Chapter Summary: Their decade long feud is only a cornerstone a larger conflict, a war that has been fought for hundreds of years. Since the days when Madara Uchiha and his Hyūga allies first clashed with Hashirama Senju and the Uzumaki clan.

Disclaimer: This story utilizes characters, situations and premises that are copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, Shonen Jump and Viz Media. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelizations, comics or short stories is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan oriented story is written solely for the author's own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All fiction, plot and Original Characters with the exception of those introduced in the books, manga, video games, novelizations and anime, are the sole creation of KuriQuinn and using them without permission is considered rude, in bad-taste and will reflect seriously on your credibility as a writer. A thousand raging samurai will beat you into submission if you plagiarise.

Warning: Alternate Universe – Warring States / Slight OOC of main characters, whose personalities and characters will be different due to different upbringing and circumstances / Abilities inconsistent with the canon series, again, due to different upbringing and circumstances. / Heavily Edited - mature scenes have been cut to comply with ffnet content guidelines. the uncut versions can be found on AO3 and tumblr. / Canon Character Deaths - this is an AU, but it's not a complete deviation, so prepare yourself.

Author's Note: So, once again, a tumblr prompt spiraled out of control. And then, as if that wasn't enough, I kept getting requests to post this on my other platforms. So here it is. Enjoy!

Chapter Beta: Sakura's Unicorn

戦国時代

Uchiha Sasuke, heir to the Uchiha clan, stalks the front line, traversing the ground soaked with the blood of ally and enemy alike.

The sun has long since set, but he has yet to find the individual he's been looking for since this latest skirmish started. Uzumaki Naruto is the one man among the enemy who Sasuke has marked as his rival, ever since they were children forced to fight on opposite sides. Their decade-long feud is only a small part of a larger conflict, a war fought for hundreds of years – since the days when Uchiha Madara and his Hyūga allies first clashed with Hashirama Senju and the Uzumaki clan.

Sasuke expects that the world looks very different now than it did then.

Over time, the daimyō were destroyed, leaving the power to the warring clans. People flee once robust villages and civilians seek protection and shelter from the strong. They toil in the ruined fields, little more than serfs who support the war effort while their masters slice each other to ribbons daily.

Sasuke's attitude vacillates between bitter resentment or indifference most days, with no in-between. There's no room for anything else, as he knows no other life than this. He was born in battle and expects to die here. If the only difference he can make is to take as many of the enemy with him as possible, so be it.

Perhaps that's why he is so often drawn to Uzumaki in battle. The other man offers a change of pace from the constant drudgery of war, a different type of interaction. The irritating idiot will make jokes while they fight or complement Sasuke's form when he almost lands a mortal blow. Or tease him when he misses, as if they're still the same scuff-kneed boys who skipped rocks at the river before the war of their parents caught up with them. It used to fill Sasuke with frustration that the stupid moron couldn't be serious about anything. As the years go by, though, he returns insults born of lazy amusement more than animosity. He doesn't know what he'll do the day he succeeds in killing the other man.

Today, he comes close to learning the answer.

As Sasuke and his rival fight, one of Uzumaki's allies—an older warrior with a scar across the bridge of his nose—falls nearby. At once, Uzumaki rushes to his side, turning a blind eye to Sasuke as if they're just enjoying a practice bout between comrades. Sasuke snarls in annoyance, intending to use the opportunity to run him through—only to be thrown backward by such a monstrous force that his teeth rattle and his ribs crack.

When he recovers himself, he sees a figure in red standing as a forbidding guard over Uzumaki while he helps the invalid to safety. The stranger is faceless behind a somen which has been carved into the shape of a snarling lion. Something like horsehair—dyed pink of all colours—peeks out from beneath a kabuto head covering.

Sasuke pauses a moment to assess the newcomer, taking stock of the shorter, lighter frame clad in the traditional armour of the Senju. His enemy's gear is sleek and efficient, built for speed. He would think he was facing a small and wiry man if not for the naginata grasped expertly in hand.

Not a lion, he realises with a smirk, a lioness.

"We've never met," he tells her, "so allow me to give you a piece of advice: don't get between combatants such as myself and Uzumaki. You cannot hope to equal either of us."

Gloved hands grip her spear more firmly.

