傷 Kizu

Sakura lay still on her belly as her heart froze in her chest. From her hidden spot under a bush she watched a scene she never in wildest dreams expected to see. Her eyes were wide and jaw hung open in sheer surprise.

A shinobi - from Iwa from the look of his uniform - held a hand sign for a genjutsu and concentrated on the man in front of him. "You were a Konoha ninja once. All Uchiha knew how to enter and leave the city undetected. You will tell me the secret."

Sakura tried to swallow but found her mouth was dry. Before the Iwa shinobi stood Sasuke Uchiha.

He had changed a bit - he now wore the simple kimono and breeches of a commoner, no sign of weapons or armor - but he was undeniably her old teammate. Sasuke was taller than the other shinobi, with solid shoulders showing off a man in his prime. He stared back in the direction of the other ninja, eyes unseeing. One arm was raised and lightning lanced around it, cascading down his arm. He had been about to create a chidori but the genjutsu caught him first and left the chakra sparking in a continuous loop.

Sakura could see his eyes were black. Strange that he would not have his Sharingan activated, but it would explain how he got caught. Still, the lightning arcing over his hand and low groans were testament to his fight against the genjutsu. It took a moment before Sakura realized Sasuke wasn't even carrying a thigh pouch. If it weren't for the chidori a stranger might be excused from assuming he was farmer or some other laborer.

Sakura frowned and made a fist in the dirt. She had been ordered to the border with the Land of Earth to look into possible reports of incursion from Iwa ninja. The border here was porous and disputed so she was only to monitor any activity she found while the talking heads worked on a diplomatic resolution.

Traditionally the border was along a river that snaked through the region but over the last few months disputes had grown over trade routes, specific plots of territory and so on. The river in question ran a few dozen feet behind Sasuke.

Specifically, she had been ordered to investigate rumors of ninja harassing villagers and claiming the area was under the control of Land of Earth. She had known she may witness "activity" that would challenge her commitment to her observation mission, but she could never have imagined that here, after being missing for as long as he had lived in the village, would she find her genin teammate, Sasuke Uchiha.

"Come on, now. Don't be stubborn," growled the Iwa shinobi. "It's not like you have any allegiance left to Konoha, even holding onto Uchiha secrets would be pointless for you. Iwa can give you whatever you want..."

Sakura studied her options. She could paralyze the Iwa ninja and then release Sasuke from the genjutsu. There was even a very slight possibility that she could do it and get away before either one saw her. But the chances were then quite high that Sasuke would just kill the other man. If Iwa wanted a case against Konoha's diplomatic efforts, they would have a very good one. She bit her lip. A genjutsu? Very tricky on anyone clever enough to catch an Uchiha and if it missed by even a hair she would be left exposed.

Sakura grunted. Here she was, 12 years since she had last called him a teammate and eight years since he had been poised to kill her on a bridge in the Land of Iron, and her instinct was still to protect him. The proper thing to do was simply announce herself to the Iwa shinobi and declare Sasuke the sole concern of Konoha. She could just thank him for capturing him and then make off with him.

Of course, the Iwa would never allow something like that and Sakura would be looking at a fight, most likely, in direct violation of her orders. And that was ignoring just how she was supposed to get around the lightning chakra that Sasuke was still exuding.

Sakura sucked in a breath and prepared to stand. She at least owed Naruto the attempt.

Her senses twinged and she was on her feet parrying shuriken with a kunai before she realized it.

Another Iwa leapt into view and she vaulted back into the clearing where the first Iwa shinobi remained with Sasuke. She took the opportunity to flip into a position where she could stand parallel with Sasuke and face both Iwa at the same time.

The ninja who had attacked her stood ready to leap on her again. He was much younger than the man who had the genjutsu on Sasuke. "I thought you said this one was a rogue, Kishi! He had a partner in the bushes getting ready to jump you!"

The older shinobi looked hard at Sakura and scoffed. "You really are young. You don't recognize her do you? Pink hair, the same age the Hokage... You're Sakura Haruno, aren't you?" Dark gray eyes glittered under an Iwa headband. "Have you been hunting Sasuke Uchiha?"

Sakura breathed shallowly. She hated having to talk at the same time that she gathered her chakra for fighting. Worse, she knew the shinobi - Kishi - only wanted to catch her off-guard before attacking. "This is disputed territory. There is no need to spill blood for it. Let me-"

The older man's eyes narrowed but the younger man spoke first. "What? No way! This is Earth territory, and Fire has to learn to stay out of it!"

The Kishi tsked. Sakura had to agree. This was not the time or place to argue geopolitics.

