Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Naruto of the Mirage ❯ Chapter 12 ( Chapter 12 )

`Sasuke-kun…Naruto…I've failed you again…I'm sorry.' Sakura was in between a rock and a hard place. Or technically she was between the ground and one of the Oto Nin's foot. Rock Lee lay in a state of semi-consciousness on the ground in front of her unconscious teammates, having been the victim of several sonic attacks, courtesy of Kinuta Dosu, a.k.a. `the mummy'. Team Ten, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio were weary and eyed the captive member of team Seven, their previous attempt at helping their fellow Konoha shinobi having failed on a gamble. Tsuchi Kin, the Oto kunoichi was unconscious following her encounter with Ino's Shintenshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Switch technique) and Abumi Zaku was holding Sakura to the ground. It was at that moment that a large spike of dark chakra erupted from behind Lee.

 

All of the combatant shinobi shifted their gaze to the eruption of black chakra swirling around Uchiha Sasuke. A veritable typhoon of chakra swirled and roared around the boy, making his features seem darker and more sinister. Strange black marks began to spread from the left side of his body towards his right. They were the shape of flames and seemed to multiply quickly as they spread over his skin. The boy opened his hands and looked at his empty palms, before closing them again, as if he was testing them. He took a long, deep breath before his face lit up in an evil smirk.

 

“Sakura…who did this to Lee?” He asked, more or less ignoring the fact that his only conscious teammate was trapped beneath the sandal of another ninja.

 

“Sasuke-kun…” She whispered in shock at her now transformed beloved.

 

“I did it!” Zaku boasted to the Uchiha. “And now I think I'll finish you off as well!”

 

The dark haired sound ninja raised his arms at Sasuke, palms facing the boy before he yelled out his attack.

 

“Zankuuha!” (Air Cutter)

 

A large wave of compressed air erupted from small vents in Zaku's palms and raced towards Sasuke who simply looked at it, as if it weren't worth his time to dodge it. The massive attack impacted and dust and dirt were kicked up, seemingly from an explosion.

 

“Ha! I blew away every last bit of him!” Zaku

 

A sudden flurry of movement from Zaku's right caught him completely off guard and the hard shot to his jaw wasn't even expected.

 

“You're pathetic! There is no way you could have possibly beaten Lee. He is apart of Hyuuga's team after all.” Sasuke retorted venomously.

 

That said he shifted his gaze onto Dosu.

 

“So, that means it must have been you!” He quickly charged the bandaged Sound Nin, only to be fired upon by Zaku once more.

 

“Hey! Were not done yet!” The cocky boy challenged. He once more took aim with the palm of his hands.

 

“Saidai Zankuuha!” (Maximum Air Cutter)

 

An even larger blast of compressed air and chakra streaked from the vents in Zaku's arms towards the demonic looking Sasuke. Again the surrounding ground was decimated and blown away, but unlike the previous time, Zaku found that Sasuke's counter attack didn't wait. Sasuke held both of Zaku's arms behind his back and was pulling on them, using his foot as a brace to level more force onto the appendages. As Zaku felt his shoulders begin to ache he gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain, but quickly he failed to silence his own voice. Zaku cried out in pain and began to plead with the cursed Uchiha to let him go. But Sasuke paid no heed to his captive. Zaku's cries reached a crescendo as he felt both of his shoulders and elbows dislocate under the force of the Uchiha. From that point on it turned into a whimper as he fell to the ground from his knees.

 

“Such a pity too, you were so proud of those arms of yours.” Sasuke sneered at the broken shinobi.

 

Sakura and team ten were in shock. There was Uchiha Sasuke, one of the brightest genin in the village, and he had just broken both arms of a combatant and not batted an eyelash. Shikamaru and Chouji knew that this wasn't a sane Sasuke, but they couldn't do much about it. Ino on the other hand…she was broken, but in a different way. The mask that she had placed over Sasuke had shattered into a million pieces. It was torn apart and replaced by a demonic, evil Sasuke that looked as if he had been drug up from hell itself.

 

While Sasuke was gloating over his achievement, Dosu was retrieving his teammates.