"I do not kill women," he continues, "but I will if it means achieving my goal. Get out of my way. Go fight someone on your level."

But the woman instead falls into in-no-kamae, a blatant invitation for him to attack. Sasuke scoffs because, for all her attitude, that's a defensive position; if she's starting off this weak, it'll all be over quickly.

"Tch. Annoying," he says, holstering his katana and bending forward into nukitsuke, right hand on the hilt of his sword, the other gripping the sheath; his left thumb flicks the blade up an inch.

There is a pause, a lull like an inhalation of breath.

Then he moves, drawing the katana out of the sheath in one continuous arc, swinging the blade out from left to right in a move meant to decapitate. To his surprise, she darts forward too, jabbing the naginata first downward and then up to slice the side of him that is unprotected by his armour. If his reflexes weren't excellent, he wouldn't be able to dodge it in time, but as it is, he disengages to face her once more.

His opponent's arm flexes, and he expects that she intends to sweep an overhead strike, but as he moves to counter it, she instead jabs at his throat. Sasuke knocks aside the tip of the blade, but only enough that the point punches through his armour and into his left shoulder.

There is a blaze of pain radiating up his left side, and it's surprising and telling all at once. The strength of the hit explains her speed—she's not as fast as he is, but strong, and it gives her a momentum that propels her forward.

When he steps back to get his bearings, rotating his shoulder to make sure he still has movement, she closes in once more. With a forward lunge, she braces the naginata with her right wrist and elbow, while thrusting one-handed at his middle with her left. He kicks the weapon aside, but can't get the space to cut her; instead, he strikes hard with the butt of his katana, cracking the somen in the forehead, sending her reeling back.

She staggers far enough that he can get into the required attack range, and then he charges. Sasuke brings his blade down overhead in a two-handed chop that should land between her neck and shoulder. But she recovers, swinging the polearm back around to block him. Their blades lock and they strain against each other. His arm trembles with the force this woman can put into her blow, and he finds himself surprised that she hasn't snapped her own weapon yet.

Perhaps, it was crafted with her monstrous strength in mind. Speaking of mind…

Sasuke leans into the hold, his Sharingan blazing to the surface as he tries to catch her in a genjutsu, but the eyes behind her mask are shut tightly. Like most of the enemy, she knows better than to meet an Uchiha's gaze in battle, and he can at least respect that foresight.

Even if it will be her undoing.

By avoiding his eyes, she leaves herself blind to other things, and he hooks one leg around hers and jerks, sweeping her feet out from underneath. She isn't braced properly and goes down on her back, hitting so hard he hears a jarring grunt of breath punch from her lungs. Her fall jolts the naginata clear of his katana, sending it flying to the side.

Sasuke doesn't wait for an invitation, swinging down with all his strength.

To his shock, her hands clap together, stopping the blade before it can touch her. Then she wrenches it to the right, snapping it off several inches above the hilt. Sasuke snarls, overbalancing, and is forced to catch himself. As she tosses the ruined sword away and jumps from her back to her feet, he kicks the naginata farther out of reach.

They circle each other, now both unarmed.

"Do you still think I am not at your level?" she asks him, and there is a smug confidence there that would irritate him under normal circumstances.

Instead, he snorts. "You are a momentary amusement at best." But he'd be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying the unexpected challenge.

Without weapons, they'll have to rely on traditional shinobi skills, and he knows such an altercation should end fast. Like his brother, Sasuke is a prodigy, and he has never lost to anyone but Itachi (he doesn't count the ongoing stalemate with Uzumaki).

Sasuke's fingers fly, forming hand seals, and he summons chakra to his chest.

"Katon—Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

He expels a massive, roaring orb of flame, intending to char the enemy down to her bones. To his surprise, a wall of water springs up around her, strong enough to extinguish the blaze.

She's a water-type, he realises, shielding his eyes from the spray. Which means all his clan techniques are useless to him right now.

"Doton—Dosekiryū!"

The water becomes a wave of dirt and mud, barrelling toward him, intending to bury him alive.

Earth-style as well—hm. It's a fair attempt… But not good enough.

Unfortunately for her, he may be an Uchiha, but he isn't a natural fire-type—and lightning is strong against earth.

