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i.
After the Wave Country, Sasuke settles into her new team. They’re haphazard still, skill level disjointed and beginning late the process of navigating each other’s personalities and pasts. She and Sakura share a half-formed childhood friendship over breakfast. Naruto opens his frog-decorated apartment to them both, and shows rather than discusses what it’s like to grow up alone. After a while, Sasuke opens her apartment, too, scattered with origami figures and non-bake food, and fresh flowers. She doesn’t know how they learn the truth about her old team, but they do, and though Sakura gives her the option to talk about it, Sasuke never takes up the offer.
Between all of this, they deal with D-and-C-ranked missions, mornings waiting two hours for Kakashi, and practices that leave even Sasuke satisfyingly sore the next day. Separate from them, she learns and perfects the Chidori, feeling for the first time since she came back to Konoha like she’s really improving. The Wave Country and the fight with Haku was a disaster, but they unexpectedly recover from it. She wonders what Yuki, Kichiro, and Kaito-sensei would think, because a numbness she hadn’t realized was there finally breaks.
Despite this newfound friendship, she still needs time to herself to clear her head of any clutter. She’s in one of periods, walking around alone, when she hears the commotions behind the fence, followed by Naruto calling, “You bastard!”
Naruto, like Sasuke, doesn’t swear often, something usual for a boy who grew up by himself. An unfamiliar voice answers, “Well, after this one, I’ll take care of you,” and she scrambles up a tree overlooking the area as quickly as she can, grabbing a rock from the ground as she does.
Her teammates are below, guarding two Academy students she doesn’t recognize, and a few feet away are a girl, a little older, and a boy holding another student up high by a scarf. The strangers are wearing the Suna symbol, and, of course, this is September, which means they must be here for the chuunin exams.
As the boy Suna-nin raises his fist, preparing to strike the Konoha Academy student, Sasuke takes aim and throws the rock, knocking him hard on the wrist. Her connection to this place might still be minimal at best, but she doesn’t want to see Naruto and Sakura hurt, and more than that, hurting a defenseless kid is low. The student falls to the ground as the Suna-nin grips his wrist, cursing, and as he looks for his attacker, Sasuke takes in a more detailed observation of the two of them. She recognizes the bandaged shape on his back as a puppet in the same distant way she remembers most things these days, and connects the weapon to an identity instantly. Clearly someone told her about the separate shinobi governments at some point, and she doesn’t think this one was Itachi.
She jumps down when his eyes find her, careful to land properly. If she recognizes him, then he might recognize her, too. “Attacking anyone prior to the exams forces you, and your team, to forfeit your position,” she says, tucking her bangs behind her ear. “I would’ve thought the Kazekage’s son would’ve known that.”
The student stands, scurrying around the Kazekage’s son, who glances to his sister. “How did you know that?” she asks with a slight frown, fingers twitching, ready to go for her fan. Her hair is color of straw, like sand on cloudy days.
“Sasuke,” Sakura says, almost in warning, but Sasuke doesn’t need anyone to tell her when she’s acting reckless.
“Puppeteering is so specialized that you need to start learning it in your Academy days,” she says, “and there’s no one besides the Kazekage’s son below the age of about twenty in Suna right now who knows how to do it.” When he moves to unravel his puppet, purple paint cracking under the force of scowl, she continues, “Are you really ready to go back to your father and tell him you were kicked out for attacking a kid? Oh, the shame.”
Before the second son shows himself, she feels his sudden chakra signature, one that’s an awful lot like Naruto’s. Instinctively, she pivots towards the tree she was in only moments before, paper shuriken spinning around her in prepared defense. “Kankuro, you’re an embarrassment to our village,” the boy, who can’t be any older than twelve or thirteen, says, and both his brother and sister stiffen in undisguised fear. He looks nothing like either of them, features almost as delicate as her own, with a tattoo reading love on his forehead. “You can relax. I know the rules.”
His voice is slick, and cold, too like the missing-nin she used to encounter with Itachi, for her to believe him. Even so, she allows the paper to lose shape, retracting. Kakashi promised to sign her up for the soonest chuunin exams, and she’s not ruining her chances before she can get the contract. “You better keep this idiot under closer watch, if you know the rules so well,” she says, and looks back to her teammate. “We should get these kids home.”
“What? Yeah,” Naruto says, moving his gaze from the boy in the tree and back to her. “Hey, next time let the rest of us act cool, too.”