 

“Here, we'll give you our scroll. Just let us go.” While Zaku was definitely the mouth of their team, Dosu was the brains and muscle. He recognized a curse seal when he saw it and knew that he alone couldn't beat it.

 

“But we haven't fought yet.” Sasuke taunted the remaining ninja.

 

“I will fight you in the third round fights, just let us go.” Dosu was pleading now.

 

“Hn. If you're chickening out now, than I suppose that I'll have to fight you later.” Sasuke sneered.

 

Dosu placed his teams Earth Scroll on the ground and quickly leaped into the forest.

 

Sakura was rising to her knees, still afraid of what she had just witnessed. Team Ten was frozen in their places as well. Sasuke was the only one to move a muscle in the next minute. He simply clenched and unclenched his hands again, before breaking out in maniacal laughter once more.

 

“Finally! With this…with this power, I can kill that man and avenge the deaths of my family. Yes, I see what I must become. I must once more take up the path of the avenger, even if it means giving my body to the devil himself!” No one present knew how true that sentence would become in the coming months and years.

 

His power rant was interrupted by another explosion of chakra, this time from Naruto. At first it was small, but very quickly it equaled the chakra of Sasuke, before surpassing that level by leaps and bounds. Naruto slowly rose to his feet, his own sharingan activated, and as the flame marks spread over his body.

 

Sasuke, upon seeing his brother rise, seemingly from the dead, became a mixture of fear and anger. Fear as the chakra level usurped his own, and then anger that a brother of his was once again more powerful than himself. He tried to release more chakra from the seal, but couldn't keep up with Naruto. He felt the adrenaline of his battle fade and the cursed seal began to retract and exhaustion claimed him again.

 

The reaction of Sakura and team ten was pure terror and astonishment, not necessarily in that order. The loud obnoxious boy they once knew seemed to disappear into the fiery swirl of chakra that leapt and danced around the boy. Where as the chakra coming from Sasuke had been black, Naruto was releasing an orangey red chakra that burned the grass that he had been laying in. No one noticed Sasuke pass out, they were rooted to their spots by fear. Naruto copied Sasuke exactly, opening and closing his hands, seemingly testing them, just as his brother before him, but instead of laughing or looking pleased, he seemed frightened. Where Sasuke had begun to laugh, Naruto began to cough. Not once, or twice, he fell into a coughing fit that seemed to go on for ever, the flame marks never once receding, but not spreading. He continued coughing until his gag reflex kicked in and he vomited on the ground. Once he had emptied his stomach, the coughing didn't stop and he dry heaved three times, before he coughed out blood. When that happened, his eyes grew wide and he looked at his vomit caked hands, which now had blood on them. Suddenly the marks of Orochimaru's cursed seal withdrew and Naruto had to fight for consciousness. He wobbled on his knees, forcing his eyes to try and focus. Reaching into his supply pouch, all those in attendance thought he was going for a weapon, so when he removed a scroll from his pack, they were shocked.

 

“S-sakura…take th-this.” He coughed again and channeled what little chakra he had into the scroll, unsealing it and releasing his previously captured heaven scroll. He then promptly passed out.

 

Sakura cautiously approached her fallen teammates. They seemed much more…peaceful than they had since that snake man had bitten them. She collected the two scrolls that now belonged to her, before remembering team ten. She tensed up and drew a kunai. She wouldn't let her teammates down by loosing their scrolls.

 

“Chill out, Forehead girl, we already got ours.” Ino told her, finally released from the grip of fear.

 

“Yeah, besides, we wouldn't take scrolls from fellow rookie genin.” Chouji replied, smiling.

 

“That would be too troublesome.” Shikamaru agreed.

 

She smiled at the friendly team ten, before putting both scrolls in her supply pouch and turned to her fallen teammates. Moving them was going to be hard, especially with the distance they had to travel to the tower.

 

As she was contemplating the logistics of making a medical sled to transport them on, Shikamaru and Ino had picked up Naruto, while Chouji had moved over to Sasuke and tried to lift him by himself. Sakura quickly moved to help out the big boned boy and the two teams made their way towards the middle of the Forrest of Death.

 

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