Chapter Text
She was losing him.
Even half dead, curled over her stomach as it tried to puke itself out through her throat, Temari could see how quickly Naruto was unraveling. She didn’t know what they were doing to her brother, but it was enough to make Naruto lose himself in the middle of a battle. As much as the boy was frenetic and loud and ridiculous, he knew when to take things seriously. She had seen how he’d faced her little brother. She had never seen him play around during a fight unless it was for a specific reason.
Now, he was barely able to retain his senses. Gaara was dying, and he was taking Naruto with him.
Now that Naruto and his sensei were gone, she leaned heavily against a tree, her gaze watchful on the man before her. He didn’t move for a long, interminable amount of time. The grass swayed, the day giving slow way to evening. The black and white coloring of his skin slowly diminished back to a normal pallor. Still the man did not move. She no longer believed it. “Get up already.”
“Why the f*ck should I?”
She snorted through her nose. “You can’t yet, can you? You’re still being held in place.” Which meant Naruto’s sensei was all right. Which meant Naruto was likely all right.
“Go f*ck yourself, you ugly hag. When I get out of here, I’m gonna kill you.”
She felt marginally better; even though she still felt the pain of every injury the man had been inflicted with by himself or their team, she could now stand and carry her fan if she needed to. She could fight, so long as her enemy wasn’t fast and she didn’t have to use her abdominal muscles much – which meant using her fan was out of the question. She would have used the jutsu Naruto did, just to keep this guy from being a threat in case an ally of his truly did arrive, but without an enclosure of some kind, the amount of chakra needed to knock the man back out was more than she had. Naruto could do it, thanks to the demon inside of him. But not her.
So when his insults got a little too loud, she went with the second best option and wrapped her hands around his neck until he passed out. It worked for only a moment before he woke back up. “What the f*ck?! Don’t demand I talk and then strangle me, you crazy bitch!”
So she strangled him again.
She entertained herself doing this until it got dark enough that she could pretend to leave. He shouted for her several times as she walked into the treeline, calling her names until he finally attempted to goad her. “That little sh*t is gonna die, just like the one we got now,” he called out. She hated how his words actually made her freeze for a second. Thankfully, she was too far away for him to see it. “We’ve been waiting for him. Mated, isn’t he?” The man laughed as her blood ran cold. “That’s two for the price of one! We kill the first one, and the second falls right into our laps.”
She forced herself to keep walking, then silently made her way up into the trees. What the bastard said was true. If Gaara died, Naruto would definitely lose himself, as well. Their souls were too intrinsically linked. If Gaara died… her heart fluttered before sinking like a stone. No. This was why she was here. This was why Naruto’s sensei gave her that look before dragging Naruto off. They both knew Naruto would be everyone’s target. He was already losing his focus in battle, already torn in half by Gaara’s pain. He would be an easy target if someone came to loose this man’s chains.
Unsurprisingly, someone did. Unfortunately, they arrived in a way that she couldn’t prevent, thwart, or distract.
The person in question rose from the ground as if from a grave. No dirt was displaced. No grass was dug up. Yet the familiar man – if he could even be called a man; a giant Venus fly trap encircled his face – floated up from the ground as if they were a ghost and stared down at the man held by dogs to the ground.
And stared. And stared.
“Knock it the f*ck off and get me outta these f*cking things!”
The plant man laughed.
“f*ck you, Zetsu!”
The plant man bent down, and just like that, the dogs holding the Akatsuki member down popped back to their home, leaving the man free to get up. A second later, vines launched through the ground, thorns tangling around themselves as the vines reached for animals that were no longer there. The man got up as Zetsu’s vines churned back into the ground. Unlike Zetsu, they left very clear holes when digging through the earth.
“You got stopped from taking the jinchuuriki by dogs,” Zetsu said, clearly having the time of his life.
“Shut up!” The man twisted his wrists, looking at the bite marks that still oozed blood. “That f*cking brat,” he said, checking his scythe. “Damn. That masked f*cker cleaned it.” He looked around. “Where’d that bitch go?”
Zetsu’s humor dwindled. “Don’t get distracted.”
“f*ck you! I let a kill get away. How am I gonna face Jashin? That bitch needs to die!”
“The mission is the jinchuuriki,” Zetsu said. “We don’t care about anyone else.”
The Akatsuki member huffed. “That f*cker is on my sh*t list, too, you know. But that girl is someone he cares about. We drag her over, he’ll come running.”