Though she rolls her eyes, she doesn’t answer, and as she turns, the older son says, “You know who we are. What’s your name?”
“Uchiha Sasuke,” she answers. “I’ll see you during the exams, if you manage to behave that long.”
Sakura loops their elbows when Sasuke’s close enough, leading her away, and her attempted day to herself is a lost cause already.
Oddly, she finds she doesn’t mind.
Sakura goes to find Ino after receiving the contract for the chuunin exams, and Naruto and Sasuke pick up Ichiraku before heading to his apartment. “How did you know Kakashi-sensei was going to give us these?” he says after they sign, fishing mushrooms out of his ramen. Sasuke doesn’t like mushrooms much, either.
“He already told me,” she says, adjusting herself to settle cross-legged in his chair. Now they’re off-duty with the rest of the day to themselves in preparation for tomorrow, and she doesn’t appreciate the contracts’ specification to bring a change of clothes. “I was meant to be in the one at the end of May, but you can’t take the chuunin exams without a team, so.”
Though she wasn’t expecting it, the deaths of her past teammates and Kaito-sensei are easier to cope with now that Naruto and Sakura know. She doesn’t like discussing it, and hasn’t “opened up” the way Kakashi wants her to, but she doesn’t need to lie, either. “Do you think you’ll pass?” Naruto asks. “I was talking to Chouji, and Chouji said you can do everything great and still not pass just because the Hokage doesn’t think you’re ready or whatever. Seems kind of unfair, right?”
Does he know what he is? she wonders. Most likely, if he’s so nervous. She would be, too, if she were in his situation. “Honestly, I’m kind of surprised I’m even allowed to take it,” she says, and pulls out a leek, placing it on her napkin. Udon from Ichiraku is good, but she forgets to specify ingredients she’d rather not have in it. Growing up with just Itachi wasn’t conducive to learning to eat her vegetables. “Konoha’s basically trying to hide that I’m back, which I guess makes sense.”
“I’m still really confused about that,” he says, and the sun moves from behind a cloud, pouring through the window, illuminating dust and brightening his hair. It’s late afternoon nearing evening, right on the edge of sunset, and the September air is sweet, comfortable now that the height of the day’s past. “So were you a missing-nin or what?”
Shrugging, she says, “I don’t really get how it works. No one calls me one, but I don’t know. Maybe because seven-year-olds can’t be missing-nin.”
You have the thing inside you that lead to my whole family being killed, she thinks sometimes, and is never bothered as much as she should be.
“That’s so weird,” Naruto says, scrunching up his nose, and how little he cares about sparing her feelings is refreshing. “Whatever. You’re here now, right? And not going anywhere?”
For a while, before she joined Team Ten, and then again after the blonde man who knew her killed them, she thought she could leave, if she had to. Now, though, after Sakura and Naruto have started inviting her to be with them, and she’d do anything to keep them safe, too, she’d never be able to. She couldn’t protect her first team, but she can protect her new one. “Yeah,” she says, and bunches tofu between her chopsticks. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Naruto grins, wide and unguarded and unashamed, and behind him, the sky turns the colors of a hybrid rose.
At times, Kakashi frets worse than Itachi, and as Sasuke pushes the glasses up her nose, she wonders if this was his idea, or someone else’s.
They’re effective, at least, because Gai’s team doesn’t recognize her immediately. Between her upshoot in height over the past few months, the glasses, and her hair in her face, she supposes it’s understandable, and hopes it’s enough to fool any Ame-nin. “Oh, hey,” Tenten says, she and Lee dropping their act of pathetic gennin for the examiners. “How’ve you been?”
Even though they never took classes together, they still graduated the same year, and that means something. Lee tilts his eyebrows downward, and Kichiro talked about him sometimes. Though Kakashi told Sasuke Gai’s team would be there, she was hoping to avoid them. “I’ve been good,” she says. “I was put with Hatake Kakashi. You?”
“Bored,” Tenten answers. “There are so many low ranking missions you can do, you know? I’m ready to advance.”
Sasuke can see it, when Lee goes to say something, and she moves past Tenten towards Neji, not wanting to risk a mention of Kichiro now. “They aren’t going to let us passed if we don’t point out the genjutsu,” Sasuke says. “I’m not allowed to bring attention to myself, so my team can’t either. Go take the credit.”