Electricity crackles to life in his palms and he shoves it downward and into the ground, channelling his energy into reversing the approaching wave. Clods of soil solidify and crumble, nullifying the efficacy of her attack. In the pause where she processes this, Sasuke transforms his chakra into thin, needle-like projectiles of lightning and hurls them toward her. With his Sharingan, it should be easy to hit her vital points, but then—

Shit! Kawarimi!

She must've taken advantage of his focus on her mud wall to create a substitute.

He whirls around, just in time to see the real enemy coming from above, fist raised. He moves back, expecting to kick out at her as she lands, but when her knuckles hit the ground, there's no chance to find his footing. The surrounding area crumbles beneath their feet, forcing him to scramble for level ground.

He didn't overestimate her monstrous strength before. She really is that strong.

Warier now, Sasuke moves farther away from her, considering the fists she still has clenched.

If she gets one good hit in, I'm dead. Even I can't guard against a broken neck.

He revaluates what he knows about this woman now.

She is skilled in ninjutsu and makes up for the disparity between their chakra natures using advanced analysis to anticipate his moves. He suspects her taijutsu is deadly, even without a finishing move. In that case, it seems this match may require genjutsu. Although, given her awareness of his lineage, it'll be harder than expected—she's shielded her eyes from him the entire match. Unless he can somehow trick her…

An idea comes to him, one Sasuke's seen his brother use before. He's never tried it—never needed to—but he has no choice; he has to try it now.

Sasuke channels his chakra into one finger, making a show of trying to capture the woman's gaze with his own, the tomoe in his Sharingan spinning. While she avoids his line of sight, her eyes reflexively focus on the finger he points at her, no doubt expecting a shuriken or kunai to come from that direction.

Then she goes still, frozen. His ploy has worked.

With a triumphant eagerness, he calls up another palm of lightening and charges at her, preparing to shove his entire hand through her body—but then he hears "Kai!"

Seconds before he collides with her, she ducks—which should not be possible—and grabs him by his cuirass. She lifts him over her head, slamming him onto the ground.

Stars spin above his head, but Sasuke's reflexes stay sharp where his wits don't; he punches his knuckles together, her forearm trapped between them where her hand guard and sleeve armour don't cover. The crunch of broken bone forces her to release him, and without wasting another second, he rolls away.

Not just a water-type. A natural genjutsu-type as well. Even without a Sharingan, she's strong.

He's impressed, despite himself, that someone other than Uzumaki—and a woman, at that—can hold her own against him. He might think she were Senju Tsunade herself if he hadn't met the old woman in person during many a failed peace-talk.

"All right," he allows, "You possess some skill."

She snorts at this, but it sounds like amusement instead of offence. They lunge at each other once more.

Again and again, they meet, fighting with fists, feints, and illusions. Maddeningly, she continues to counter him with ease, parrying his blows and nullifying his techniques, throwing off his illusions a half-second before he can strike. Sasuke suspects anything less than a fully-evolved Sharingan is a simple thing for her to shrug off.

And when Sasuke gets too close, she lashes out, bringing him worryingly close to death with the graze of her knuckles.

In the end, he realises that this woman is not even close to tiring. In fact, she seems to want to get him to use up all of his chakra first. She must have tremendous reserves, and he wonders if she might not be another Uzumaki.

Whether that's the case or not, this fight must end, and it will come down to a choice. Sasuke needs to get close enough to her to strike a fatal blow—not with fists, perhaps, but his chokutō remains hidden. He hasn't reached for the smaller blade yet, and so she won't be expecting it, but he must be fast because there will only be one chance. If he doesn't succeed, he'll be left open, and she'll kill him with a single blow.

His guts tremble in anticipation.

There's no point in putting it off. However this goes, the fight will end.

One last time, he lunges forward, feinting left—which she expects, and begins a downward chop with the heel of her hand. As she moves to meet him, he uses Shunshin to materialise behind her.

Without ceremony, he shoves his blade through the gap beneath her arm where her armour doesn't reach, burying it to the hilt. She jerks in surprise, and there is a choked cry as she falls back against him. Her head whips to one side to face him, and this time he meets her eyes unimpeded through the mask.

In that moment as he meets his opponent's gaze, the world seems to stop.

