Naruto: Dreaming of Sunshine

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

.

.

I woke in pain. Throbbing, aching, blinding pain. I was still lying where I'd fallen, facedown spread eagled on the dirt.

Naruto! Sasuke!

Their chakra was high above me, fluctuating in the treetops but alone. They were alive, then, but in what state?

I staggered to my feet, the entire forest blurring before my eyes. My face was on fire, my breath coming in painful whistles. Tenderly, I touched my nose, sending waves of pain radiating out. Broken, badly.

I needed to fix it. I needed to be able to breathe. Anything that impeded that…

I aligned my chakra grimly, used my good hand to grasp it and snapped it back into place.

And nearly ended up back in the dirt.

"… fuck," I hissed, as I worked on it with my chakra. I couldn't heal the cartilage, but I could fix the torn tissue that held it in place. "Fuckity fuck."

I took stock of my injuries. My thought process was broken, trailing off oddly and leaving me feeling like I was grasping at straws. Concussion, then. Not the best state of mind to be making decisions in. My left forearm ached, and I knew that one of my bones was fractured or broken. The pain of a broken bone was unmistakable to anyone who had felt it before, deep and throbbing. My hand was still usable though, as long as I didn't put weight on it, or twist too harshly. My ribs twinged; sprained, strained, fractured or broken, I didn't know. There was what felt like a gravel rash up the entire right side of my face, caked with a thick mix of dried mud and blood. Either I'd scraped it against the trees falling, or done it on the landing.

But I was alive.

Up, I need to go up, I thought. Even tilting my head back to stare at the tree caused the world to swim, and I barely caught sight of a dark sky beyond the canopy. Night-time?

Of course it was. It had already been late when Orochimaru attacked us. I didn't know how long I'd been out. My internal body clock had given up the ghost, curled away under the concussion. There wasn't enough sky to see the patterns of the stars but it was fairly bright still, implying that the moon was out. I could only hope it hadn't been too long.

I wobbled towards the tree trunk, nausea rising with every step. Thankfully, thankfully, my chakra responded even though it was advised not to use it with a concussion. I didn't have many options here.

I crawled more than walked up to where the boys were, having to break to press myself flat against the trunk and pant through the nausea and pain more than once. It took too long to get up there, and I knew that I damn well couldn't climb it again.

Right, I thought, closing my eyes for a second. Just a second…

No! My head jerked back up, eyes snapping open. Focus. You can't sleep yet.

It took a while for my brain to compute what my eyes were telling it. The lingering chakra from battle was apparent to my senses, but muddled by the time it reached my brain.

I felt like a clockwork toy that needed rewinding, slowly fizzling out of energy before juddering to a halt.

It looks like someone took a chainsaw and a flamethrower to the trees…

Smeared scorch marks, broken branches, and something had punched a hole right through the middle of a trunk. There were kunai and shuriken littered everywhere. There were snapped strands of ninja wire dangling in the breeze… This was no small amount of destruction.

I shook off my musing and crawled forwards, carefully placing every hand and knee, distrusting my own innate sense of balance.

"Sasuke?" my voice wobbled as I shook his shoulder. He was remarkably uninjured, only minor scratches and bruises. But he was pale and sweating and gasping for air like a dying man.

And his neck…

I closed my eyes in despair.

The curse mark…

This close, I could feel it. The dank, dark, vile chakra intruding on his system.

"Damn it. Goddamn it," I swore with feeling.

I wished there was something I could do. I wished I wasn't so small and helpless and stupid. If I was smarter we could have avoided this. If I was better, I could help him…

Tears pricked my eyes.

"Okay," I said shakily, talking out loud like they could hear me. "Okay. We can't stay up here. One of us is going to fall… I can't… I can't carry you down." I'd barely made it up. There was no way I'd make it down and then be able to repeat the trip with the other. "I … I have rope? Yes…"

I fumbled with my backpack, careful, careful not to drop it. If I lost it now, I'd never be able to get it back. Inside was my sealing scroll, and I unfurled it, looking for the mark I needed. In the dark it was hard, and the kanji all blurred in front of my concussed, watery eyes. Finally, I located the seal and with a press of chakra, had a long coil of rope at hand. I rolled the scroll and secured it back in my bag, swinging it back up on my back trying not to jar either my arm or ribs.

Tying a loop of rope around the tree branch was a slow, agonising process. I had to get the end of the rope around the tree branch larger than the reach of my arms. In the end, I tied it to the end of a kunai, and used the weight of it to swing around. I nearly sliced my hand off when I fumbled the catch.