“We’re trying to bring attention to ourselves, either.”
“Well, you’re not a safety risk. Tough.”
Though she doesn’t know if he noticed it at first glance, she knows from Yuki and Kichiro’s stories of Academy years that Hyuuga Neji has a superiority complex. His pale eyes, that look more likely to be sightless than hers ever did, stare down at her for a moment before he nods. “Fine,” he says, and she steps aside.
Advancing will give her more opportunities to leave Konoha, and search out Orochimaru. Maybe she doesn’t see the need to run anymore, but that doesn’t mean she’s given up her goal.
When Kaito-sensei gave Yuki, Kichiro, and Sasuke the contracts, he explained what the chuunin exams entailed, and just yesterday Kakashi did again. Neither of them, though, warned her that there was going to be a written portion.
“Give me a second, Ino,” Sakura says, and then her hand is Sasuke’s, leading her to the corner. “What’s wrong? See someone you recognized?”
Naruto’s there, too, shaking off a few boys she doesn’t know, and a quick look around the room shows that no, she doesn’t recognize anyone, despite the number of Ame-nin present. “Look at where we are,” she says. “Instructions for exams are usually given on-site. We’re in a classroom.”
“You think there’s going to be a written test?” her friend says, and Naruto’s eyes widen in an expression that must mirror the one Sasuke had a moment ago. “There’s a written test of the gennin exam, too. If you passed that, you’ll pass this.”
As children, she had the highest written scores, with Sakura close behind. Now Sasuke’s better at history and cultural studies than most jounin, but doesn’t know the names of half of what she can do. “I was blind,” she says. “I was exempt from the written.”
Glancing around, Naruto says, “Couldn’t you just, you know, eyes? And cheat? Because I’m not that good at written.”
Itachi always taught her to never cheat, or take shortcuts, but the Sharingan is a technique like any other. “I’m not supposed to,” she says, refraining from pushing her hair from her face. Having her bangs, and these glasses, obscuring her vision is making her anxious. “People might recognize me.”
There might be people in here that know her, or that she knows. She looks different than she used—taller, a figure, and the wrong color eyes. “Maybe it’s all open-ended questions,” Sakura says, shoulders dropping in rapidly lost hope. “That would make sense, right? Asking about what to do in different situations if we’re out on the field?”
“I doubt it,” Sasuke says, crossing her arms. “That would actually make sense.”
“We’ll get it,” Naruto says, knocking her with his elbow. It’s nice, surprisingly, knowing she’s not the only panicking about this. “There’s no way me and you’re getting out on a written test.”
Before she can answer, a Konoha-nin with hair like Kakashi tells the rest of Naruto and Sakura’s year to quiet down. Sasuke refuses to lose this early on, to give up her chance to be promoted because she never learned properly. Even so, that seems like the most likely outcome, and she just hopes she gets a second chance.
Though Sasuke puts together what the director of I&T’s instructions were instantly, that doesn’t change her inability to use her Sharingan in a room so filled with people. Four of the questions she can answer on her own; three are common sense to anyone who’s been on legitimate B-ranking missions, and the first is a cryptograph. The tenth she needs to wait for at the end of the exam, if they make it that far.
She writes what she knows, hoping her spelling is at least passable, and scribbles a message on the back that she understands the point is to cheat, but she can’t when she’s restricted from any of her intelligence gathering techniques. It’s childish, and unnecessary, but she feels like she has to explain herself, all things considered. As she told Kakashi, when she first joined Team Ten: people expect her to be good. Admitting she doesn’t have the terminology in vocabulary to explain chakra flow is just embarrassing.
When she looks away from her test, and to the front of the room, she meets Ibiki’s eyes, whose gaze lingers on her. He lifts an eyebrow that disappears underneath her forehead protector, and gives a slight nod she thinks means he understands her dilemma. He’s the one who made the seating chart, she assumes, and noticed the moment everyone was settled that she’s surrounded by other Konoha-nin, and several rows away from anyone from Ame. If there’s a team in here that knows her, then they won’t have the opportunity to catch a good enough look at her to recognize who she is.
For the last ten minutes, she waits, staring down at the tenth question. The Kazekage’s older son leaves for the bathroom towards the end, disrupting those still testing. Sakura, three rows ahead, rubs her temple, and across the aisle Yamanaka Ino sleeps on her desk while Chouji scrambles to finish the test, his hand motions different than his normal ones. As someone who’s had her mind invaded before, Sasuke knows the signs.