Clear, green irises shine with surprise and pain. They are open wide, meeting his gleaming red ones without hesitation. Now it is he who can't breathe, as if he were the one who was just run through, not her.

In his colourless world of war and bloodshed, for that second, her eyes are the most striking sight he's ever seen.

Then they dull and slide away from his face.

As if moving in a dream, Sasuke pulls the blade out. It tumbles from his fingers as her body slumps forward. His arms wrap around her, almost in reflex, as gravity draws her downward. They are both on their knees now, her fingers clutching ineffectually at the fabric beneath his armour. A gasping, rattling, wet noise echoes behind the painted snarl of the mask, the familiar sound of someone bleeding into their lungs and stomach.

Before he knows of it, Sasuke has pulled the mask from her face, gazing down upon his opponent for the first and last time.

Pale, soft features greet him, blood spilling from full lips. It isn't dyed horsehair beneath the helmet, he realises, but her own distinctive locks. The colour of cherry blossoms, like the trees which no longer grow on this field of combat.

Even in death, she doesn't cry or make a noise, only squints straight up at him. Her beguiling irises move back and forth, like she's trying to read, or perhaps, memorise his features. It's as if learning the face of the man who killed her is the last important task she has set for herself.

All too soon, her eyes roll back and she goes still.

For the first time in his life, Uchiha Sasuke feels the unexpected pang of regret. He senses he's lost something, but isn't sure what or even why or how. It makes no sense, and yet he is familiar enough with pain and loss to recognise it.

Is it a lingering genjutsu, perhaps? But that sounds absurd even as he thinks it.

In his mind, something strange happens.

Sasuke imagines this woman before him the way she could have been if they lived in a different time or a different place. From childhood to adulthood, smiling and laughing and yelling—dynamic and vivacious. Feelings and emotions he's never experienced hit him then, the chains of a life never lived, from a something he can't even comprehend.

Hyūga Neji finds him like that several minutes—or hours—later. "Uchiha?"

Sasuke doesn't answer right away, still staring down at the woman's face. She has freckles, he notices; delicate and transparent, but clearly there.

"Uchiha, do you hear me? Are you wounded?"

The Hyūga prodigy is the closest thing Sasuke has to a friend, even if they only tolerate one another. Although his question is asked in a controlled manner, there's a minor note of concern there.

"I killed her," Sasuke replies which should explain everything, but Hyūga looks as if that hasn't answered the question at all.

Rather than push him on it, though, he simply says, "You're wanted back at camp."

"The battle is not done."

"All who remain are stragglers. Uzumaki and his people have quit the field already. I hear his adopted father was wounded. If he dies, I imagine there will be retribution."

Sasuke allows the words to wash over him, still gazing down at the woman in his arms. She looks young—maybe younger than him, maybe the same age. Far too young to be dead here on a field of blood and bone.

"Are you coming?" Hyūga says, sounding impatient. Sasuke knows from experience, if he doesn't leave with him, the other man will physically carry him from the field.

Sasuke stands, still cradling the woman's body.

"Why are you bringing her?"

"She fought me and endured. For longer than most men would," Sasuke says, adjusting his hold on her so that her head rests against his shoulder. "That alone deserves a proper burial. This woman should not have her body ransacked by thieves and vultures like a common soldier."

He strides past.

Hyūga takes a moment to digest this, and snorts. "I never believed you were the sentimental type."

"I am not," Sasuke maintains.

And yet, as they head back to the Uchiha camp, he wonders what it says about him that he thinks he feels a soft sigh against his neck. His stomach jumps in something disturbingly like hope.

つづく

Title inspired by the Greek myth of Penthesilea:

"[. . .] Although Penthesilea was a ferocious warrior, her life came to an end, at the hands of Achilles. Achilles had seen her battling others, and was enamored with her ferocity and strength. As he fought, he worked his way towards her, like a moth drawn to a flame. While he was drawn to her with the intention of facing her as an opponent, he fell in love with her upon facing her. However, it was too late. Achilles defeated Penthesilea, catching her as she fell to the ground. [. . .] It is also said that [. . .] Achilles retrieved the body, and gave her a proper burial. [...] In other legends, it is said that Penthesilea bore Achilles a son after her death [. . .]"

- The Dramatic Life and Death of Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (ancient-origins dot net)

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