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Chapter 12- Earth Seal, Blood Seal
Can’t… breathe… With such simple movements of a single hand, one of those draconic beasts had imprisoned him. It squeezed him mercilessly, and upon the back of the other, ‘Fuhennori’ drew close to him. Her eyes laughed at him without pity as she spoke.
“Precious thing; you dared to bring back my container’s memories of her former identity,” she sneered, scraping the tip of her kunai across the fleshy underside of his jaw, drawing a pinpoint of blood. She leaned over and licked it off. “That blood of yours doesn’t scream as much for vengeance as the cursed mark that chains it. Looks like that’s all I have to do to make you behave. How tragic; and I was hoping you would give me more opportunity to kill you.”
She smacked him roughly.
“You’re too complacent, Uchiha.”
Beneath his raven bangs, a smirk tracked across his face. It caused a curious eyebrow to be raised in his direction; why would an avenger smirk at being called complacent? Was it some joke that her mistress hadn’t been informed of? She watched him carefully as his eyes lifted to meet hers.
“I’ll fight you with every ounce of my strength, if that’s what you want… if you’ll remove this seal.”
She blinked at him in surprise, and as though nothing had happened, the veil drifted back over her eyes. ‘Fuhennori’ was in control of her own body once again. Her eyes flickered with a strange emotion, and she ran her finger over the cut she’d given him. The misty sunsets that inhabited those eyes examined his face blankly, and he noted idly that the cut no longer stung.
“My will is not to fight. Were I to fight you seriously, even you, Uchiha, would have your chances of living reduced to slim and none.” He returned her gaze, which had become uncertain.
“Then what will you have of me? Everything has a price.” His eyes did not waver. She smiled sadly, and shook her head.
“There is no price you can pay higher than the one it will cost to remove the seal. I ask nothing else of you, because there is nothing else you can give. The removal itself is the price, for I have only one way to do as you ask,” she murmured, a hand finding its way to his jaw. “But if you truly desire to be free from the cursed mark, then you will be willing to pay that price.”
A nail caught on an old scar, tearing it open, and causing him to wince. But black eyes lifted to her slowly, and his gaze, tainted now fear, held to her fading sunset hues.
“What… price?” A bittersweet smile stained her lips, and she leaned forward, her breath dusting across his ear.
“Your blood.”
“Tsunade-sama, you’re sure I should go?”
“Yes, Gaara. Fu’s taken a liking to you; she might listen to you. I don’t know what she’ll do to Sasuke once she catches him. I’ll need you to step in incase anything happens down there. Sakura and I can handle this!”
Sakura was, currently, a little involved with Kabuto, which was why the redheaded Kage had cause to doubt the woman’s word, but he withdrew the little sand that was still helping him and used it to take himself to the stadium floor. He made his way through the shadows closer to the looming forms of two blood-red dragons.
The putrid stench of blood bathed the oxygen in the air. It was almost unbearable as he neared the two entities. Once close enough to hear their conversation, though, he was petrified.
“What… price?”
“Your blood.”
His own blood had run cold at the statement. The tongue he had wished so badly to move for the first time in his life would no longer move at all. Even his feet seemed glued to the ground, or bolted with something stronger than ever imagined.
“My blood? How so?”
“It’s the first and last sacrifice your body will ever make of this sort.”
He seemed to contemplate it for a minute. The Kazekage found himself mentally yelling at the boy to refuse such a deal. Still he struggled to find the voice that had so suddenly disappeared.
“I’m yours.”
“Stop!”
The two turned to him. As though some light flickered on inside, her eyes brightened, and the young kunoichi slid off the dragon’s back and bounded up to him. Her smile could’ve sent the sun into hiding, it was so dazzling.
“Kazekage-sama! You came!” He could easily observe that she was barely restraining herself from pouncing all over him. He sighed heavily; she was such a strange girl. But her voice caught his attention again; it had lowered. It was sweeter… far sweeter than he’d heard it since they’d first met. “You’re just in time. It looks like Konoha will have one less nin on their missing list soon.”
His eyes couldn’t help but meet hers. The sparkle had dulled to a sweet… loving shimmer, and they smiled at him softly before she turned away towards the, still bound, Uchiha. The dragon that had wrapped itself around him moved to settle him nearer to the ground, and she drew closer to the beast. Callused fingers slid into the blood that made up its hide, the hems of her kimono sleeves staining red with the vile substance. She smiled up at the Sharingan prodigy one last time, and then performed another strange set of seals.
“Blood-style: Heaven’s Blood Seal.”
“All we can hope is that Fuhennori and the Kazekage find some way to dispense of the Uchiha quickly and come help. Otherwise, we’ve got more of a mess on our hands than we can handle.”
Is this the end…?
Sakura… were you still waiting?
Naruto… were you still searching?
A vision of pink hair skittered across his fleeting sight, a last taunt for a man watching himself go blind. But what after seemed like both a moment and an age, the pain was gone. And he wasn’t dead, he was sure; if one is dead, they don’t have a heartbeat, right? But it was all he could hear; a heartbeat… the pulsing of blood through veins… somewhere in the background he could almost hear the shriek of his lungs at the joy of finally being filled with air again as his breath returned, and the only foreign sensation he could place was a burning on his chest, which he figured for his heart attempting to re-learn it’s job that it had been deprived of, however short the time was.
“Open your eyes.”
As if the command itself were what forced his body to do so, his eyes burst open. And the first thing greeting his sight was Kabuto about to thrust a dangerous chakra scalpel through a familiar roseate-haired kunoichi.
“Will you fight with us, or against us?” asked the same voice, and he found his own voice automatically answering.
“With you. For Sakura.”
And the slight hold that had been kept on his body diminished. Immediately, his reflexes took him to the side of his former teammate. The surprise written across both medics’ faces was absolutely priceless at his interference, but nonetheless confusing to the both, and chagrin to one whilst joy to the other. It didn’t matter though; the only consciousness left at the moment was that he had someone to protect.
AN: I know. It's like... WOW. You're NOT dead after all. XDD No, I'm not dead, but the document manager DOES hate me, and I DO have writer's block. But I'm going to finish reposting all the chapters I have done anyway. There's only a few more after this, though, I'm afraid. Eheh. Anywho, YAY for Shippuuden, BOO that Kishimoto killed Itachi and Deidara, and YIKES, someone needs to knock sense into Sasuke! And now I'll go write. So I can try and update this sometime in the future. Because you might want me to.
PS: Rejoice, for I shall be posting the new chapter of my fic "Soul-Mirror" as a special for this coming Monday: June 9th, Uchiha Itachi's birthday! Along with this, I hope to post the first chapter of a new story, "Slipknot", which is going to have such nutty pairing fun that you're going to want to go crazy. Yay! So, bring a bag of popcorn and a pillow, and maybe a lap-warmer, and enjoy the KarinSasukeSakuraItachiOC-ness of it all! (Don't worry; the OC's actually dead. Which is kinda hard to explain.)
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