Then, I didn't trust the kunai wedged into the wood to hold the weight of a person, so I had to untie the knot and go through the complicated process of retying it mostly one handed, with limited coordination, but securely enough that it wouldn't come undone.

"Right." I exhaled. "Now to tie the other end to Sasuke."

I grimaced and wiggled forwards, clumsily working the rope around him in a crude harness. I tied it off, and tested the knot, making as sure as I could that it wouldn't come undone.

"Okay. Here goes nothing," I said, looping the rope around a sideways branch and using my chakra help gain purchase on both the tree and rope. Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to lower him down to the ground. He flopped in the harness, hanging awkwardly limp in a way that made it clear he wasn't well.

Even through my gloves, I could feel the heat of friction as I let the rope out. My left arm throbbed and ached, even as I tried to take most of the weight with my other arm. Then suddenly, the tension of the rope relaxed. I peered over the side of the branch, sagging with relief to see Sasuke lying on the ground, not caught on something on the way. I wasn't sure how I'd fix something like that.

"Now to do it all over again," I said, sighing. Then I paused, and eyed Naruto in trepidation. He was limp, lying on a branch exactly where Orochimaru had left him, yes, but it was a branch on a whole 'nother tree entirely.

In normal conditions, the gap would have meant nothing to me. I could have covered it just as easily as crossing open ground.

Now, I looked at the distance and didn't know if I'd make it.

Can't stay here, I repeated, and jumped.

The wood smacked into my feet harshly, sooner than I expected. I stumbled, and would have gone straight on over without the judicious use of chakra to keep me steady.

I breathed out, shakily, feeling my ribs complain at the sudden landing.

Naruto, like Sasuke, didn't look all that injured on the outside. But his chakra was strangely disrupted, almost as if something had shut it down and rebooted it. I couldn't wake him, not verbally, not physically, not even with a chakra spike.

"Damn," I muttered, having half had the hope that Naruto would wake and help.

I was on my own. I felt the yawning chasm of fear and squashed it. I needed to get us away from here and somewhere safe. Everything else could wait.

I got out more rope, glad that my sealing scroll contained almost ridiculous amounts of everything. I was almost numb with cold and exhaustion and pain by the time Naruto hit the ground, his landing less than gentle. I grabbed the rope, and slid down it, barely able to control my own descent. My ribs screamed, by arm ached, my face throbbed.

I didn't bother to untie the rope, just slashed through it with my kunai, leaving the harness still tied to Naruto.

"Sorry, Naruto," I said, attaching my shadow to him, forcing him to mimic my movements like a sleepwalker. "There's no way I can carry Sasuke like this."

Walking was bad enough. Crouching so I could get Naruto to pick Sasuke up… no, I couldn't have carried him.

I wanted to get distance from the scene of the fight, but I knew we couldn't go far. I was running low on chakra and couldn't hold my Shadow Possession for long, even if Naruto wasn't fighting it.

I cast my mind back through the hazy, hastily catalogued glances at the forest that I'd taken before and during the fight.

Back this way, I decided, remembering a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. A small clearing. A large tree whose roots poked out of the ground to reveal a small cavern beneath. At the time I'd noticed it more for the clearing - larger distance between safe footholds in the canopy - but for now it would have to do. It was too close for my liking, anyone attracted to the fight would find us, but it was out of the immediate area of destruction.

It would have to do.

I shoved the boys in the cavern and set to work guarding it. It was an adequate hiding place with only one side open which made it easier to set traps. I dropped a False Surroundings genjutsu over the camp. It wasn't a particularly high level genjutsu, nor difficult to break - in fact it was the same one they'd used at the First Exam on the second floor - but it was very adaptable. I used it to cover our presence, leaving only an empty clearing behind.

Then I set up a few basic tripwires, kunai launchers and explosive note traps. There had to be a balance between setting up traps and taking care of my team mates.

I shoved an antibiotic pill and a generalised antivenom into them both and took some for myself. With the generally unclean nature of the forest, and the giant snakes that had been flying around everywhere we probably needed them. Even if they didn't help they were designed to be used in situations where you could only guess at afflictions and wouldn't make things worse.

And if they helped Sasuke then that was only a bonus.

Then I set to tending to myself. There wasn't much I could do for my ribs, but I covered the ends of two senbon and wrapped them to my forearm as a basic split. I folded some bandages into a sling for when I wasn't using it. Then, gingerly, with much cringing and flinching, I got to work cleaning up my face. It took me two and a half flasks of water and several cloths to even remotely remove most of the dirt, and even then I was sure that it wasn't as clean as it could be. Given that my last life was pretty paranoid about infections and the hazards that came from dirty cuts I didn't feel right leaving it, even though it wasn't impeding my combat performance.