“No,” Zetsu said, cutting things off before she could do more than thin her lips. “His focus is on his mate. He won’t care about anyone else.”
“He sure got pissed when I hurt her,” the man said. His mouth stretched into a wide grin. “No harm in dropping some other bodies at his feet.”
“You were supposed to hold him here until the ritual was complete.” That wiped the smirk right off the man’s face. Zetsu looked around. Temari was careful not to move, despite how the man’s face lingered in her general direction a bit too long. “You failed. He’s now close to the caves. We will have to hold him off ourselves. We have no time to waste on others.”
Hidan swore viciously. “How f*cking long does it take? We were finished with the first one by now!”
“We also had everyone there, and the demon was weaker than this one.”
Temari grabbed her stomach. She’d been crouched for too long. Her stomach ached. She could taste blood in her mouth. She had to grab on to the trunk of the tree to steady herself. Branches swayed, sending a shuffle of leaves. She froze.
“So maybe we shouldn’t have all swung out here, huh? Maybe all this bullsh*t was a waste of time.”
“Konoha sent several teams after us,” Zetsu said. “If we didn’t engage them, they would have all met up together by now. Considering the difficulties you’ve faced against three of them, Hidan, the entire force, while manageable, might still successfully interrupt the ritual. Then all of this would have indeed been a waste of time.”
Hidan grimaced. “Shut your f*ckin’ mouth.”
“As it stands, we have successfully slowed down the other teams, no thanks to your efforts.” Hidan actually took a swipe at the man for that one, but though his hand sliced through him, he just turned white, collapsed like tofu, and showed up beneath the tree Temari crouched in. She held her breath. “The boss has ordered you to come help stop the jinchuuriki. He’s nearly outside the gates, and Deidara is still low on chakra.”
Hidan huffed. “You guys are f*ckin’ useless without me.”
“Need I remind you of who failed to slow him down?”
Hidan took another swipe, but this time the man ducked into the earth, leaving only his head and plant visible. The scythe dug a chunk out of the tree she stood on. It tottered precariously. “Bitch, I’ll f*ckin’ kill you, too.”
“You could try focusing that on the jinchuuriki instead,” Zetsu said. “Would you prefer running through the woods, or arriving faster?”
Hidan’s mouth twisted. He almost looked torn.
Her heart leaped. Arriving faster was not an option. It sounded like Naruto had managed to nearly reach Gaara. If he was stopped now – by this man, especially – then it would be game over for the both of them.
She clenched her fingers tight against her stomach. With wavering balance, she let go of the tree, spat onto her fingers, pulled up her fan, and swung it open.
Zetsu sighed.
“What the…?” Hidan looked up.
“I was really hoping she wouldn’t do this.”
Hidan’s face split into a grin. “f*ck, yeah! Bitch, I was hopin’ I’d see you again.”
Naruto was on his way to Gaara. These people had banked on this man, Hidan, slowing him down long enough for them to finish whatever they were doing to Gaara and then focus their attentions on him. That sensei of Naruto’s had made the right call, dragging him away and leaving her behind.
She sucked in an unsteady breath as the man threw his scythe. “Kuchiyose: Kirikiri Mai!”
Zetsu sighed again before disappearing under the earth. “Hey!” Hidan yelled, glaring at the forest around him. “If you get in my way, I’ll f*ckin’ kill you!”
The man popped back up, though he did so just beneath the tree Temari balanced on, carefully avoiding the wind she called forth as it chopped through tree after tree after tree. Hidan barely bothered to dodge, uncaring of the hundreds of pounds of wood falling toward him. “There are more important things to do.”
“f*ck off!”
Zetsu grumbled again, but slid away. “Hurry up and join us afterward, then. I have to get back.”
Temari didn’t bother with him. She could barely take on any challengers, let alone both an immortal and a ghost. She had to hope that, though Naruto was certainly not strong against subterfuge, his sensei might be of some use. If nothing else, slowing this man down, keeping him from Naruto and Gaara – if that was the best she could do, then she would be pretty damn pleased.
She swung her fan again, chopping the trees into smaller chunks, turning them into rain. The man below her was forced to dodge. Her fist trembled against her stomach. Blood spilled down the side of her lip.
She’d kept him from getting to Naruto faster. She’d already bought Naruto a few more hours. It was time to go after the other one.