The Kazekage’s son returns right as the test ends, and she straightens in her seat. “First,” Ibiki says, “I’ll go over the rules for the tenth question.”
It’s noon, the room’s hot and stuffy, filled with too many people, and Sasuke hasn’t been this nervous in a long time.
ii.
Everyone in Konoha knows about the Forest of Death. It’s a little unnerving that Sasuke, possibly the only one who doesn’t, acts like there’s nothing to worry about.
The moment they’re in the gate, she pulls off the glasses, slipping them into her pack, and and pulls her hair off her face. “Feel any better?” Sakura asks. She understands how uncomfortable it is to have her vision obscured by her bangs.
Nodding, Sasuke says, “Yeah. Naruto, did you have to yell at Anko? She was so annoying about it.”
She knows everyone, Sakura’s learned by now, not just Kakashi-sensei. Naruto frowns as they start into the forest, long grass brushing into their ankles, who knows what lying in wait in the bushes. In Konoha, it’s hot until November, and the humidity in the air clogs her lungs, or maybe it’s anxiety. The test earlier had been bad enough, not knowing if her teammates were going to pass, and Naruto afterwards might have been self-satisfied with his overly enthusiastic display of courage, but Sasuke looked on the verge of tears. For once, Sakura expected a reaction like that; her friend’s parents had always been strict with her receiving the highest scores, even in subjects she found hard, and it seems she’s applied to same attitude.
At least she’s better at admitting she’s bad at something these days, Sakura thinks, though she could do without the superiority complex in other areas.
“She was creepy,” Naruto says, stepping over a branch the size of his foot. Everything in the Forest of Death is larger than normal, which, unfortunately, includes the insects. She’s not looking forward to the mosquitoes. “How was I supposed to know you knew her? What did she do anyway?”
Frowning, Sasuke says, “You don’t want to know. She did totally cheat for me, though, and said none of the Ame-nin teams left had the opposite scroll as us, so there’s no reason for us to go after each other. They’re really making an effort to keep me away.”
“Is that a problem?” Sakura says. Sasuke doesn’t answer.
Sakura breathes deep, takes in the smell of stagnant water and oncoming rain. In the Academy room, everything was close, and she thought the fresh air would feel better. Instead it’s just as oppressive, and she doesn’t have a good feeling about this in the slightest.
The Oto-nin attack them just an hour later, and the girl wraps her hand in Sakura’s hair. “You put so much hard work into your looks,” the other kunoichi says. “It’s a shame you couldn’t do the same with your training.”
When Sakura removes the kunai from her pack, she doesn’t think before slicing her hair, disconnecting herself from the girl. Sakura turns, stabbing the Oto-nin right below the knee and digging upwards, breaking the cap. Blood trickles down the kunai and onto her hand, and when she pulls away, it gushes; the girl lands on her back on the ground, screaming. It’s the first time Sakura’s ever seriously hurt anyone, but these three said they were after Sasuke, and she’s not letting anyone take her friend ever again. Losing her once was enough.
The other two are down by the time Sakura is back on her feet. One’s brace is broken at the wrist, and there’s no evidence of a weapon despite the clean cut. The injury’s Sasuke’s doing, who stands looking to Naruto with her eyes still glowing with the Sharingan. He’s holding the scroll with the third unconscious on the ground at his feet. Everything feels charged, Sakura’s senses noticing too much at once as the adrenaline floods her system, and when Naruto says, “I like your new hair, Sakura-chan,” she laughs, girlish and giggling and inappropriate.
Before either she or Naruto can suggest they leave now, Sasuke brushes past her and drops to one knee in front of the girl. “You’re unable to walk right now because my teammate’s a lot better than anyone’s giving her credit for,” Sasuke says, and Sakura flushes in pride, because she rarely receives compliments beyond how nice the color of her hair is, “but we both know you’re making it out of here anyway.” Tying a bandage above the Oto-nin’s knee, she continues, “Your friend, though, won’t be. My shuriken went through his wrist, and he’s currently trapped in a genjutsu, unable to save himself. Your other one is alive, but not in much better condition. I get that you’re probably pretty angry about that, but you’re going to deliver a message for me anyway.”
