Yes, I have been gone for a while. Life Happens

The Stand of the Cherry Blossom

Sakura had stopped on the edge of the Trail and caught Naruto as he almost fell out of the tree. Naruto had passed out. ‘There goes my plan to simply run down the Trail to Konoha.’ She lifted her teammate up onto her back. She didn’t want to leave him behind. The half mile to the other side might as well have been a hundred now. They would not get across without being seen. Sakura jumped to the ground. She leaned down in the bushes on the edge of the Trail then headed out into the skeletal trees amid dust the breeze kicked up.

She had made it about a third of the way across when the Sand ninja caught up. At least twenty phased in around Sakura using a shun-shin jutsu. She looked for a possible escape but saw none. She reached down and swiftly ate the last food pill knowing she might not survive the next few minutes

‘My turn to protect you, Naruto,’ she thought. After she set him down on the ground leaning on a tree, Sakura leapt to attack.

Sakura’s attack took the squad she pounced on by surprise. Her last pair of kunai were gripped in her closed fists with the points extending out like she was holding trench knives. Her punch to the jaw of one was followed by a slight gurgle as the blade cut across the man’s throat. She spun on her lead foot and a back roundhouse kick to the chest of another Sand ninja. The man fell trying to breathe with 4 broken ribs. The third man of the squad leaped back as dozens of kunai and shuriken descended on the pink haired girl.

The weapons impacted and blood flew out from a dozen points on her body. A slight puff of chakra smoke followed as the body changed from a pink haired Leaf ninja to a sandy haired Sand genin. The jonin of the group all realized immediately what happened. “Kawarmi!” one yelled. A cry of pain sounded off to one side as another genin fell forward with a kunai embedded in the back of his head. Sakura leapt off into the darkness carrying the boy’s weapons pouches as wind jutsu were hurled in her direction.

One of the Sand chunin present knelt next to the still form of Naruto and poked him with a kunai. The blonde boy vanished in smoke as a bundle of branches appeared in his place.

“The body was a fake. She made some kind of clone,” he called out.

Kunai rained down on the group. Captured explosive tags detonated in their midst and wounded another six Sand ninja.

The invaders scattered into the shadows as clouds slid over the moon.

Jiraiya cursed at the overgrown forest he was trying to get through tripped him up once more. His larger summons could not maneuver in the old growth forest so he did without for now. Few people came this way anymore due to the nearby Kyuubi Trail. Distant explosions came much less frequently now but were louder. He knew he was getting closer.

Minutes passed as the Sand ninja reformed into teams. Occasional shouts and pained breathing by the wounded were the only sounds heard.

Sakura clung to the bottom of a skeletal branch with kunai ready. She had moved further out in the Kyuubi Trail. A dim red glow from pool of chakra glowed softly nearby. It was not bright enough to be seen in daylight but even after more than a dozen years the demonic chakra was intact. She could see the remains of a body in the center of the mass. The corpse was one that the Konoha search teams had missed and was serving as a focus for the demonic chakra. She took chunk of dead bark her kunai had dislodged and tossed it to the ground near the glow. From the darkness, a squad of Sand ninja pounced only to find a kunai with an exploding tag once more. One died and another was wounded in the blast. The yokai added to the explosion and made the fireball look red instead of yellow. The redness seemed to flow away from the explosion toward the edge of the trail.

Sakura felt something cut her leg and she lost focus of the chakra she was using. She fell toward the ground. A jonin was waiting as she could do nothing to stop herself. ‘The explosion must have lit up my position’ was her last thought as his fist impacted on her face.

Sakura woke in pain. Her arms were bound behind her back with the wrists pulled up toward her shoulder. A slight tug almost choked her as a rope around her neck tightened. She painfully forced her arms back to the original position and was able to breathe once more. She tried to move a leg only to find them bound securely. ‘Ninja rope,’ she thought. ‘It’s keeping my limbs from getting any chakra flow. No escape jutsu will work on these.’ A blindfold kept her from seeing anything.

“You are not going nowhere, Leaf ninja,” a gruff voice. “Answer my questions and you will die without further pain.”

Sakura just lay there quietly until the man spoke once more. “Sit her up,” he commanded.

Unseen hands pulled her up to her knees and made her balance on them. She fought to get her arms back into a position where she could breathe until someone behind her took hold of them and lifted. Sakura grunted in pain but greedily sucked in air. The man behind her removed the rope from her throat so she would be able to speak to them.

“You and your team have led us on a merry chase this evening. It is a shame actually. It will be for nothing. Konoha will fall tomorrow and there will be nothing left but ashes. So our Kazekage has decreed,” the jonin said smugly.