She tore up the ground beneath her feet with another whirl of blades. “Kamaitachi no Jutsu!” She swallowed back a mouthful of blood, unwilling to give the man a chance to kill her. A vortex of wind scattered the chopped trees into hail. Now that Naruto and his sensei were gone, the only person getting beaten and battered was the Akatsuki member, who cursed loudly even within the howling winds.
She gritted her bloody teeth and whirled her fan beneath her feet. Jumping almost made her puke up the blood she’d just swallowed, but she landed on her fan and was able to stabilize her chakra before she crashed to the ground.
She’d slowed Hidan down, learned a bit more about what the Akatsuki had planned, and had managed to rest enough to fight. It was time to run.
“Bitch!” she heard as she flew away. “You think this is gonna hurt me?!”
Maybe not, she thought, daring to look back, but the man clearly couldn’t see sh*t. He relied on his healing skills too much; he forgot that professional ninja cared more about completing the mission than winning a fight.
Moron. She raced away as he threw chunks of trees haphazardly throughout the newly-made clearing, screeching and hollering about killing people all the while.
She made it safe and sound to a point far away, vision so blurry she knew she’d lost track of the proper path, before she fell off her fan and lost consciousness.
Sakura and Sai arrived in Suna at the end of the evening. Sakura wasn’t afraid to admit she’d pushed them hard, harder than she normally would. She didn’t like how Sai kept glancing back, his eyes empty and cold as he scanned the desert as if he could still see the forest they’d left at midday. She watched his hands itch toward his pack, toward his weapons. She couldn’t help but shiver, even in the heat.
They were welcomed at Sunagakure’s gates by a group of old people. They called themselves the council. She didn’t recognize any of them, save the man with his face half-covered. He had been the one to act as leader of Suna’s team during the chuunin exams, and she had seen him off and on during her visits to Suna over the past few years.
She turned to face him as she spoke. “The Land of Fire has sent its ninja to assist Sunagakure in recovering the captured Kazekage. My name is Haruno Sakura. I’m a medic nin trained by the Hokage. This is Sai,” she said, gesturing to her silent companion. “He is my teammate and ready to assist in whatever capacity is necessary.”
The man glanced at Sai for only a second before gesturing him over to the council. “He can assist in rebuilding our defenses. We have immediate need for a medic nin. The Kazekage’s advisor has been poisoned.”
The Council made a few faces as he spoke, as if Sai’s presence was unwelcome and the man’s information on the poisoning was a show of weakness. She ignored it all and hurried by his side. “What kind of poison?”
“Unknown.” The man’s lips thinned. “It was created by an old genius in mechanics and poisons who went rogue a very long time ago.”
Sakura waited a few moments, but it seemed the man was uninterested in giving more information. She could only assume the rogue nin once hailed from Suna.
She and Sai were led into the Kazekage’s building. The front of it had been turned into some sort of meeting room; ninja ran back and forth, shouting directions and orders to one another as they ran in and out. A group of older people stood in the corner watching it all. Their eyes reminded her of Sai; they seemed cold as they stood apart from it all, even as they helped direct people. They spoke calmly, their faces empty. Sakura stopped for a moment, catching sight of a map. She walked over.
Everyone seemed to stop and look at her as she passed; she didn’t know if it was because she was clearly not one of them or because she seemed to have some sort of purpose. She took one look at the map and saw that it showed Sunagakure and most of its surroundings. Lines had been drawn into equal squares, several of which had already been crossed out. She tracked her own path to Suna’s gates before pointing at one crossed out location. “Here,” she said.
Everyone stared at her.
“Here’s where we broke off with the rest of our team,” she explained. Sai came to stand beside her. “They branched off down this way,” she said, making a line with her finger along the map. “The Kazekage should be down along there somewhere.”
“How would they know?”
She looked up. A few of the younger ninja looked over her shoulder, hands on hips, glaring either at the map or at her.
When she turned to look, she noticed that the elders in the corner were staring right at her. Their faces carried variations of one theme – the same empty, calculating, divisive stare. The one that said they were watching not because they were a part of the scene, but because they were judging it. Judging them. Judging their topic of conversation. Finding them wanting.
She knew they knew. On some deep, primal level, she knew they knew, and she knew they were Naruto’s and Gaara’s enemies.
Her hands shook. How much of this had been happening all this time, and she had been oblivious to it? Had Naruto already faced this danger before? How many times had she stepped into these fires without even feeling the heat of them? How many times had Naruto been pushed to walk along this edge?