“Wait, you killed him?” Naruto says as the sense of pride disappears. There’s blood in his hair, Sakura realizes for the first time, matting it down onto the fabric of his forehead protector and the back of his neck. She’s aware of her own injuries, then, and the pain from her hair being tugged, and the girl’s blood steadily drying on her hands. Somehow, Sasuke’s clean. “Why?”
“What makes you think I’d deliver a message?” the girl says, voice tight with pain even as she tries to sound defiant. This isn’t the first time Sakura’s seen her friend fight, but it’s the first time she’s found the other girl intimidating. “How many people have to die before you stop running, Sasuke-chan?”
Sasuke has a kunai out faster than Sakura can see, pressing it against the Oto-nin’s throat as paper comes from nowhere, pinning her arms the ground. “You’re going to deliver this message because Orochimaru’s going to ask for it,” Sasuke says, and when Naruto tries to move to stop her, Sakura lashes out, grabbing the back of his jacket. It’s torn at elbow, revealing skin turned black and blue. “Tell him to look at the state of all of you, and anyone else he sends will end up a lot worse. He’s not getting me, and he’s not killing anyone else. These two are never going to be used as bargaining means again, are we clear? They’re under my protection.”
Before standing, she removes all of the Oto-nin’s weapons, and throws them so they’re embedded into a tree with thunking sounds too loud. “You can yell at me later, idiot,” she says, grabbing Naruto’s fraying sleeve to pull him away as the paper releases the Oto-nin. She grits her teeth, and falls back as she tries to stand. Though Sakura hesitates for a moment, she knows better, and turns away. “You too, Sakura.”
All shinobi kill eventually, whether Sakura likes it or not, and Sasuke’s been official for a while. It’s just that she’s young, and girls their age shouldn’t be comfortable letting boys bleed out slowly from the wrist while their teammates watch. “Who’s Orochimaru?” Sakura asks as they pass through the bushes and away from the Oto-nin, tying her forehead protector back on her head. The ends of her hair brush the back of her neck, and she thinks of being seven again, wondering how Sasuke could stand to have hers so long. Her sticks from static to her shirt, fanned out across her upper back.
“One of three sannin,” she answers, hands curling into fists, “and the reason the rest of Team Ten is dead. Judge me all you want, but I was just keeping the two of you alive. So yeah, you’re welcome.”
By now, the lie that her team was promoted to chuunin without her is out in the open, but she’s never given specifics. Sakura glances to Naruto, all letting a short silence sit, and he says, “That’s the guy that’s after you?”
Even though Sasuke doesn’t say much, she’s said enough, and now that Sakura knows what to pay attention to, there’re rumors, too. She just never knew the name. “They all died,” she says, “and I have a feeling I was just used as bait.”
Sakura doesn’t give her friend warning before hugging her, wrapping her arms around her from behind. When Sasuke freezes, Naruto joins them, and Sakura feels the tremor run through the other girl’s body. “Nothing’s happening to us, Sasuke,” she says. “Promise.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sasuke says. “Can you let go of me now before anyone else finds us?”
There’s no thank you in her voice. All Sakura hears is don’t make promises you can’t keep.
As Sasuke’s been a kunoichi the longest, Sakura and Naruto listen to her for what to do, and follow her through the trees. Down below, they’re more likely to leave a trail, but after cleaning all the blood off themselves in a near by stream, jumping from branch to branch is easier. Sasuke makes it look effortless, almost like she’s flying, and Sakura’s more resigned than jealous.
In the trees, the need to contend with less, too. There’s the occasional oversized bug, and they need to dodge another team once, and a trap twice, but there aren’t as many things to work their way around or get caught on. “Can we just sit down and eat something already?” Naruto says, and Sasuke shakes her head.
“We’ll make it there by nightfall,” she says. “I want to tell someone about the Oto-nin as soon as we can.”
After that, they don’t talk.
They make it to the tower as the sun dips below the horizon.
For a week, they live off ration food and sleep in bedrolls on tile floors, showering in communal showers, using bar soap instead of shampoo in their hair. “I’m starting to think this is part of the test,” Ino says after she and her team make it through on the third day. “This is like the cheapest you can get.”
Sasuke, for the first time since she came back, is more awkward than Sakura, hiding behind the half-wall as she scrubs herself down as if kunoichi don’t shower together all the time. Alternatively, Ino’s completely unashamed, practically flaunting her body in a way that Sakura never would because they’re only twelve, making the three of them and Hinata the youngest here. The Kazekage’s daughter, whose team was the only one to arrive before Sakura’s, gets up as early as five in the morning to wash herself off, as if she doesn’t trust any of the other participants.