"I will take Sasuke back to Konoha. You will not see either of us-"

"No damned way!" The younger man quite ignored his senior's shout to stand down and issued a fireball at Sakura.

She easily somersaulted out of the way. The young man gave chase as she pulled out a kunai to meet him.

"No, don't!" cried Kishi.

But the young man ran headlong and triggered two of Sakura's exploding tags that she had left in the wake of her vaults away from the fireball. He was thrown sky high and then collapsed in a heap.

"TOSHI!" The man turned to face Sakura fully. He snarled at her. "I heard you were trained by the slug queen. Too bad! No matter what you learned from her, you are going down!"

Kishi shimmered out of view. Sakura had to work to track him as he glimmered in and out of sight in the small field. If she hoped he might step on more of her tags, she was disappointed.

Out of a blind spot came a volley of kunai and shuriken that she frantically parried and dodged. She took a step forward only to find the earth under her feet had turned to rapidly sifting sand and she was sinking with it. She barely managed to block a sword strike as her knees sank out of sight.

In the space of the clang from steel meeting steel Sakura readjusted her view of what was going on. She was not really sinking into quicksand and she was not really fighting Kishi, blade against blade. In fact, it was her turn. She slammed a palm down on the ground, sending chakra to a jutsu she had prepared a few seconds earlier.

Closer to Sasuke, Kishi, the real Kishi, reeled. "How did you...? A genjutsu type, eh?" He stared at the mound of earth that began to rise out of the ground. "But that's the real thing. Damn."

The mound of earth took a humanoid shape, a golem, in this case a golem covered in exploding tags. It charged for Kishi and swiped at him.

Kishi turned to run, only to find Sakura had cut off his escape. He bobbed and weaved as Sakura jabbed at him and he threw himself to the side. "Damn all you Konoha ninja! Die!" He threw kunai with exploding tags toward Sakura and she had to take a moment to dodge them. In the meantime he fled into the trees.

Sakura gave chase and once they were at a slight distance from Sasuke she hammered the earth with her raw chakra. It drove fissures into the ground, tripping Kishi as he tried to get away. The golem easily caught him in heavy arm swipe and threw him toward the center of the field.

Sakura could tell he had broken a couple ribs but wasn't done yet. Without giving him a chance to ready another jutsu she got right in front of him and blasted her fist into his belly. It socked all of the wind out of Kishi as he flew straight back into the golem's arms.

"That was for disrespecting Lady Tsunade! And this is for trying to kill me and take out Konoha!" Sakura called on her chakra to activate the tags on the golem's body. She threw herself to the ground as the golem exploded, taking the Iwa shinobi with it.

She picked herself up and sighed. There was no hiding the fact that a shinobi battle had taken place here. She dusted off her pants and wiped her face, feeling grime everywhere. Despite being able to control most of the battle her pants had gotten singed in at least one of the blasts.

How the hell was she going to explain ignoring her orders to Kakashi? Even if she managed to bring Sasuke back this was going to be headache for the jonin council as they dealt with the often rude and difficult to understand Iwa delegation. Well, she would have to leave it Naruto to get everyone back to friendly terms. He, at least, would understand.

So then, Sasuke.

She looked back to where he had been standing, half afraid that as soon as the genjutsu left him he would have disappeared.

But no, he was still standing there, arm half raised and lightning dancing in his hand. He wasn't groaning anymore, presumably because Kishi was no longer trying to force him to speak against his will. But he still stared off in the distance, blind to the field around him. Sakura pressed her lips together. It would be a complicated genjutsu that didn't die when its user did.

Sakura stood a foot away from Sasuke, not daring to come closer just yet. She studied him, heart in her mouth. The last time they had stood physically close he seemed a little taller than her, although such a thing was difficult to judge when he was trying to kill her (to be fair, that was only after she had made a miserable attempt on his life). Now...he could easily rest his chin on her head if he wanted. He wasn't as broad-chested as Naruto, but the way his rough kimono fell on him, there was definitely a lot of muscle under it.

Sakura shook her head. Of course the prettiest boy in her class would grow up to become a beautiful man.

For a moment she wanted to curse, or maybe spit. A wave of revulsion hit her almost viscerally. When he had first left she spent a long time openly wondering why. Over time that wondering had turned to fury, especially after the war. And now her ire had burned out any curiosity. For just a second it didn't matter why he had left or what he had done to her. All that mattered was anger.

She hissed at him like a furious territorial cat. She let a fantasy play out in her head where she cut his throat where he stood.

And that was that.

Cold washed over her, leaving her shaking. This was Sasuke Uchiha. When she was 16 she had harbored fantasies similar to that one. It had been a fantasy to replace the childish daydream of one day kissing him. But she couldn't follow through then and she probably couldn't do it now. Her feelings were tumultuous to say the least. Maybe she loved him or maybe she hated him, but the feeling was thorough and unrelenting.