I smeared antiseptic cream liberally over my face and every scratch I could see on both myself and the boys. Sasuke was running a fever, and his breathing was harsh. His heartbeat was erratic, but this wasn't an injury I could heal. I dampened a cloth for him, to try and reduce the fever, but eventually left to return to fortifying our hideout.

I yawned, feeling achingly tired and half asleep already. Sleep was one of the easiest and most important ways to recoup chakra. So naturally, the opposite could also be true - chakra could be used to substitute for sleep. Not for long, and it wasn't healthy, but most ninja used it when on missions. Like now, when you were deep in enemy territory, sleep could equal death.

I coaxed my chakra intro running sluggishly through my system. There wasn't much of it left, not if I had to keep holding onto my genjutsu. But dropping it wasn't really an option. I ate, even though I felt nauseous, because I knew I'd need the energy especially if I wasn't going to be sleeping, and went back to rigging the clearing into a field of death.

If we were going to be attacked, then we needed a hell of a defence.

By the time I was done, it was maybe three, maybe four o'clock in the morning. I didn't have Naruto's instinctive flair for traps, but we'd learnt enough at the Academy, and anything that saved me from potential danger was something I had paid great attention to.

I sat back in the cavern, propping myself up against the side and settled into watch, slowly sipping water and nibbling on ration bars. I watched the clearing through half lidded eyes and focused desperately on not falling asleep.

It would be so easy, too, despite the aches and pains, the nausea, the way the world spun and swum if I moved my head too fast… it would just be so easy to slip off to sleep…

The birdsong started long before I saw any change in the light levels, but it heralded dawn all the same.

The light was just beginning to bathe the clearing when I felt the three incoming chakra signals. I didn't move, breathing softly and quietly, hoping they'd be fooled by the genjutsu and keep going.

They didn't.

"Some lookout," a voice drawled. It was the Sound Team, as I'd half expected. "You're half asleep. At least you wont have to keep watch anymore. What's the point? We've already found you. Now, wake Sasuke up, we want to fight him." I didn't protest the accusation. If they thought I was half asleep, maybe they'd be less on guard.

"Sasuke?" I asked mildly, standing up. "I don't know who you're talking about."

The hunchbacked one snorted. Dosu? Was that his name. "Don't play us for fools, girl. We were told exactly who your team is."

"Told?" my heart started beating faster, even as I kept my voice level. "By who?… Orochimaru?"

"That doesn't matter to you," Zaku said, shaking his head and smirking. "What matters to you is that I'm going to kill you, then I'm going to kill Sasuke."

"So, you intend to kill us?" I asked, voice starting to tremble. This was real. This was real.

The Sound three grinned. "That's right."

I nodded. I had expected this. My memories were fuzzy, but Orochimaru had wanted Sasuke tested and he had sent these three to do it. I hoped that the fight wasn't integral to his survival, because I had no intention of letting him use the power of the cursed seal.

"I can't let you do that," I said. I hoped that the traps I had set were enough. Naruto and Sasuke were out of it. I was on my own.

And I was heavily injured.

"Get out of the way, girl," Kin said, pulling out her senbon with bells. "You're nothing to us."

I didn't wait for her to throw them, hands clumsily forming the Rat seal.

"Shadow Possession Jutsu!"

I whirled, forcing her to turn with me and threw half the senbon into Zaku. He was caught off guard, taking two in the shoulder. Senbon weren't good for causing a lot of damage, though, so I didn't expect them to slow him down much. The second handful, I reversed grip on, and punched towards my own temple.

Zaku and Dosu watched in surprise as Kin stabbed her own senbon through her brain.

I panted, the sudden expenditure of effort making me sway.

"You bitch!" Zaku yelled.

I was vaguely surprised that my Shadow Possession hadn't cut with her death. It was a question I had never asked - could it be used on inanimate or dead objects? I didn't have time to ponder. I drew a kunai from my pouch and Kin mirrored the movement. She was facing towards me, so every action I took had to be in reverse.

Additionally, I couldn't let myself be drawn too far from my position. Some of the traps had trip wires, but most of them had manual release with the handles close to where I was standing.

I slashed at them both. They chose to jump backwards out of range. I released the Shadow Possession on Kin, allowing her to slump to the ground. She wasn't any use to me anymore.

The kunai in my hand, I threw towards them. It missed, thunking harmlessly into a tree trunk.