Whether Sakura’s promoted or not, she can’t wait until this week is over. The floors everywhere across the tower are disgusting, grimy and dirty from the new teams constantly entering and no one bothering to clean. “At least I have less hair to kill now,” she says, and Tenten groans in frustration from across the shower room, combing her fingers through knots the soap aren’t helping. “Cheap’s better for getting the blood out, though.”
“The soap isn’t cheap,” Sasuke says as the water turns off, and wraps a thin towel around herself. “These are, but the soap isn’t. Just feels that way because it’s sterile.”
“How do you know that?” Ino asks. Sasuke, half hidden by steam, wiggles into clothes under the towel. “Take this exam before?”
“No.” As she steps out, Sakura feels the sudden need to cover herself, but Sasuke barely glances at her. With her hair and the steam wetting her clothes, the fabric turns sheer, clinging to her body, acting as a bad reminder that no matter how many boys look at Sakura or Ino, they still appear their age. Sasuke stopped resembling a stick figure years ago. “It’s just the same soap they use in the hospital. You can smell the disinfectant. That’s why it cuts through the blood.”
Despite living in Konoha her whole life, Sakura’s never had to stay at the hospital overnight. “Makes sense,” she says, but when she looks up, Sasuke’s already walking away. “If you’re getting coffee,” Sakura adds, raising her voice, “grab me some, too!”
Without pausing, Sasuke answers, “I’ll try,” and slips out of the washroom as Tenten turns off her water too.
“You should hurry up,” she tells them. “Some Kusa-nin got kicked out with her body all slicked up in soap and naked because she took too long.”
Neither Sakura nor Ino need any more prompting than that, and finish as quickly as they can. “This is so a test in time management skills,” Ino says, tying on her skirt, and Sakura shrugs, zipping up her dress.
Sasuke meets them outside with a cup of instant coffee. “It tastes like dirt,” she says, sipping her own, and Sakura thinks this is less about time management skills, and more part of survival testing. “I didn’t even want to risk the milk.”
Looking down at the pale brown liquid in her cup, Sakura thinks maybe the forest was preferable to this.
iii.
First Sasuke won against Neji, which everyone said impossible, and then Sakura tied with Ino, and finally, Naruto won against Kiba. After a month of barely seeing Sakura, and seeing Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei even less, Team Seven comes together again for the third test. Naruto thinks it says something that Sasuke finishes the first round while he starts it, because everyone’s expecting his fight to be the least interesting.
Like Sasuke, he’s fighting a Suna-nin. Instead of Gaara, though, Naruto has the puppeteer, and after the day with Konohamaru, this is a fight he’s looking forward to, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
He looks up before the match starts to his team, where the girls smile down at him, and from this distance, he can’t tell with Kakashi-sensei. As he focuses back on his opponent, the announcer says, “And start,” his second word lost in a cough as he gets out of the way.
This is the first time Naruto’s ever had so many people focused on him. If he’s going to prove himself, it’s now or never, so he raises his hands in the seals for a Kage Bunshin, and hopes for the best.
“So that’s Uchiha Itachi’s kid sister?”
Naruto looks away from the arena, where Sasuke stands still, waiting for her opponent. The speaker’s an ANBU, and a man by his voice, hidden behind a white mask with some sort of bird painted on the front. “Yeah,” says the one next to him, a woman. “You know, I always said he looked a bit like a girl. I feel like she just proves it.”
Before the man can answer, or Naruto has the chance to understand what they’re talking about, the announcer below calls start. He turns his attention back in time to see Gaara’s sand collide with a wall of paper, Sasuke’s hand outheld and her eyes colored with the design they developed during the fight with Neji. With a movement of her wrist, a series of them burst into fire, the reaction of an explosive tag, and as Sakura goes to ask, Kakashi-sensei, “That’s one of the things we worked on.”
The last time Naruto saw his friend around an explosion, she had a panic attack that nearly resulted in her death. Now she dashes to the side, raising paper shuriken like the ones she used to kill the Oto-nin in the Forest of Death, face set in concentration. Every few seconds, she sends a rush in Gaara’s direction, some crushed by the sand, but others making it through until they hit against his inner shield, and fail at inflicting any damage. Kankuro was hard to beat, but Naruto can easily see his brother is harder.
