls to the ground. And she smiles- "Whatever you want, Sasuke."
His hand is moving, itching, rising upwards, closer to hands so much smaller and softer- if memory serves him. But before his fingers could touch hers and see just how well he had remembered her gentle grip a fierce chakra they both know all too well startles them apart.
Kakashi lunges at her taking them both off guard and throwing her to the floor, knocking the air out of her lungs, the weight of him pinning her down as she gasps for her breath - her shock, tinted more by betrayal than surprise as jaded eyes search for Sasuke standing behind them. Her jaw goes slack opening wider than humanly possible shooting out a sharp tipped dart at Kakashi's face. He falls back but before he could counter attack, Sakura throws herself forwards her discarded Kusanagi sword flying back in her hand with a single thought swiping at Sasuke's neck before either of them realised what was happening.
The trust she had extended earlier was now walled of to an unreachable place, replaced with the petty anger that allowed her to get this far. No more sweetness on her face, leaving only the madness, the anger.
If either of them had really, truly considered trusting each other that was over now.
Madara told her he wanted Sasuke alive, preferably alive and on their side but she didn't care about that now.
Now Kakashi was here, there would be no more talking.
He knew she spoke with him earlier and if the damage at the inn and the bandages around Kakashi's fists meant anything, it wasn’t too productive.
She had no words spare for that man.
No forgiveness, no empathy and no regret.
The apple rots away in her palm.
It could no longer just be that she'd left, no longer just closing the door, she had to sever the bond between them permanently.
"Orochimaru was right." Her laugh is cruel and bitter and so unrecognisable that Sasuke couldn't tell if she was the same person he spoke with moments ago.
"'Severe the bonds' he told me, he did, he told me and I ignored him. My lord, my master I should have listened." Her eyes are frantic, twitching as if burned by the very sight of her old teacher Kakashi.
Orochimaru's words, Orochimaru's sword, his influence had left such deep scars, the man who took her family and goodness and even in death would never let her be. A man the complete opposite to Kakashi who couldn't even get close after she was orphaned.
She looks him in the eye searching for something, for the parts of herself that she had long since considered hoping to see guilt, regret or anything in the face of the copy ninja but there isn't anything. The twelve year old girl, the newest orphan on their team hoping for something- anything from the last adult figure in her life and getting nothing. Nothing to make her stay or heal her wounds. Nothing that meant anything to her at least.
Her laughter is horse, strained.
"But I guess the old snake was right, in the end, that's the only way this can all stop."
A guttural scream rips forth from her, echoing through the quiet of the chasm as she attacks.
Fire style projectiles, followed by earth style quake pushing them back but its taijutsu where she flourishes, earth shattering punches followed by elegant sword play keeping them from attacking by not giving them any room to do so.
She stays close to them, knowing her weaknesses would be exposed in a long distance fight and training her eyes to their feet to predict their moves. She couldn't risk being caught in a genjutsu now of all times and with three sharingan's against her that possibility was much more unavoidable.
But it was Kakashi and Sasuke.
Geniuses with years of teamwork under their belt that Sakura had missed out on, both of them summoning lightning blade with speed and precision she couldn't come close to matching.
They close the gap in seconds, burn marks forming on her arm from where she narrowly dodged with a substitution. From above she sends down a flurry of white snakes, blinding them as she lands but Kakashi slices through them like a knife through warm butter.
But it's behind Sasuke the she lands and she knows he's quick enough to stop any jutsu so she flips backwards and with a single hand sign purple gas releases from her mouth - a spoil from a battle with an old puppet master she'd stolen as a prize.
Sasuke, though taken off guard was not unprepared. The purple flames she thought she had imagined stretched upwards into a thick rib cage like barrier between them burning up her poison as it came into contact.
"It can't be," Sakura whispered. "The susanoo. Itachi really gave you everything."
She had put a name to the technique before Sasuke even knew the full extent of it's abilities, having assumed it another ability he'd gained from killing Itachi. But just as her story had explained, it was instead another gift from his brother, to protect him. Simply more confirmation she hadn't lied. He doesn't know if he should feel relieved at that or not.