Sakura rasped out a reply. “And you are telling a lowly genin this why?”

The jonin chuckled. “You are no genin, girl. Do not insult my men by claiming otherwise.”

“Haruno Sakura, genin of Konohakagure, pleased to meet you,” Sakura said in the jauntiest tone she could manage. Even that came out in a dull tone. She knew she was going to die so she might as well die spitting in their eye instead of begging. The backhand fist that hit her face felt like it broke something. Her balance was lost and she flopped to one side. If not for the person holding her arms she would have fallen over. She spat out some blood and waited.

There was more pain waiting as she was put back on her knees.

Naruto slowly stirred and cracked open his eyes. The pain in his stomach was greatly reduced and his chakra seemed to be replenishing. The red haze over his vision had faded as well.

His blue eyes focused on the brush covering his body as he tried to listen. He must have passed out and been hidden. Nearby sounds of searching slowly grew closer as he tried to focus. His hand slid to his wound and found that it was scabbed over and nearly closed; one small plus about being the container of the Kyuubi. He knew that it was his continued running after being wounded that had kept it open. He had felt it trying to heal for hours but each jarring leap had torn it open once more. He was out of food pills and the blood pill he had taken earlier was the only one from his first aid kit. A girl’s scream of pain dimly reached his ears as he started to get himself out from under the camouflage of brush over him.

Sakura’s lungs burned as her screams echoed in the darkness. The jonin had made several cuts into her shoulder with a kunai before the pain made her cry out. Tears streamed down her face as she could no longer keep detached from it.

“Are you ready to start answering my question little girl? How many in your squad and where are they? Did you want your village of our approaching forces?” the jonin asked.

“Haruno Sakura, genin of Kono-”

The blade cut another groove into her shoulder. Sakura screamed.

“So far I have been kind child. Any more resistance and I begin to cut off parts,” he said in a low voice.

Sakura was in too much pain to do anything else. “One squad,” she whispered. “I don’t know where the others are. We got separated hours ago.”

“Where is your partner? The one who’s blood allowed us to follow you.”

“I – I don’t know. I hid him when he collapsed and faked having him with me. Miles ago,” she muttered in a husky tone as her throat was closing from her screams having made her hoarse.

“Did you warn your village?” the jonin pressed.

“Sensei’s job. He just told us to break contact and try to head back to village,” Sakura replied.

The jonin was unsure of what to do. This pair had stumbled into the back of his column and started the chase. Apparently they had broken contact once but bad luck had gotten them in the current situation. His column leader had sent his squads to deal with the pair. Four dead and three too wounded to continue for a lone genin was a bad tradeoff. If this was the quality of a Konoha genin what would the chunin and jonin be like? Their elites were nothing special and too few to play a significant part in the coming battle. He would be late for it now anyhow. Three hours wasted chasing down the enemy. He sighed. If this girl had been a few years older, he was no pedophile after all. Well, that couldn’t be helped.

“We’re done here,” he spoke finally. He gestured to the chunin behind the pink haired girl. The older teen nodded and pulled back Sakura’s head to expose her throat to his blade.

The moon peeked out from behind the clouds and illuminated the area in a pale white light. The girl’s pink hair seemed to glow as the moonlight touched it.

“SAKURA-CHAN!” came the shout from the darkness.

Naruto had managed to get out of the brush without alerting the people searching the area. He made his way out into the barren skeletal trees trying not to stir up the dust as he moved. His side still hurt but he found after the short rest that moving was no longer a problem. He headed off in the direction he could hear the screams coming from. He wanted to run to Sakura but he knew that he was greatly outnumbered and getting caught now would be bad for both of them. His heart pounded and his will slackened with each cry and whimper from his teammate.

He closed in to see the man interrogating Sakura gesture to the man behind her with a throat cutting motion. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds and illuminated the area in a pale white light. The girl’s pink hair seemed to glow as the baleful light touched it.

He could clearly see the blood on Sakura’s face and the light also reflected off the blood staining her shirt. He could no longer hold back his rage. The red haze over his vision returned even as his vision grew sharper in the darkness. He just wanted to destroy these men. Kill them all! They hurt his Sakura-chan and they had to pay!

“SAKURA-CHAN!” he yelled as red power exploded from his body.

The jonin turned to see a young teen with blonde hair. The thing that made him pause was the boy’s eyes. They glowed. They were red and had slit pupils just before a blast of crimson energy surrounded the boy. Tendrils of red lightning reached up from points on the ground hundreds of yards around him and joined in the swirling light. The energy swirled around the boy and seemed to take the shape of a kitsune’s head. The energy wrapped around the boy like a cloak as he raced forward.