Perhaps she could kill him. But she couldn't say the same for kissing him. It would be that even at his most defenseless Sasuke would end up having a lightning field around him.

Sakura put her fantasies away. Hard practicality reminded her that she had engaged two Iwa shinobi, and killed at least one. If she didn't want to get charged with gross misconduct, bringing Sasuke back alive was the only way she might earn any leniency. Hell, if it weren't for Naruto being Hokage it might have turned out that Konoha would have executed Sasuke anyway.

"YOU!"

Sakura whipped around at the hissing behind her. The younger Iwa ninja, Toshi, barely stood up. He had found a long stick that lookd like a fallen branch to lean on. His clothing was all rags, singed and drenched in blood. His skin fared much the same.

Sakura made a face. She wouldn't even bother hiding the disgust she felt.

"You killed him! He was my uncle!" The young man was half crazed, hanging onto his stick and pointing with a kunai. "I will kill you!" He advanced at a stumble.

Sakura scoffed. She came around the young man's side. He was no more than 18, maybe even a tall 16. He would have been a child during the war, not even a genin. Sakura easily took the arm weilding the kunai and twisted it around his back.

He shouted in pain and fell to one knee. "Gahh! Fuck you, Konoha bitch!"

Sakura grinned. It never failed. All those young guys were always the same, so full of piss and vinegar, always cussing at their opponents even after they lost. "Oh shut the hell up, you idiot. You had a stroke of good luck by surviving. Don't throw your life away, especially not when the old man died trying to avenge you."

Toshi struggled and snarled. Sakura got the kunai away from him and kneed him the gut, making him fall with a grunt.

"I'll never...quit...until you're dead!" He gasped.

Sakura gave an annoyed snort. He was serious. Standing over him with a hand on her hip she informed him where that would get him. "Then you'll be dead very soon."

Somehow the young ninja found the energy to hop to a crouched position and send another fireball at her.

Sakura had had enough. She just didn't have enough time for this crap anymore. If this was what Iwa ninja had come to, they were better off out of their misery.

She moved faster than Toshi could track and stood behind him, and arm wrapped around his neck. With one smooth movement she jerked up and to the side. She feel the crack and crumble of his vertebrae as she snapped his neck. He slid to the ground.

Sakura dusted herself off. She stepped over Toshi's corpse as she walked toward Sasuke. So the problem remained. Just how would she get Sasuke to Konoha? She fully expected that he would run the second he was free. She needed him to hold still at least to talk with him. If he refused like he always had... then she would have to use force. But first thing first: she had to end the genjutsu or otherwise get him to stop releasing his chakra or he would die from the drain in the next couple of hours. She would have to reach him somehow without getting electrocuted. She grimaced. This would be easier if Naruto were around.

From her pouch she removed a medical needle. From another pocket she tugged a vial with a liquid narcotic. She would have to move quickly. The narcotic dissolved very quickly in the air, but if it got into the blood stream fast enough it would act as a muscle relaxant. The right amount would take the fight out of Sasuke, but too much would knock him unconscious.

Sakura stepped behind Sasuke, where the threat of wild electricity was less. She gathered her chakra - mindful that she was perhaps at half her strength - and focused it on a point in hand where she could slam it into Sasuke, disrupting and dispelling the genjutsu. She readied the injection so it would take as little time as possible.

Clearing her mind, she took a deep breath and let it out. Then she drove two fingers into the back of Sasuke's head. "Kai!"

What followed took less than two seconds, but in the way of disasters and horrible accidents, time dilated before Sakura and she could observe every detail perfectly as circumstances snapped around her.

At the same time that the genjutsu faded away Sakura realized she had miscalculated by assuming that Sasuke would run.

She observed her arm slam the injection down as he turned to face her.

It entered his left arm at the same time that a chidori stream sliced across her side. His Sharingan eyes were active.

The world twisted around her as she flew several feet. She felt neither cold nor heat but was aware that she a new, terrible wound.

The sky was very blue. The trees, very green. This time wasn't like that time on the bridge, but it echoed with her failure.

The arch of her flight bent back toward the earth. She closed her eyes, expecting an impact.

Somewhere there was a crack and splash of white light. Then blackness and silence.

-傷-

I was trying to write more of TRANSITIONS but there are problems in the story I'm trying to iron out. And something slipped out that I thought might work. Instead it became this. Downside, it'll take me a little while to get back to TRANSITIONS. Upside, most of KIZU (which showed up in my head as the kanji first) is completed.