She felt like she was seeing past the placid waters of a lake, forced to meet the gaze of the monster eyeing her beneath its surface. Her heart raced.
“Temari was with them,” she said, her voice little more than a breath, her mind racing. Why was it being kept a secret by those in power? Why did she sense so much hatred from them?
“Lady Temari?!”
The ninja around her responded to her words, finally taking them seriously. Someone quickly outlined where she’d pointed, creating a new cone in red. New orders were sent out.
She turned back to the man who’d been leading her. “Thank you,” he said, and continued leading her forward.
She couldn’t help glancing once more at the elders. They watched her as one as she made her way out of the room, Sai’s footsteps echoing behind her. She watched back until the swarm of ninja covered the space between them.
Tenten tilted her head.
She could still feel Neji. They would never be what she’d once dreamed of, but that didn’t mean they were such failures as soulmates that they could not use it for its basic positive functions.
It took her only a moment to pinpoint Neji’s location. Heedless of the storm still wrapping up in a gale around her and her sensei, she stepped forward.
“Tenten! Stay with me!”
As was the norm for her, she ignored her sensei.
Neji was going somewhere. If he was conscious, he was smart enough to know what he was doing and how it would lead her to him. If he was unconscious, then she would never let anyone take him away.
She wasn’t the same girl she’d been. She wasn’t pinning all her hopes on some sort of fantasy love, creating some creature good enough to be noticed. She had grown up.
She took out her scroll and ripped it open.
“Neji, if you can hear me, spin!”
She felt it when he responded. Some part of her soared. They were connected. She could hear his trees rustling, so much more focused and ordered than those swaying all around her. Beside that sound was her own whetstone sliding with practiced ease along the length of something. By the sound, the depth of the ring and the length, it sounded like a kunai this time. She took out the matching metal from her scroll and threw them all.
How much time has she spent memorizing every tiny facet of Neji’s soul? How many times had she listened to every susurration, every breath of air and shuffle of leaves, to know without a doubt what Neji was doing and what he might need of her? How many times had she thought that was love?
She listened for him now, ignoring the sight of her eyes to instead focus on the sound of a far-off thunk. Only one. She had sent out several kunai, no less than twenty. Only one landed somewhere. She could feel the sway of leaves in her mind, the way her whetstone reacted, pressing harder to the metal as it slid down the length of the kunai.
She turned to the sound of the kunai’s landing, unsurprised that she couldn’t find a trace of a single one of the kunai she’d thrown. Gai-sensei came to stand next to her, his own gaze caught on that place ahead that should have held the gleam of metal. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Well done,” he said.
Despite herself, she took the words and held them to her chest, even as she continued to listen to Neji’s soul. He remained near, his soul steady and calm. She could pinpoint where he was just by the way her kunai had flown from where she’d thrown it. She turned her gaze unerringly in that direction. “He’s all right,” she said, keeping her words simple, her tone clipped, her hands ready. “He’s not hurt, and he’s not worried.”
Gai-sensei made a considering noise. “Then perhaps he and young Shino are on to something. We should not interfere.”
She vibrated in place for a moment. How to explain that she was tired of not interfering? That she could feel her soulmate over there, just meters in front of her, could feel the way he shifted slightly in place, how the rustling trees flew back and forth in a sudden gust of wind? What was he facing that she once again could not face by his side? How much longer would she have to wait?
Neji looked out over the treeline, keeping an eye on the strange man-plant before him as Shino stood, hands out, his bugs scattering to the four corners of the forest in which they stood. Neji’s gaze scoured the treeline, his Byakugan searching past tree trunks and swaying branches, searching for the sight of the plant-made man he’d noticed almost immediately after pulling himself from the genjutsu.
He still held the rest of Tenten’s kunai between his fingers; the first he’d caught and thrown had landed in the trunk just behind the figure as the creature dipped into the earth like a stone into a lake, dirt rippling like water.
He searched now for the man’s chakra, only to see something slither like a snake beneath the earth. It had little humanoid form; it was more a long line of chakra, as if the man had stretched himself out like a worm.
“I see him, but not her,” he said.
Shino hummed. “As expected.”
Yes. Once Shino had disappeared from their sight, he had grown suspicious of the genjutsu user’s presence. Shino had clearly been warning them of something. With his kikaichu, he would have easily noticed, just like Neji, that there was no one nearby. And when he’d tried to speak, only to suddenly disappear, Neji had understood that the genjutsu had been made to ensure those who figured out the fact of the woman’s lack of presence were unable to spread the knowledge. Sure enough, the instant he’d tried to complete Shino’s words, he, too, had disappeared from their allies’ sight.