The chunin about to kill the girl whimpered and fled. The girl collapsed to the ground in a puff of dust. The last thought of the jonin was ‘He’s like Gaara-sama.’

In Konoha, hundreds of sleeping people awoke with a feeling of dread. The current and former ninja of the Leaf that had faced the Kyuubi shuddered as they were startled from sleep. Guards on the wall facing the Kyuubi Trail reported a blood red light rising in the distance before it faded from view once more. The now wide awake Hokage ordered additional guards to the walls and briefly thought of postponing the Chunin Exam finals the following day. The feeling faded over the next few minutes as the chakra he sensed vanished once more.

‘What happened that you needed to tap into the Kyuubi chakra, Naruto?’ he thought. He called over his guards to order an alert to the reserves and town militia to be on extra alert for the Exams. There would be several dozen regional lords and a good portion to the Fire Daimyo’s court in attendance tomorrow. He would not take any chances on something happening. Canceling the Exams just hours ahead of time would be seen as a weakness he could not afford for Konoha right now.

Sarutobi sighed as he turned to get dressed. The first hints of dawn were appearing in the eastern sky. He had a long day ahead of him.

Naruto’s red eyes scanned the immediate area. Other than the fleeing chunin that had dropped Sakura there was no one else within fifty yards. He took a glance down at the body of the jonin but felt nothing. His hand had somehow changed and he had claws instead of fingernails now. Blood dripped from his fingers but he didn’t care right now. The aura around him made him feel powerful.

A whimper of pain from Sakura brought him out of his rage. Her green eyes stared at him in wonder and a small amount of fear. Naruto took the jonin’s kunai and cut the ropes holding Sakura’s arms. The pink haired girl painfully moved her arms into a comfortable position in front of her.

She began to ask “Naruto, how… ” but he cut her off with a glance.

“Later,” was all he said as he watched the retreating Sand ninja gather about one hundred yards away. Sakura tried to get up but her legs were not able to support her weight yet. Pins and needles from blood and chakra returning to her limbs made her hiss in pain. Motion from the Sand ninja fanning out and closing in once more brought him back to full alert. Naruto glanced down at Sakura. Before she could be ready to fight again, they would be overrun.

Naruto’s night vision was incredible at the moment. A part of him wanted to fight but he realized he was still at the bottom edge of his strength and Sakura could no longer fight or protect herself. He would be forced to protect her from harm. The classes on tactics always said that a single ninja trying to protect a fixed point when outnumbered would fail. It grated on his ego but he scooped up Sakura and fled down the Trail toward Konoha. Three squads of Sand ninja fell into pursuit but they quickly halted under orders and fear of that strange red chakra.

The red chakra surrounding Naruto stung the bare skin of Sakura’s neck and face but she said nothing. She looked ahead as the moonlight gave the skeletal trees a strange and eerie feeling. Flashes of red light glowed in Naruto’s wake as he ran. The girl could see red chakra trailing behind them. Lightning bolts of red chakra rose from the charred ground and struck the mass as it slowly seemed to form a comet-like tail behind him. Putting off her thoughts, she focused on getting her arms and legs working properly once more. Wiggling her fingers and pointing and flexing her toes seemed to help slightly.

The pair had barely gone a mile when they were attacked once more. The clouds slid in front of the moon once more cutting off most of Naruto’s vision but he could still see better than normal in the darkness. He missed a simple tripwire sprung up from ambush by a pair of jonin who had gotten in front of them. Naruto heaved Sakura into the air as he rolled with his fall. She in turn made an awkward landing but was not injured any further.

Naruto was breathing heavily and seemed about to collapse once more. The red aura about him was slowly fading now that he was stopped. ‘Still out of chakra and this red stuff s making me sick,’ he thought. Occasional flashes of chakra seemed to feed it from the surrounding area. It would brighten some then fade again. Sakura backed closer to Naruto as the two jonin closed in on the exhausted pair.

Explosions blinded the genin as tags detonated between the pairs. “That is far enough!” called out a voice.

There was a crashing of dead branches as something huge impacted the ground. The moon slid out from behind a cloud again to light up a house sized toad. “Why are allies attacking allies in the middle of the night?” the voice boomed out from the man standing on the toad’s head. There was a mass of white hair trailing behind him and a large scroll hung over the tail end of it. Naruto stood panting as he tried to figure out what was going to happen next.

The pair of Sand jonin both prepared to attack when the toad’s tongue lashed out and knocked both out. The toad swallowed both men and vanished as the man gave the amphibian some quiet orders. Naruto and Sakura both collapsed once the white haired man turned to face them.