Or not so harmlessly.

It had cut a trip wire that unleashed a barrage of kunai towards them. Then the exploding tags went off.

That wouldn't have been enough to do more than inconvenience them, if they had been paying attention to the ground they had been standing on. Or perhaps it just didn't strike them as odd that that one patch was so muddy. This was the Forest of Death, and it was fairly wet and damp. Only, that single patch of mud wasn't caused by water, but by kerosene. It went up with a 'whump'. The clearing was large enough that I felt reasonably safe setting a fire here. There wasn't that much fuel, and unless it got blown into a tree, it should gutter soon. Of course, one of my opponents had a technique that utilised pressurized air blasts, so perhaps it wasn't the smartest idea.

"Crazy bitch!" Dosu cursed. "Vibrating Sound Drill!" His Melody Arm wailed, and the world spun. The distance should have weakened the attack, but I was already concussed. It didn't take much to affect me.

I crashed to my knees, wretching, using one arm to hold my body up while the other groped about on the ground for my triggers. I didn't care which one I pulled, as long as it kept them occupied for a moment. It seemed to work, because I managed to stagger back to my feet alive.

I ran through several hand seals, finishing and holding the Rat seal. It wasn't part of the technique, but it was the one I used for Shadow Possession, so it was familiar to my enemies.

"Nara Art; The Shadow Devours!"

It was a genjutsu. It had no substance, no shadow. But my opponents had seen me use shadows, knew what I could do with them, so the towering mass of darkness emerging from the forest seeking to envelop them worried them. A lot.

They jumped back from it, dodged the second rain of kunai I released on them. Zaku sent a Decapitating Airwaves attack directly into the shadows. I made them swirl and then reform around the attack, hoping he wouldn't think to turn it onto the fire.

I kept up the projectile attacks, releasing wave after wave of kunai and shuriken forcing them to duck and dive out of the way. The only path left for them to take was a narrow gap between the forest and the fire. They leapt for it.

Only to crash straight into the ninja wire that I had strung up at neck height. In the early morning light, with the fire, with the genjutsu, they couldn't have seen it.

There was a series of muffled thumps, two heavy, two light as their bodies and heads fell separately to the ground.

I let the genjutsu fade and collapsed to my knees.

It seemed… almost too easy.

Nothing like the heart stopping fear of the fight with Orochimaru. Not even the desperation of facing off against Zabuza. Or the quiet terror that Haku had managed to instil.

I laughed breathlessly and bitterly. The difference a day makes. A day ago, we were worried about leaving Rain Genin tied up and helpless because they'd be easy prey in this place. Today, I killed three teenagers because it was the easiest option.

It's easy to be merciful when you're winning.

I had just killed three teenagers, because it was the easiest option.

Not because I had to. Not because I had no other choice.

But because it was easiest.

There were other options I could have taken. I still had plenty of knockout tags. But incapacitating them without killing them was harder, would have taken longer and left a much greater chance for them to hurt my team mates.

I've never felt so old before.

I didn't stay that way long, even though I wanted to… wanted to just curl up and wait for this to be over.

I couldn't, because there was someone in the trees.

"I know you're there," I said. "Come down." I trembled, hoping like hell it wasn't some one else to fight. Most of my traps were used up. My chakra was heavily depleted.

Please not Kabuto…

Green blurred. Lee landed in front of me, face solemn.

Shit.

I wasn't Sakura. There was no reason for Lee to be anything other than my enemy here and now.

He was half a clearing away, in one of the few spots clear of traps. I re-evaluated his threat level upwards. He'd avoid the traps. It might have been luck but I couldn't count on it. He was too fast for them, anyway, too fast for Taijutsu and too fast for my shadow. Genjutsu then. It would be my only option. I put my kunai away.

"Are you here for the scroll?" I asked. At this point… I would trade all our scrolls for safety. Lee I might be able to take if I was at full strength. Might. But Neji and Tenten couldn't be far away and I was far from being at full strength.

"I…" He swallowed, then nodded, looking as though he regretted it. I understood, I truly did. It was underhanded but he couldn't pass it up.

I jerked my head towards the bodies, not breaking eye contact. "Then take it and go," I rasped.

For a second… he looked awkward, like a thirteen year old confronted with three dead bodies, then with a twitch, a shiver, it was gone leaving behind a primed killing machine, who frisked the bodies expertly.

"Heaven," he said, pulling it from the second body. "We already have this one." I watched him passively as he held it loosely. He considered it with a furrowed brown then tossed it so it landed halfway between us, and turned to go. He paused and opened his mouth but said nothing.

