Let It Begin

3. Arrival

Naruto stared at Sasuke, who was holding Sakura in his arms. He was shocked that Sasuke would stand so calmly next to such an evil man but also relieved to see that they were okay.

"Sasuke, Sakura-chan! Come back! Sasuke, you don't need to go to that snake bastard to get stronger! You can get even stronger in the Leaf. Don't go down to that path Sasuke!" yelled Naruto, "And Sakura-chan, why? Why did you follow him?"

He didn't notice Sakura was unconscious. She had fallen unconscious while she was hugging Sasuke; He looked down at her when he noticed that her grip on him had loosened. As she was about to fall, Sasuke wrapped his arm around her back, letting her head rest on his shoulder while her feet lightly touched the ground.

"You bastard! What did you do to her? You better not have hurt her!"

Sasuke started to laugh maniacally. His laugh carried through the entire clearing area. Naruto was very confused, 'Why the hell is he laughing?'

"It's about time you came out. Orochimaru is waiting for you; you should leave now," said Kimimaro when Sasuke's laugh died down.

With that said, Sasuke looked down again at the unconscious Sakura in his arms, adjusted her position so she was being carried bridal style, and took off.

"Wait! Come ba-" he was cut off by Kimimaro's bone blade cutting his cheek. 'Damn it, I have to finish this guy quick' thought Naruto frustrated.

Naruto used Multi shadow clone Jutsu: causing over a hundred clones of himself to appear around Kimimaro. However, within a blink of an eye, over half of them were killed, covering the clearing area with a cloud of smoke. Kimimaro swiftly dodged all the attacks and began attacking back, killing more of the clones which turned into more puffs of smoke to conceal the clearing.

While the smoke filled the area, Naruto and one of his clones joined and started to form the Rasengan. Once it was ready, he lunged forward to attack Kimimaro but was easily stopped.

Naruto was starting to have trouble fighting Kimimaro, even with all the clones. Kimimaro's Taijutsu skills were more than enough to match Naruto's superior numbers. The Rasengan didn't work either; Kimimaro was too fast and strong. In addition, Naruto found Kimimaro's use of his own bones as weapons gross. Kimimaro swung his bone at Naruto's head but was stopped by Rock Lee and Gaara.

"Naruto! Go get Sasuke and Sakura. We'll take care of this guy" shouted Lee.

"You sure?" asked Naruto worriedly.

"Save Sakura-san! I'm sure she has a reason or maybe she was forced to do this" responded Lee.

"Go save your friend from the darkness like you saved me", Gaara encouraged him.

"Right!" shouted Naruto and took off to pursue Sasuke and Sakura.

XXXXX

Sasuke heard Naruto shouting their names over and over again but ignored it as he jumped from branch to branch. He felt movements against his arm and looked down,

"Sakura..."

Sakura opened her blurry eyes. Even with the leaves of the trees blocking the sun, it was too bright, so she covered her eyes with her hand. When she felt the wind on her face and heard Sasuke's voice, she looked up, and what she saw scared her half to death. Sasuke's left eye had turned to a golden color, and the curse mark had spread across his face. She reached up and stroked his cheek where the curse mark was spread. She immediately stopped after realizing what she was doing and responded to his call, "Y-you called?."