“Darn, I could not even give my entrance dance to these two. That is a shame because it is so impressive,” Jiraiya groused out loud as the moonlight lit his face. He knelt next to the fallen teens and quickly checked their injuries. Then he made a few hand signs and his hand glowed green. He ran it back and forth over Sakura before holding it over her shoulder. The cuts closed up and vanished with only pale skin to show they had even existed. He then took care of the cuts on her mouth and face however the bruising remained intact although faded.

‘I’m not as good as Tsunade but I am handy at the small stuff like cuts,’ Jiraiya thought as he turned to Naruto. ‘He is as exhausted as the girl is. It had to be a serious thing for him to be drawing on the Kyuubi’s chakra. Those Sand jonin were trying to kill these kids. This has to tie in to what I found in the Wind Country.’ His attempts to wake the teens normally were in vain as neither one stirred during his exam. ‘Chakra depletion and food pill overdoses on both of them. They are going to sleep for hours at least. I had better get back on my way to Konoha.

Jiraiya summoned a new toad and lifted the teens onto the back of it before joining them. ‘It will already be four or five hours before we get to Konoha unless I summon Gamabunta but I think that he would be a bit put out to play taxi. I might need him later as well.’

The Parade of Daimyos in their ceremonial ox drawn carriages had finished when a rider on a sweat caked horse arrived at the gates of Konoha. The man’s original horse had been left behind long before. This was the rider’s fourth horse of the night. Other riders had taken alerts to Legion barracks along his line of travel. The Low Sergeant knew something about ninja and force estimates. If the estimated number of ninja truly were coming after Konoha, there was little the Legion could do to stop it at this point. The soldiers could harass the Sand forces but in a stand up fight the ninja with their jutsu would devastate the battlefield and win against a large force of normal soldiers. Konoha would have to survive without direct help. At least the Low Sergeant was glad he got his warning through.

Sarutobi frowned at the message the ANBU had delivered. He hated having to miss the tournament but a shadow clone should fill in nicely. It was not like he would be called upon to fight inside the walls of Konoha. He thought about it further. ‘If the Sand forces were going to attack, why would the Kazekage himself be sitting in the stadium where he could be taken hostage?’ he pondered.

It appeared at first consideration that the man was overconfident to the point of arrogance. But that was nothing like the Kazekage Sarutobi had dealt for over a decade. He had to be an imposter. Sarutobi knew something would happen today. He began issuing orders to the forces under his command.

The Sand general was poised a mile outside the walls of Konoha. Once the signal was given his force would proceed with its assault. Another force of ninja from Sound village would attack on the far side of the Leaf. They were to meet at the stadium having killed everyone in their path. Then they would rescue Gaara if he was awake or kill him if he was helpless.

His only concern was the Leaf ninja three separate columns had encountered. All reported that contacts had been eliminated but the casualties his own forces suffered had been steep. Few dead but many wounded had cut his attack strength by nearly 15 percent. Each wounded ninja needed a second to remove them to a safe location. The escorting ninja would be available later on but not for the first strike.

Kakashi led Sasuke on a northwestern course. There were too many groups of Sand ninja to get through to Konoha directly so Kakashi decided to track his missing teammates. Now that dawn had arrived, the pair had detected the often faint trail of their missing teammates. Every five miles or so, the remains of an ambush were spotted and they needed to reacquire the trail.

“How did they get so far on their own, Kakashi?” Sasuke grumbled. “Both of them were washouts and Naruto had a stab wound.”

“You keep judging them based on you Academy days, Sasuke. They have already proven they have greatly improved since then. Stop deluding yourself. They got stronger because they put in the effort to get stronger. Naruto has a way of bringing out the best in people and it worked with Sakura. She got over her fan girl attitude and realized how much more she could be by working for it. Naruto only needed someone to put things in a simpler form. Basic military training is just that. Simple single steps to achieve a larger whole.”

“Hn, so he is not that bright and needed an idiot’s guide to learn to be a good ninja,” Sasuke sneered as he kept running.

Kakashi stopped to rest for a few minutes. He needed to nip this quickly before Sasuke angered even him. “Sasuke,” he said sternly, “Naruto is neither an idiot nor slow. He was simply never taught properly. Think about how often he was even allowed to participate in class. To my own shame I allowed some of the things that happened to him. He was intentionally taught taijutsu that would have left him dead against a skilled opponent. His ninjutsu teacher tried to teach him a suicide jutsu instead of the replacement jutsu. He has too much chakra and not enough control to even think about most genjutsu. That he was able to overcome those and many more obstacles to get as far as he has gotten is a clue that he had the potential to be so much more than he is now.”