However, in her eyes it would never even come close to the same as Itcahi's unless Sasuke could wield the Sword of Totsuka and the Yata Mirror. Itachi was infallible, his little brother was not and so she could still survive this.
"How far you've fallen Sakura." Kakashi says as he prepares to attack again, this time kunai in hand and sharingan activated.
She didn't know if she could win against one mangekyo sharingan let alone two, even if neither of them know the true extent of the eye they possessed they were skilled enough that together she may not win.
"Am I gonna be fighting leaf shinobi all day." Sakura says teasingly, grinning as she sways from side to side, shuffling backwards as she does. "How boring."
Her mind was quick to formulate a plan but unfortunately her old team include two of the strongest shinobi of their generation. She was still weak from her last fight with Danzo and Madara had disappeared after it had happened - there was no lucky escape this time and yet escape was her only option.
"Sakura!" Someone shouts from the cliffside, the three look up to see a red haired shinobi running towards them.
Sakura relaxes at the sight of backup approaching.
My lucky escape, Sakura smiled.
She had thought her entire team had been captured along with the white zetsu clone of herself but it looks as if Karin had made it, just in time. Her black akatsuki cloak was smudged with dust and dirt and her face whipped red with wind from travelling but aside from that she was in one piece, whole, which was better than she'd been anticipating.
Karin jumps down from the curved cliff face, landing beside Sakura gracefully and was too busy fussing over her as she always did about injuries and small silly things to notice the Leaf shinobi right away. But Sakura could only feel relieved, the rise of her anger faltering.
Sakura knew they wouldn't attack them now without knowing anything about Karin's abilities or skill level, they could probably sense the sheer vastness of the red heads chakra but nothing else giving the girls the few spare seconds to appreciate that they were both still alive and that was the main thing.
"This them? Team 7?" Karin whispers after checking over Sakura's wound, running her fingers over burnt skin. Observing the pair in scrutinising detail, noticing how they match with the ones from her leaders stories of blades of lightning and bloody eyes that can read ones every move.
Sakura doesn't need to respond for karin to know simply from feeling chakra's as cool and cold as those that they couldn't be any ordinary shinobi. The pair seemed so imposing, men who seemed to occupy such large presences, standing in front of them as enemies. But there was always men with power in their way, always men who never hesitated to use it, to hurt them, control them. It was no different for Karin.
So these were the backs Sakura had spent her time chasing.
"We shouldn't waste our strength fighting them as we are now." Sakura explains but that isn't enough for Karin. She'd just come out of the lions den, taken on the five kage's, and barley made it out alone. Sakura couldn't have been there with them, even if she'd wanted to be, she had to be there when Danzo made his escape so the white zetsu clone had went for her - a passable imitation at best but enough to fool the Kage in there with them.
The akatsuki's targets where her old teammates - the jinchuriki and the Uchiha. No matter what she did, it was like Sakura could never truly be rid of them.
Karin wanted them all dead. Wanted Sakura free of them. But if that wasn't possible, escape was what she'd settle for right now.
"Madara should have been with you, where is he? We need him to get out of here."
"Good question." Karin mutters but there is no time to ponder that further as the giant susanoo fires an arrow of purple flames at the two shattering the ground beneath them.
It moved incredibly fast for something so large, luckily it's accuracy was just off perfect giving Sakura and Karin the space to jump off the collapsing bridge and onto the water as the very ground splintered into crumbled rock shards around them.
The purple beast follows them down onto the water, launching rocks from the destroyed bridge into the air and shooting purple arrows at them relentlessly trying to pin them down. Sakura flipped backwards again and again passing through the debris effortlessly. They don't spot Kakashi but they feel his presence, a huge wave building up behind them into the shape of a dragon closing them in so that they're other route of escape is cut off. Either side of them, giant beasts of raw power and chakra loomed over them ready to crush them like flies.
"You can't win, surrender now Sakura." Kakashi yells from inside the swirling water dragon.
Weather it was arrogance or stupidity, Sakura looked up at them unfazed. Arrogantly, she turned away from the Susanoo to face Kakashi floating above her facing him once again. She raises her hand upwards and for a second, Kakashi, Sasuke and Karin all assume she is going to surrender.