Unfortunately for the genjutsu user, however, he and Tenten were not so easily parted.
Since he could see where the strange man was beneath the ground, he carefully stepped, one single movement, into a new stance, dipped low, and threw out another of Tenten’s kunai.
Tenten had never been strong in any particular field; her ninjutsu aptitude was low, her taijutsu was average, and her genjutsu was almost negligible. The reason she’d always evaded his ire when he was younger (and likely the reason she’d joined in, as Neji’s barbs had likely grazed her heart despite his aiming only for Lee’s) was because of the almost godlike way she had honed what skills she had. Her ninjutsu was mediocre, so she found tools that hid those flaws and gave her control over the battlefield. Her taijutsu was poor, so she perfected her tools with her own hands; the sound of a real whetstone had often matched in perfect symmetry to the one he heard in his mind.
In short, Neji could throw two kunai, and he would know immediately which had been Tenten’s. Even if both were polished to perfection, perfectly weighted, and well-gripped, he would know Tenten’s by its sharpness as it dug straight into its target. Only perhaps a perfected wind enhancement could do more damage.
When Neji threw Tenten’s kunai into the ground, they sank as if they’d landed in water, not earth. One even touched the edge of that shining silver chord of chakra, and the worm’s shape shuddered momentarily.
He herded the man back, away from the treeline and toward himself and his allies.
“Is this wise?” Shino asked. He likely realized exactly where Neji was shepherding this man.
“All three of them are better fighters than you might think.” He spoke carefully, quietly. It was best if they could lure the man into a trap. He seemed less a fighter than a man prone to espionage. But now that Neji had backed him into a corner, he had no choice but to engage. This was a much better option than waiting the man out and losing precious hours.
The man dared get close, avoiding Might Gai and turning instead to Neji’s teammates. He got as far as poking his head out before Tenten slammed a windmill shuriken into the ground just by his head. Lee’s foot came down on the other side, grazing the edge of the plant that shrouded him like a high collar.
The man made a surprised noise and disappeared once again below the earth. Neji shot out another kunai. The man came up with a curse. “Stop that!”
Neji knew that was what Shino had been waiting for. At once, bugs swarmed from the grass and the trees; like a swarm, they buzzed around their enemy and covered him. Neji’s brows shot up when the man screamed in terror, then in agony.
“As I thought,” Shino said, so quietly Neji almost couldn’t hear him. “I knew it. How?” He tilted his head. Neji could barely see his eyes, but from the corner of those glasses, he caught the narrow, focused gaze Shino had speared into the Akatsuki member. “Bugs recognize food when they see it.”
…Food?
…This guy was actually a plant?!
Neji choreographed his throw this time, just in case Shino needed to move his bugs. The kunai landed, a solid shot straight into the Akatsuki member’s chest. The bugs moved just before the throw hit and swarmed over the wound an instant later. The plant man screamed as if he was dying. A moment later, following the likely ‘disappearance’ of yet another thrown kunai, both Tenten and Gai-sensei lashed out, a windmill shuriken cutting off the man’s arm and a karate chop severing the other. Lee caught the man in the center of his closing jaws, just barely missing getting caught in their grip. The Akatsuki member slid back into the earth, still screaming. Neji could see the small dots of Shino’s kikaichu as they continued to feast as the man ran.
The arms abandoned on the ground twisted unnaturally, the wrists curling back into the arms, the fingers cracking in multiple directions – only for the ends of the arms to plant themselves into the ground. The fingers erupted into vines, thickening between one breath and the next, each shooting toward Neji and Shino and their genjutsu-blinded team.
Neji jumped in front of Tenten and Lee, letting Gai-sensei take care of himself as Shino’s bugs wrapped around himself to form a sort of living shield. Neji spun in place, pushing the vines away before his teammates got caught. Even as he did, he caught sight of countless more rising from the ground around them, forming a dome above their heads.
“This looks problematic,” Shino said from within the buzz of his kikaichu.
Neji had to agree.
Shikamaru dodged.