As he suddenly stops using his sand to fight, and instead surrounds his body in a sphere of it, Sakura moves off her seat to the edge, gripping the railing. Naruto bites the side of his thumbnail, knowing this can’t be simple defense, while Sasuke skids to a halt, letting her shuriken hover around her. The stands are silent, waiting.
Jiraya comes from nowhere, hopping over the back of Sakura’s seat. “Kakashi,” he says, “where did a twelve-year-old learn how to do that?”
“No one has any idea,” Kakashi-sensei answers. “Including her. Why? You recognize it?”
Until now, Jiraiya’s always seemed like an overgrown kid, but he sounds completely serious when he says, “The person who invented that died years ago. No one should be able to do it now.”
Without warning, the sound of birds chirping erupts from the arena, and Sasuke’s left hand’s coated in electricity like Kakashi-sensei’s in the Wave Country. Her hair swirls around her, her skin’s tinted blue, and her eyes glow. She looks like a spirit from one of the stories Naruto never had a parent to tell him. “That’s irresponsible, Kakashi,” Jiraiya then, but then she’s moving, dodging sand shooting towards her, and stabs her arm right through the shield.
It breaks, sand going in every direction, and Naruto bites so hard down on his nail he makes his thumb bleed. A collective gasp runs through the stands, and several Suna-nin exclaim disbelief. Down in the arena, Sasuke’s halfway across, pulling herself to her feet, and Gaara clutches his chest, blood running down his front.
“Understand why I felt safe teaching her?”
Sasuke says, “Hey, Gaara!” and he looks straight towards her, sand starting to travel back to his feet. A moment later, it falls flat, and he’s on his knees, palms pressed to his eyes instead.
“Winner, Uchiha Sasuke,” the announcer says, drowned out by Konoha-nin applause, but then Naruto sees a feather from the sky, and everything goes wrong.
By the time Naruto reaches his friends, Sakura’s caught to a tree with sand, Gaara’s sister is shouting for her brother to be careful, and Sasuke’s eyes are the same as before. “Get Sakura,” she says, and, “I so don’t have the chakra have this.”
“Sasuke, I can help,” Naruto says, snagging her sleeve, but she shakes him off. “You aren’t dealing with this on your own!”
“I know,” she says. “I’m just wearing him down.”
That doesn’t sound much different, but as usual, she doesn’t give him time to answer. Lightning surrounds around her hand again, and she runs, hopping from branch to branch, directly for Gaara, who doesn’t look human anymore. I could turn into that, Naruto realizes as makes it to Sakura, and feels sick at the thought.
The sand isn’t going to be cut down with a kunai, but that’s as far as his observations get before Gaara roars, the creature taken over him fully, and Sasuke slams her back against the trunk of the tree. Half her body’s covered in blank lines from the mark on shoulder. “Look, I know what this is,” Naruto says, trying to figure out what to do as Gaara forces his way through the trees towards them, “and you can’t beat this without me.”
“I get that,” she says, or snaps, and Naruto nearly falls off the branch when blood drips from her left eye, “but just shut up.”
It’s like nothing he’s ever seen, black flames spreading from the middle of Gaara’s back and ripping down his body. Sakura falls, struggling to breathe, the sand losing its hold, and Sasuke catches her. “Just one second,” she says. “Then you can take over.”
“You mean you can do more?”
Her eyes, though still patterned with the Sharingan, slid out of focus. “It’s your turn,” she says, and right before he reaches them, Gaara reverts back to the shape of a human, collapsing the the ground below.
“Sasuke—”
“I’ll take care of her,” Sakura says, wincing, with one arm wrapped around their friend. “Naruto, go.”
Though Naruto doesn’t want to leave them alone with Sakura injured, and Sasuke unconscious, Gaara’s awake. “Right,” Naruto says, and follows his friend’s earlier route, moving from broken tree to broken tree, and finally jumping to the ground. A few feet away, Temari stands back, face white, separated from them by black flames still burning.
He doesn’t know how, but Sasuke just gave him a chance to talk to someone like him. Even if Gaara’s a little too obsessed with killing, knowing there’re are people like him out there means a lot, and Naruto sits cross-legged across from the other boy, unwilling to waste the opportunity.