Just then the Kusanagi sword flies through the air like an arrow cutting straight through the water beast and slashing Kakashi on his side. Damn. She was aiming for through the heart. The sword stops once it is in her palm and she whirls around using her free arm to carry Karin away from the flood of water crashing down around them as Kakashi falls. Sakura carried Karin up the side of the cliff face, Kakashi not far behind them, his wounded side barley a problem he had registered. Yet.
Once she reached the top she gently lowered Karin onto her feet. "Stay alive." Karin begged softly before Sakura had turned away and ran back down the cliff with her sword prepared to strike.
Her blade is stronger than Kakashi's but he was the more skilled with a weapon. She maintains the high ground, hoping to catch him of balance, hoping his sharingan grew weary from predicting her moves. It hadn't. He kept up with her, every move. Yet that doesn't stop her keeping him below her, using the gravity to carry her attacks to their destination, punching with all the weight of her chakra behind it. They both know that should even one of her attacks land, he wouldn't live to see her stopped. But he dodges almost as well as he counters. Side stepping out the way as she spits poison needles and throws wave after wave of deadly snakes his way.
It feels like she's winning. As if she's getting somewhere, pushing him back with her sheer relentlessness but then Kakashi falls back. And for a second she takes that as a win until a dark shadow crosses over head, the Suasanoo slapping her against the wall like a fly.
Karin screams. Rocks tumbling down around the spot he crushed her.
Karin couldn't see anything, couldn't focus. Fear of losing her leader burning her up inside. She can't even get close enough to check as the white haired shinobi runs up the cliffs edge after her and all she can do is evade.
The susanoo presses Sakura firm into the wall of the cliff. Sasuke hopes she dies like this. Far enough away that he doesn't need to see it, doesn't need to feel it even if it's him who does it.
But it's just before he goes to pull away the purple palm that he feels her resistance. Impossible chakra pushing against his susanoo's skeleton and actually moving it.
He tries to resist but the joints struggle and falter. Then all he feel is an earth shattering poke, a reverberation at a point so small compared to the scale of his chakra shield. Her fist connected with the susanoo and sent him flying backwards across the water.
Sasuke looked up watching the sky as he fell backwards, a pink flash following him. Almost like the cherry blossoms floating in the wind.
"Did you forget who was Lady Tsunade's student first?" Sakura cries as a second punch prevents him from regaining any balance.
Blood was pouring from his eyes. His surroundings loosing their sharpness with each moment.
He knows he can't loose anymore time. She would beat him in a battle of stamina, his sharingan wearing him out much faster now.
Calling on all the force left within him Sasuke hauls the purple chakra forwards into her fist, letting her hit connect on one side using the opposite arm to slam her down onto the water below.
The Susanoo shakes, cracks forming at the point of impact but it stands still.
Sakura does not move.
He heard the crack as she hit the water. Unable to stop herself from falling below the murky depths.
Was this it? How it would end? Would he watch her drown so simply? Eyes shut, bones shattered and exhausted. A mere remnant of the girl he once knew. And once again, no goodbye.
From behind him there is screaming but he's too preoccupied watching her, his old teammate, his old comrade drown to pick up on it.
He wonders if the the red haired girl knew her like they did. If she knew her better or if Sakura never let anyone else in after they left. He wonders if she loved her like Naruto claimed to, like Ino always had. He wonders if this will hurt like it did for them when she left.
But then almost like miracle, or maybe more like a curse a sharp green flash where eyes were once closed and them she's swimming, struggling to, but swimming hauling herself up onto the rocks staring up at him, unable to move much with barley hidden resentment in a way that he hopes is a surrender.
But the fight is not over.
Cold chains of glowing steel wind themselves around the Susanoo pulling it back down to the river with a speed and a strength he can't defend against.
Sasuke looks back, making out the blurred image of the red haired girl and her enormous chakra manifesting as unbreakable bonds holding him down. The red heads fury pulled at the chains like Sakura's snakes, tightening around him. The heavy purple limbs unmovable, his sharingan at its limit leaving him little other choice then to try something different.
All at once he release the susanoo's jutsu, landing opposite the girl in the river. Before she could react his hand signs had already been woven.