So far, that was all he’d done. Despite how well he felt he’d understood some things about the opponent that stood across from him – medium-range fighter, like himself, a user of taijutsu and ninjutsu both – the genjutsu around him left his visage hazy and his movements ephemeral. Half the time, he felt his instincts telling him to move despite his eyes telling him nothing stood before him. No matter how many times he attempted to erase the image before him, he could not. Which meant he’d been pulled into something the moment he’d seen the candle.
After his team split in two, he and Kiba searched the area. It had only taken a few minutes to be lured toward the flickering of shadows in the distance. Shikamaru had set several precautions in place before ever getting close enough for any genjutsu to pull them both in from it, but they’d fallen prey to it, anyway. He didn’t know how long he stood around in what felt like only a few seconds. By the time he’d snapped to and pulled himself together, this Akatsuki member had arrived, and Kiba had been gone.
He dodged air, only to feel it whistle beside his ear. The Akatsuki member before him was of average height, the collar high and a strange mask over his face preventing Shikamaru from getting a better look at his face. The attacks were all taijutsu based; even the ninjutsu tended to revolve around a frontal assault that utilized swinging taijutsu movements and wind jutsu in several thrusts. That, of course, was offset by the invisible attacks that synchronized perfectly with the man’s efforts.
Shikamaru dodged another invisible strike, only to see the Akatsuki member jump into a twisting spin. Something in Shikamaru told him to spin on his left leg and duck. He followed his instincts, almost surprised when the movement worked; the enemy launched themselves just barely over his shoulder, one hand still reaching out as if to claw Shikamaru’s chest or neck. Shikamaru found himself doing something he almost never did, and let himself fight with instinct over skill, his mind already busy analyzing what just happened.
Despite the fact that he’d never met this person before, despite the fact that he knew nothing about them or their battle prowess, he had dodged the attack with the expert ease of long practice.
The enemy came in close, moving quickly. Despite Shikamaru being ready and using his kagemane, the opponent dodged every one like they could see into his head, as well. He was forced to cede ground.
The illusion clearly did something that hadn’t been expected, or was perhaps this instinctive knowledge was a cost of the genjutsu? He had no knowledge of what he was looking at, but his subconsciousness remembered perfectly. And he had to have faced this opponent before, though he couldn’t remember where at the moment. Otherwise, this person wouldn’t be able to dodge even the kage nui, which he’d never used against anyone in a real battle as far as he could recall. Had he fought this man sometime before he realized Kiba was missing? Was he fighting this battle on loop? Why? So the enemy could win? Or so he could waste enough time to be useless to Naruto and Gaara?
Another strike, both physical and invisible at the same time, and he had to use his kage nui again just to shield himself, tendrils twisted tight around one another to form a quick shield. The battering force was so great he stumbled and had to attack blindly just to get the space to recover. Even then, he didn’t manage to catch the person in his kagemane, even when he was certain he’d caught the person off-guard. Instead it felt like he captured the very air, and the person dodged away once more. Shikamaru was forced to pull his shadow back and wait again.
His opponent was impatient, for all that Shikamaru thought this might be a stalling tactic. Yet for all their impatience, they never spoke. He knew impatient people – Rock Lee and Uzumaki Naruto, to name only two of the many – and none were capable of silence. If Kiba were still around and fighting his own battle, Shikamaru would be able to hear him from a mile away. This enemy made no sense. Unless… could this entire fight be something he was imagining? Was he still caught in the grip of a genjutsu?
In the end, it wasn’t his reasoning that gave him the answer. It was the sudden invisible attack coming at him. He dodged it – dodged by spinning his left foot and ducking down. The breeze flew past him, so close he could nudge it with his shoulder if he could see it. Yet somehow the breeze was different, heavier than when the man had attacked him. The same movement, the same attack. But from an invisible – a different – opponent.
He stopped. “Kiba?”
The man across from him tensed when he held up his hand as if to tell him to halt, but he gave no indication of even hearing Shikamaru’s words. Shikamaru put his hands together and shouted, “kai!” in an effort to release himself from the genjutsu now that he recognized how it was messing with him. He felt the press of the genjutsu around him, suffocating his chakra. Sweat immediately broke out on his skin. The person opposite him warbled as if they were a mirage. For a second, he saw sharp red lines on his opponent’s face. More shockingly, he suddenly saw a giant white form beside the man. Then it snapped back into the picture of an Akatsuki member with a white mask.