Team Seven’s together in the hospital for Sakura’s ribs and Sasuke’s chakra exhaustion when the ANBU come. “What’s going on?” Kakashi-sensei, standing. “Does—Sasuke?”
A moment ago, he was at her bedside the way Naruto is Sakura’s, and now Sasuke’s sitting up, clutching at Kakashi-sensei’s shirt hem. Her face is white, the same color as sheets.
“Uchiha Sasuke,” one says with a voice Naruto recognizes from the test, “you need to come with us.”
“Why do you need my student?” Kakashi-sensei says, putting his arm out in front of her. The last time Naruto saw her so afraid was during the fight with Haku. “No, who needs her?”
The ANBU in the front, the one who spoke, looks to his teammates, who nod, and push past Kakashi-sensei. When Naruto goes to react, Sakura grabs the back of his jacket like in the forest, and he can feel her hand shaking.
“Hey, I’ll go willingly,” Sasuke says as they pull her out of bed, dragging the blanket with her. Her feet are bare, and the hospital gown doesn’t reach her knees. “Hey,” she says again as the one of the right tugs on her hair, and wraps a blindfold around her eyes. “I said I’d go willingly. Isn’t this harassment?”
Looking from her to the one who spoke, Kakashi-sensei says, “She’s twelve. Is this really necessary?”
Sakura’s grip tightens when the third one puts on handcuffs, and pushes Sasuke in the direction of the door. She doesn’t stumble, and walks with her back straight, like she isn’t being forced. “Uchiha Itachi was thirteen when he killed the family,” the first one says. “All this is just precaution. Someone’ll find you when she’s released. I hear she’s a good kid, I doubt it’ll take long.”
Before Naruto can demand they give his teammate back, because “doubt it’ll take long” still indicates an overnight at least, Sakura’s hand moves from the back of his shirt to over his mouth. “Where’re they taking her?” she asks as the ANBU leaves, and Naruto glares at his back. “Kakashi-sensei, is Sasuke in trouble?”
“That depends,” Kakashi-sensei says, finally looking back to them. “What did she do?”
The problem is, Naruto isn’t entirely sure how to answer that. Until the Wave Country, he used to think of Sasuke as his rival, but even if he had to save her in the end, that’s when he learned she’s has too much of a head’s start. “She did a lot of damage,” he says once Sakura moves her hand. “Like, there was fire and lightning everywhere and Gaara’s sister was freaking out because she couldn’t do anything or whatever. Then she goes ‘it’s your turn,’ and Gaara went from being the Shukaku back to normal. Sasuke like caught Sakura and then she was out. Gaara said she was inside his head?”
Of everything in the fight, that’s what’s getting to him the most. He might be used to Sasuke using techniques he’s never heard of, but the only clan he knows that can get inside someone’s head is Ino’s. From the way Kakashi’s eye widens, though, Naruto thinks Sasuke didn’t just copy the Yamanaka jutsu.
Kakashi-sensei closes his eye, and takes a deep breath. After he opens it again, he says, “You didn’t mention this to anyone, did you?”
“Uh, no,” Naruto says, but Sakura shakes, reminding him that isn’t necessarily true, “but the jounin who found us probably heard me trying to ask Sasuke what she did. She was sort of awake by then. What did she do?”
He thinks about the examiner from the first test, with the scars on his head and his scare tactics. In the distance, something breaks and crashes like a building toppling, and Naruto hopes he didn’t get his friend sent to someone like that.
Biting her lip, Sakura asks, “People aren’t going to think she had something to do with this, are they?”
“I don’t know.” Kakashi-sensei focuses again on Naruto. “Sasuke’s complicated. Naruto, Gaara had two separate chakra reserves, one of his own, and one of that belonged what you saw him turn into. She used her eyes to close that secondary reserve.”
As dense as he can be at times, it doesn’t take anything specific for Naruto to understand this. “Someone can do that?” he says, and looks to his stomach where the seal is. It’s violating enough, knowing he has something inside him, without the idea that his friend can get in there, too. “How? Why?”
Sakura interrupts, if Kakashi-sensei was even going to say anything, and Naruto doesn’t get his answer. In another part of the village, Sasuke’s being questioned because she can stop people like him. Even if was to protect the people of Konoha, he doesn’t know how he feels about that.
Through the window, he can see the Hokage monument, cracked through the Sandaime’s face, and regardless of what she can do, he just hopes Sasuke’s okay.