"Fire style! Fire ball jutsu!"
The orange flames licked at his hands as the always did as he blew it forwards, he was used to the burn by now.
The girls red eyes widened, taking a futile step backwards.
But before it could make contact a series of things happened all at once.
That same miracle- no that same curse was defying all the odds, shoving her friend out the way of his burns. Green eyes replacing the space of red ones, to take on the full brunt his flames.
And if it hadn't been for an actual miracle she most likely would have.
But again, in this case, to him, more like a curse.
Naruto is in his cloak. His sage cloak. Real flames catching at the red edges as he scoops Sakura out of the way of the jutsu just before it would have hit her.
Naruto looks back at him. The same rage from earlier that day directed right at him.
But this time Naruto had just watched Sasuke try to kill Sakura.
The girl he once loved and vowed to save less then a couple hours ago.
Sakura was too weak from Sasuke's earlier attacks to fight her way out of Naruto's grasp as if he would ever hurt her anyway.
She allowed him to set her down under the bridge further back where her teammate was.
The red head was apprehensive at first but Naruto only looked at her once before looking away to Sasuke. Those sad blue eyes Sasuke was tired of seeing, always missing her when he didn't believe she deserved to be missed despite himself.
Kakashi was no longer bleeding from his side when he appeared behind Sasuke. He'd cauterised the wound with a flame jutsu over a kunai and was back on his feet as if he wasn't most definitely in indescribable pain.
"Naruto. I told you to wait at the Inn."
"You both lied to me." Is his unnaturally cold replay as he walks over to them. Gaze trained on Sasuke. A mixture of disgust and disappointment on his face. Sasuke imagines the same emotions on his own face directed right back at him.
"Don't talk to me about lies." Sasuke snarls, barley contained contempt in every word. "How dare you? How dare you both?"
"Sasuke-" Kakashi began, an apology and explanation on the tip of his tongue but Sasuke didn't let him get a word in.
"We will talk about this after. And you better have a good excuse because I don't want to kill you."
Sasuke doesn't know if he could actually kill them nor does Kakashi or Naruto. But Sakura had not lied to him, they had and about something so huge he almost betrayed them all and if given the chance to he still might.
Naruto doesn't argue. A war of emotions stirring on his face that he swallows down before turning back to face the two fallen kunoichi 20 feet in front of them. They will talk later. About everything.
"Well, this is cute." Karin mutters sarcastically but her words fall on death ears as only silence accompanies the rushing water in the chasm. Sakura stood, her major wounds healed on Karin's boundless chakra. Karin herself still a bit dizzy clutched onto her friend for support.
Sakura's bites never hurt so bad. She never took more than what Karin could give and when they were alone, Sakura would kiss the spot she bitten her as it it would magically heal it. Her mother used to do that after a long day in the hospital. Karin thought it silly.
The three leaf shinobi stand opposite them and suddenly no more words are needed. If they had wanted to beg, to convince her to run home to that unscrupulous village of theirs they likely knew now was not a time to exhaust their words on such pointless endeavours.
Since they parted that morning, Karin couldn't help imagine - and imagine further now here - what flowery words they'd whisper, what promises they'd make to get her back. When Madara had taken her alone to that Iron country Inn to speak to Naruto about Sasuke, they all knew the plan and the intent but none of them could guess what they'd have to say to her in return.
Madara said nothing of it when he arrived at the five kage summit to reveal his plans and he said little more when he saved her from the Mizukage and dropped her off deep in the forest but close enough to feel the faintest pulsing of Sakura's familiar pink chakra.
Sakura wouldn't be swayed. She was proud and Taka put their trust in that proudness of hers but she also loved deeply, it's what gave way to such a unique brand of hate that made her so strong. Those old teammates know that about her, perhaps they knew her better than they did.
Suigetsu had said - before he had used his own body, risked his life to protect them from the attack of the eight tails - that they were simply replacements. Standing in for the team she actually loved but could never have truly relied on. They all knew it was true yet they would all still die for the pretty girl who freed them.
But that was a thought she couldn't allow herself to dwell on now.