He sucked in a breath. “Kiba–”
Kiba struck again while Shikamaru was preoccupied. It was harder this time to dodge, his mind getting in the way of his body. “Kage nui!” he shouted, quickly yanking up his shadow from the grass beneath them and throwing a tendril between himself and where he’d last seen Akamaru. He was unsurprised by the invisible force that slammed into it. Instead of fighting back, he put his hands back together and pushed against the genjutsu once more. The instant he saw Kiba’s body flicker back into proper shape, he shouted to him. “Kiba!”
For a second, Kiba looked confused. Shikamaru gritted his teeth to hold the genjutsu from snapping back into place, his gaze already swinging out to search for the candle they’d been led to earlier – the instigator of all this. Of course it was gone. The genjutsu user with it, most likely. Their work here, after all, was done. Stalling tactic indeed. “Kiba, stop fighting! It’s a trick!”
Kiba looked around. “Shikamaru?! Where are you?!” Kiba rounded on him, his face contorting into a rage so great his fangs pressed at his bottom lip. “What did you do?!”
The next attack was Kiba’s signature move – one he now knew he’d already dodged twice, now that he understood what was happening – and Shikamaru was once more forced to give up his efforts to dodge. He reached his kage nui out once more, predicting where at least one of them would have to land. He knew he’d gotten it right when the opponent before him jerked forward, only to stumble as one leg refused to move.
Shikamaru had faced Kiba in a couple of spars, more because he’d been ordered to by his father to ensure he was strong enough to stand by the Hokage’s side. It had been a huge pain, but it had taught him the importance of learning to fight multiple opponents. A single knight on the chessboard needed more than luck to survive against an enemy fleet.
So he was well aware that he could knock both of them unconscious. Afterward, he would be able to move both with his kage nui. And then what? They would be useless to the girls if they were still all right – debatable – and Kiba would be left unconscious and defenseless while they tried to continue on either to Naruto’s team or to Suna, where they would just be adding to Suna’s burden. He gritted his teeth. He would not have a team fall again, and he wouldn’t have his team fail, either.
If there was nothing he could do, the least would be to inform everyone of what was happening and notify Suna of the enemies they would be up against.
Of course, Kiba would not stand still for him to do so, and Shikamaru had to let him go or risk Kiba tearing muscles of breaking bone to attempt to gain his freedom. From there, Shikamaru wasted even more time and received a hard bruise to one leg when he didn’t dodge Akamaru’s lunge well enough before he managed to send his message along. Good.
Time to deal with his teammate.
Sakura leaned back, finally able to wipe the sweat from her forehead with the back of one gloved hand. She looked first down at her patient. The man who’d once attacked Konoha, the one she’d come to know over the past couple of years, looked very different without his battle paint. Younger. Certainly more vulnerable, now. But most importantly, alive.
She looked over to the man with a cloth covering his face. “He’ll make it,” she said. The man wasn’t the only one in the room, and all of them slumped with relief. The two who had been helping her, keeping her and the area she worked on clean, got busy cleaning things up and moving the bowl filled with poison away. It was as she watched them that she caught sight of Sai. He leaned against the far wall, his gaze empty as he took her in. The instant he saw her looking, he gave her a friendly, empty smile.
She turned away, pretending it didn’t make her shiver.
“Surprised that old hag took on a student,” someone said beside her. Sakura straightened up and turned. The woman speaking was clearly an elder, if not by her age than by the way other kept a respectable distance from her. The woman frowned down at Sakura despite being shorter than her waist. Sakura felt like she was being measured and found wanting.
She took her time cleaning her hands and pulling down her hair, stepping away from the patient in a silent bid for others to follow. Thankfully, those in the room did. Only then did she speak to the woman. “In fact, I’m only one of Tsunade-sama’s students. We’ve been training under her for years, and we’ve even begun training a few in Suna, as well. Is this venerated elder unaware?”
Sakura didn’t bother pretending she wasn’t calling the woman out, and by the narrowing of her eyes, the elder could tell. “This one knows,” the woman said.
“Ah,” Sakura said, nodding and acting as if to move on. Perhaps it was because she had just finished saving a patient after over five hours of intensive medical chakra use. Perhaps it was because she could not help but wonder how much of that time had been on Naruto’s shoulders, with her separated from him when he needed his friends the most. Whatever it was, something took her barrier of civility and stripped it bare. “I was going to suggest this elder go out and see more of the world if something like this surprises her. It’s good that she was already aware.”
“The cheek,” the woman snapped. “As if I haven’t seen more than you could even dream!”