I was too tired to think about what he might have said.

He leapt into the trees, vanishing from my sight. There were two other chakra signals in that direction, probably Neji and Tenten.

There were three more incoming at speed from my right, but these three were as familiar to me as my own.

Team 10 burst into the clearing, then stopped in shock.

"Holy hell!" Ino exclaimed. "What happened to your face?"

I grimaced and touched the heavy white paste I'd smeared over the gravel rash. "We got our asses kicked."

Shikamaru was looking around the clearing with an odd expression. "We saw you fighting these guys. Thought you might need a hand. Guess I was wrong."

I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see their disapproval. "I would have… if I hadn't aimed to kill."

"Where…" Ino's voice faltered. "Where's your team? Sasuke?"

"They're… in there," I motioned at the cavern. "They're in bad shape."

My shoulders slumped.

"Ino… take 'Kako in there. See what you can do for Sasuke and Naruto," Shikamaru ordered. My brother, giving orders?

I blinked.

"We'll take care of this," he finished, turning away.

I looked wearily at the bodies, suspecting I knew what he meant. "No, no. I've got to show you where the traps are," I protested weakly, staggering to my feet with a wince. My eyes fell on the scroll lying innocently in the middle of the clearing. "What scroll do you guys need?"

"We aren't taking your scroll!" Ino said, sounding horrified. "Don't even think that! Just because we're in this stupid Exam-"

I shook my head and then swayed. Right. Don't do that. "No. See. The thing is… the thing is, we have an extra Heaven Scroll." I patted my jacket, checking that I actually still had my one before giving the other one away. "You can have it, if you help us."

"So you need an Earth Scroll? Man that sucks," Chouji said. He wasn't eating, which was strange.

"Noooo. We got one of them too," I mumbled. Hopefully Naruto hadn't lost it.

I could feel them exchanging meaningful glances.

"Okay," Shika said. "Here's what we're going to do. You're going to show me where the traps are, then you're going to get some rest. We'll take it from here."

Shikamaru didn't argue, he just worked around your objections to get to his desired outcome.

I nodded, head bobbling back and forwards on a neck that didn't want to support it. The sheer relief at having them here… it made me want to cry.

Things will be okay, now.

Of course, it couldn't be that easy.

I was pointing out the traps to Shika and Chouji, my thoughts slip-sliding out of my grasp. I was missing things, I knew it, but Shikamaru was smart enough to spot the ones I was missing. He was mostly just humouring me, anyway.

Then the black chakra surged inside the cavern.

My head snapped around.

"Sasuke!" Even to myself, I sounded frightened.

I headed back towards the tree hollow, stumbling slightly as the ground seemed to tilt. Concussion, exhaustion and inner ear disruption combining to make me incredibly unstable.

I paused at the tree roots, eyes adjusting to the darker interior of the cavern.

Sasuke was giving off waves of corrupted chakra. His body was wreathed in black, the marking burning a livid red, like molten lava. That rancid chakra was spinning about his body, orbiting it like a double helix. It made me nauseous and terrified at the same time.

Ino was looking at him in worry, not quite able to understand what was going on. "Sasuke, you're awake! Are you hurt? Do you need-"

"Get out of my way," Sasuke growled at her. His voice was distorted but his face was blank. The markings were creeping their way across his skin.

"Maybe you should sit down; you were hurt, weren't you?" Ino chattered, ignoring his gruff demand. There was some unease in her expression, though, because she knew this wasn't right.

His face contorted into anger and his hand raised, curled into a fist, more to shove her out of the way than hit, I think.

"Ne, Sasuke, are you okay?" Ino asked, leaning forward.

I saw him twitch.

I moved.

My ribs audibly cracked under his fist. I couldn't stop the surprised wail of pain that escaped my mouth, or the little gasping sobs that followed it.

Sasuke stiffened, the anger on his face fading into a non comprehending puzzlement.

"Shikako? Who hurt… I hit you?" He stared at his hand, flexing it as though he couldn't believe it had done such a thing.

I sank to my knees, choking and gasping.

Gods, that hurt…

"Sasuke," I choked out. "You… your chakra was poisoned… you need to stop using chakra…"

Ino fluttered to my side, her eyes impossibly wide. I ignored her, focusing on Sasuke. I didn't know what would happen if he kept using that. I had to convince him to stop…

"I feel… I've never felt better…" Sasuke muttered, clenching and unclenching his fist. "I feel so powerful…"

"It's poison," I wheezed again. "…in your chakra… please stop…"

His face was conflicted but the marks started to fade away.