The blonde one, the new one, the one that saved her from the flames, strikes Karin as different to the others, his chakra - a contradictory gentle bright warmth, opposite to his team mates cold and blue but reminiscent of how Sakura's pink and green chakra could often be.
A gentle spring chakra. Compassionate and caring like a mother or more specifically he reminded Karin of her own mother.
He was supposed to be the loudest, the dumbass of the group, 'the Suigetsu' as she had once put it (Sakura had laughed when she said that).
Yet now he did not utter a word.
He stared at Sakura with a familiarity Karin did not like. As if he saw right through her down to the bare bones that she never left team taka get close enough to touch.
Sakura breaks away her gaze, something between sadness and hopelessness flashing over her face when she thinks Karin isn't looking.
She loves them too. Karin thinks, she see's it as clear as day and it hurts.
"We're getting out of here. Danzo's dead, our job is long since done anyway."
She bites her thumb, drawing the blood to summon Aoda, lifting up her hand to end this quickly. But before the word could leave her mouth her arm was caught in mid air as Madara stepped out of his portal right behind her.
"I think that's quite enough." An imposing presence brings all the tension to a cold drop. Sakura's focus suddenly broken and her expression uneasy. "I thought I told you to go home and rest?"
Home. That word again. Sakura glances back at Sasuke for no more then a second but it's too late, he'd have seen her heart before she had any chance at stopping it.
Mounds of clay white flesh began to emerge upwards from the watery depths all around them. Karin recognised white zetsu just like the one that had transformed into Sakura for the attack in the summit, it looked no less unpleasant than it did with his black zetsu partner.
"Hm. The nine tails and the last Uchiha. Seems you've had you hand full Sakura." Madara calmly speaks letting go of her hand. The white zetsu closest to her wraps itself round her back replenishing her many vast chakra stores at once.
"Karin too." She mutters to witch Madara obliged snapping his fingers at a zetsu to heal her freind too.
"Don't worry my flower," Madara croons, the nickname making the skin at the back of Sasuke's neck crawl almost as much as his hand resting comfortable on her waist. "I'll arrange the proper time and place for you to capture the nine tails and destroy the Uchiha brat but for now we retreat."
"And i'll fight for you." More Zetsu began to emerge from the water like weeds, "We still need the nine tails jinchuriki for our plans"
"No zetsu, capturing Naruto is beyond you. The nine tails is too tough for a non battle type like you and with the young Uchiha and the repugnant copy ninja-" He spat "-defending him, you'll have not much of a chance at all."
"Oh is that so." Zetsu smiled, staying close to Sakura as it relaxed again.
"We'll let Sakura take the nine tails, I'm interested to watch the strategies she'll use to pull it off."
"And what of Itachi's kid brother? Shall we leave him too."
"Yes. I imagine he'll come to us of his own accord or he'll never come at all. Our bigger concern now is Kisame, go check on him and rendezvous with your black half."
"Yes, yes alright, I understand."
The same mounds of flesh fall back into the water, disappearing right in front of their eyes. It makes Karin's skin crawl.
"Well?" Madara says "I was told the nine tails was chatty. Looks like he has nothing to say to his traitorous ex team mate."
"Let's go." She says, pointedly ignoring him.
"Looks like you were right Sakura. They never needed you."
Sakura looks bored, clearly not falling for the ploy. "Look. I'm tired Tobi-"
"Is that what you think Sakura?" Naruto says as if he could not stay quiet a second longer. At the very least it was more familiar than he had been so far. "Do you really think that?"
She doesn't hesitate. "Yes."
The swirl of the masked man's jutsu began, in the seconds before it whisked her away the snake like sneer returned to her face, a look that didn't belong on her as she met his eyes.
"I never lied to you Sasuke. Not once. I hope next time I see you, you'll have an answer for me."
He hasn't anything to say to her, half because he doesn't know his answer and half because he can't bare Naruto looking at him so accusingly.
You don't even want to save her do you? The remnants of the last time they argued about this still ringing on his mind.
Naruto steps forwards but Sakura didn't allow him a single word in. She could not bear it. "Lets do this again some time and bring Ino. I've been dying for a rematch."
And they were gone.
*
End
*