“You keep claiming that people are holding you back but the one person who truly can claim that is Naruto. Even so, he never complains and keeps trying his best. You were and still are given more than ample opportunities to excel but you just keep saying you are being held back. The only thing holding you back is your own selfish attitude. If you had Naruto’s work ethic, you would already be a chunin. Instead you piss and moan about your brother killing your family and how you need more power to kill him.”

“If you truly wish to kill him, you need to learn that the only way to reach his level is to walk the same path to strength that Itachi did. I watched him grow, Sasuke. HE has the same work ethic that Naruto does. Every bit of his strength, he got through sweat and pain and blood. He rarely used his Sharingan to gain skills. Because he knew even at age 8 that he would not understand the best way to use that strength simply by copying it. He knew that simple power was no replacement for earned skill.”

“Sasuke, until you learn the difference between power and skill, then nothing anyone teaches you will ever be enough." Kakashi paused in his rant to look at the sun. "We need to get moving. We rested here long enough.” After that, Kakashi leapt into motion once more. Sasuke grumbled but followed. Kakashi had told him similar the first day together as a team. After the events of the previous night, some of what the man said was much clearer. He still had a lot to think about.

The first fight of the Chunin Exam had been exciting. The battle of Tenten and Zaku had ended dramatically. Tenten plugged the air passages in his arms with kunai from twenty yards away when the Sound genin was recharging his jutsu. He fell quickly after that.

The second fight was between Dosu and Lee. It was both brutal and swift. Dosu used his Melody Arm attack on Lee at close range. No one had seen such a thing before and it knocked out the spandex clad boy. Lee was rushed to the hospital with ruptured eardrums and internal bleeding.

The third fight was between Choji and Kankuro. Choji proved to be no match for the puppetry and poisons of Kankuro. Once he was poisoned, Choji gave up.

The fourth fight was between Neji and Shikamaru. Neji tried to intimidate Shikamaru with a talk on fate and destiny but Shikamaru got bored and simply fell asleep standing up. Hayate called the match after that. The crowd laughed at Neji to his embarrassment.

The shadow clone of Sarutobi kept talking to the Kazekage in a pleasant tone. The clone was puzzled that the man seemed uninterested in the performance of Kankuro and asked about where Uchiha Sasuke was. All the line of discussion did was to prove to Sarutobi that this indeed was not the Kazekage. The clone excused himself to make a short visit to the restroom.

Once in the restroom, the shadow clone summoned an additional one that immediately dispelled itself so everything it had learned so far today would be relayed to Sarutobi. The ANBU guard with him handed the clone a special food pill to restore its energy and cohesion for several more hours. Then the clone returned to the observation box faking a slight limp.

“Ah, the penalties of age, Kazekage-dono. I pulled something playing with the grandson last week,” the clone said.

“You really should retire, Hokage-dono. You are not a young man any longer,” the Kazekage said in a silky soft voice.

“Oh, there are still a few more fights left in this old frame of mine,” Sarutobi chuckled.

The first semifinal fight was between Tenten and Kankuro. Tenten’s weapon skills proved to be too much for Kankuro to defend against with a single puppet. Kankuro tried for the quick win by hurling the puppet in her direction instead of using it for defense. She managed to attack both the puppet and him simultaneously with her Twin Rising Dragons technique. Without the puppet close to him, Kankuro could not protect himself from the barrage of weapons. Hayate stopped the fight after that as medics rushed to stop the bleeding.

The second semifinal match was about to begin when there was a huge roar from the eastern wall of Konoha. A huge cloud billowed up and a three headed snake the size of the Hokage Tower appeared in the gap it had just created.

Konoha’s Invasion had begun.

End Notes:

Yes, I keep the Invasion intact. I am a believer that smaller events within Konoha do not affect the larger world events directly. Orochimaru had spent considerable time and resources in staging the destruction of Konoha and that would not change with Naruto not graduating. This time Konoha is more prepared for it and the outcome is highly in doubt for the attackers. Naruto and Sakura have been rescued but are down and out. Kakashi and Sasuke are out in the wild somewhere.

In this story when Naruto is using the Kyuubi chakra or his own personal reserves are low, his eyes tend to start to glow red; showing the greater proportion of the demon's chakra in his system.

Personal Notes:

I am in the process of writing up a side story for Captured. It revolves around the events of the Chunin Exam and the fates of Team 8, Ino and Gaara during the month between the preliminaries and the finals.

Hopefully, I can take less time to get more chapters out but I will finish my stories to a natural stopping point. I might not be able to get as much time to write in the future and I do not want to leave unfinish stories.

Posted 09/18/09