Sakura stopped. The hallway was filled with those exiting the room, though many seemed all too eager to hurry away. She watched them for a moment, thinking. Sai still waited in the room. Likely observing. “I’m sorry,” Sakura said finally. She bowed slightly to the elder woman. “I’m worried about my friends, and of course your Kazekage. I shouldn’t have vented my frustrations on you.”
But she knew. She knew this woman was probably a member of the council. And she knew enough of everything that had happened in the past couple of years to know Naruto and Gaara had needed to meet in secret. She also knew the bond between the two had needed to be kept secret. She didn’t need to think hard to know those on the council here likely disapproved of their bond. Even though it was what was giving them a chance to save their kage!
The woman sneered. “Keep yourself under control. Kids these days and their emotions…” She made to move away, clearly done insulting the next generation. Sakura walked away, as well, ignoring the near silent footsteps behind her. Now that she was done saving Kankurou, she just needed to oversee the efforts of those she and Hinata had helped train in Suna before she could go back after Naruto and the others. She was certain they’d gotten into some fight by now. She would be needed.
The elderly woman continued grumbling. Sakura knew she shouldn’t. She knew she should pick her battles. She knew Naruto needed her, and that both Naruto and Gaara needed whatever easy truce they’d managed to find with the council to continue. She knew.
She knew, but she couldn’t help herself. “Kyouka no Jutsu,” she whispered, “Nigata: Choukaku!” She finished the enhancement technique just in time to hear the old woman grumble, “been training her students’ sense of etiquette, as well, hmph. As if I hadn’t seen enough the instant I saw a jinchuuriki become kage.”
Again, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the woman might have been talking about Gaara having a monster within him.
Sakura scowled.
In the past two years, though she had come only to make it seem as if they were doing something important, and even though she rarely ever met or spoke with Gaara, anyone could see how hard he tried, how much he cared. For all that he’d been terrifying when they’d first known one another during the chuunin exams, that was how much he’d grown in the time since.
She also knew that the elders of a village were not to be trifled with. Powerful enough to live to old age, important enough for their word to carry clout, old enough to no longer care about playing nice or fair. Considering that the halls they walked were those of the kage’s main offices, there was no way anything she said or did would go unnoticed by others, even if everyone was scurrying away from the older woman like her anger was toxic.
In other words, she knew better to open her mouth.
“I feel sorry for you, elder.”
The old woman stilled. Slowly, she turned, hands clasped behind her back. Her eyes narrowed on Sakura. “What did you say?” Her voice was quiet.
Sakura looked her dead in the eye. She wasn’t a member of Suna and had no say in what they did or what they believed. But she was Gaara’s teammate. His friend. And she’d sworn to herself to start being better at proving that. “You have remarkable people all around you,” she said, making sure her voice was steady, her body ready for a fight. “The man I just saved. The woman going to rescue her kage. And your kage himself, who has shown remarkable leadership even without, it appears, the support of those who should stand beside him. But you can’t see it. You’re too busy looking for what you expect.”
She expected the woman to attack her, or to call for others to take her away, or to demand she leave. Instead the elder stood silent before her as if measuring her again. Sakura didn’t know what decision she’d come to by the time she chose to speak. “You have a lot of spunk, kid.” She snorted. “Not unlike that master of yours.”
Sakura took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“But that doesn’t mean you can just say and do as you like!” The woman stomped one foot. It was enough to crack the wooden floor. “You’re too young to know what you’re talking about. You should ask advice from your elders!”
“I would be happy to take advice,” Sakura said, bowing a little. “But not if it means turning my back on my friends.”
The woman went silent again. She couldn’t have missed the silent message – that, through separate countries and separate expectations, Sakura considered Sabaku no Gaara her friend. She barely knew him, but what she saw, she liked. And more importantly, perhaps most importantly, he was Naruto’s soulmate.
“In fact,” Sakura said, keeping her voice calm and slow, “they’re in danger now. Not just the Kazekage, but all those who raced out to try to help him. I need to hurry to get to them.” She hesitated, then put her pride on the floor and continued. “If an elder were to help them, I’m sure their chances would increase exponentially.”
The elder snorted again. “I have better things to do.”
“What could possibly be more important?” Sakura didn’t wait for an answer to her question. If this person wasn’t going to help, then all the more reason for her to hurry to the others’ sides. She gave a final bow and walked away. She made it all the way to the building’s door before she heard the steps of the old woman hurrying toward her.
